CoachMarvin's comments

No Success can Compensate for Failure in the Home - Blog Entry

29 Jan 2009 12:25 AM

When my eldest son was three years old, we ran across the concept of homeschooling from the book written by Dr. James Dobson entitled Bringing Up Boys. That book was not about homeschooling per se but it mentioned homeschooling as an option, in much the same way reference to it was made in this post.

Two years later, we started homeschooling our son. My wife resigned from her job, partly because of her desire to get into home-based business, and partly because of her desire to homeschool our son in the mornings. I have a blog post about it at familyforkids.com.

But be forewarned: when we attended the orientation for the homeschool program, the speaker has warned us in no uncertain terms: homeschooling is fulfilling, BUT it is not easy. You better be committed to it, much more than simply having one spouse full time at home.

I'd say, whether homeschooling or otherwise, a parent MUST be committed to the child's education.

Yes, there are many educational models and homeschooling is one of them. What's most important is that parents, most especially Christian parents, MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the education of children. Whether that can be accomplished by homeschooling the kids, or sending them to Christian schools, or public schools, or other alternative types of schools such as Waldorf School...is up to the parent. Circumstances are different, the people involved are different.

In our case, we chose to homeschool our child primarily because at three years old, I already saw the temperament of my son, and he was like me when I was his age. I excelled in school, yes, but something was terribly missing and I became rebellious, to the great disappointment of my parents and teachers.

Now that I'm 40, I understand what was really happening back then: I was a kinesthetic child and classrooms bored me to death. Even today, long meetings bore me to death.

Friends were concerned about the "social" life of my son. I told them that was the least of my son's problems. My son showed that he was a highly extrovert young person. Befriending neighbors and kids of community members or church goers was the least of his problem.

The problem that we deliberately dealt with was how to effectively direct his energy. Classrooms would choke him, and I already knew it. Its why I didn't send him there. Thank God for home school.

That, of course, was our circumstance.

Others may have other circumstances, which require another approach.

I'd rather go for the principle of TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for the education and formation of our kids.

That's the WHAT. I leave the HOW to the parent's discretion.