Home School Thoughts Part 2

I have to say, all of you who have posted regarding this topic - Thanks. I am not exposed to many ideas from my peers living here in Gaylord and at times feel like an old lady because I think about these things or have the ideas that I have. Since there was such interest in this topic. I will complete my thoughts - they may or may not be interesting as they are more a part of me and my personal experiences that have shaped me. So here we go.

• A pattern that I have noticed in the families that I have been exposed to (all except one - a foster family that home schooled an adopted teen) who home school want to "shelter" their kids from things. Where I see that this is absolutely necessary at certain stages of development, I also don't completely get this concept. My perspective is, I just don't want the world to get to my kids before the Lord does, or I do. I want my kids to learn about sex, drugs, inappropriate language and relationships, violence, etc. through my husband and me. I want us to be the ones who get to shape their experiences on these things and help develop their ideas, perspectives and frame of reference. Not anyone else. Once they have the base understanding, knowledge and appropriate world view on these issues, depending on how old they are, they can handle more input from the outside world - and I will be there to help sift (since we can all agree on the fact that the world throws way to many negative messages at us all at once for even us to sift through). I hope I have discussions about the ugly things in life with my kids - age appropriate ones- but open conversations. I hope I get to take my kids on mission trips to places like inner city Chicago and Red Lake Minnesota, knowing what goes on (or went on) there and what the Lord wants us to do about it. And when it comes to how home schooling fits into this, my personal thoughts are that there is no way to find the happy medium between what they get exposed to away from our care as parents and what they are protected from when they are not put into those environments. It doesn't exist in an organized educational institution anyway. I believe that it is us parents. The institution of marriage and family, who need to be making up the difference that is lacking form whatever environment we send our kids into.
• I am a big fan of family life radio. I was listening, a few months back, to a interview done with a couple of mothers who wrote a book together. They were sharing their stories of raising their teens. One mother was telling the story of how she and her husband home schooled their kids until about the 9th grade when her eldest son came to her and said that he wanted to go into public school to be a witness to that particular community. He felt that he was ready and felt that is what the Lord was leading him to do. I was thinking at this point "posh, yeah right". Then she went on to talk about this son playing foot ball on his high school team and how after this big game he and some of his team mates talked about going to the center of the field to kneel and thank the Lord after their game. Well they all agreed and then went out to play their game. They lost, really bad, and all the team mates were leaving the field with their head held low as this woman’s son walked, alone, to the 50 yard line and knelt to pray. Now the mother was watching. Her first reaction was to get the guys get out there with him or to go down there so he wasn't alone but she stopped herself. She said it was at that moment that the Lord reminded her of the prayer she had been praying for him - that he would be a man who stands alone for the Lord. At this point I started to get choked up and by the time she finished by telling us how this man grew up and how he proposed to his wife etc, I was blatantly weeping. It was at this point that I realized that there is a part of me that believes that I am never going to have a family that has moments like these. That these moments are beyond my reach, they are not real and they don't really happen. The idea that God can give them to me, they really do happen, and they could really happen - it broke me. I could have a life like that. Wow. In the famous quote of Kate Kelts "I have a point, I promise". My point is, that how this mother allowed the leading of the Lord to guide her choices of how to raise her children with home schooling and public schooling impressed me. Her focus was to raise her kids as people of integrity, grace and purpose who know the Lord and are obedient to Him. She didn't get hung up on what she worried about and what she thought was best and rigidly stuck to it - she let the Lord work in herself and her children and was obedient to THAT leading and none other. That is what I hope to be when I am a mother.

I had more, but I felt that it was to...pushy I guess. As I read it I didn't feel the grace of the Lord in it and know that it may be viewed as mean (although that isn't how I meant it). I will be more then willing to talk about this topic with any of you as I enjoy learning and exploring with others - I just couldn't write it with grace sorry.

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