I really enjoy teenagers. My mom was good with teenagers so I probably benefitted from her example.
Right now my daughter is downstairs having her 15th birthday party with a bunch of her friends. The evening consisted of pizza, ice cream cake, presents, a treasure hunt and making a video for their you tube channel.
Earlier today I was pimping out my oldest daughter's ride with "hello kitty" paraphernalia. (Yeah, you heard me right!) She is all about the korean boy bands.
During the party tonight, my son and husband turned his home office into a man cave for the night and they are watching "The Hulk" projected on a big screen while sitting in lazy boys.
My youngest is only 11 and though technically not a teenager, he is running with his sister's birthday crowd as the cute younger brother. (He is an outstanding extra in all their videos!)
I love watching each of these kids become their own person. At times it's clear they are all brothers and sisters. (Check out their youtube channel at Replogle Studios) But at other times, they seem so different I wonder if I am their mother.
When I was a kid, we spent a great deal of time with babysitters. Life had its challenges and both my parents always seemed to be working. Sadly, it resulted in my brother and I endlessly fighting. My prayer when I became a mother was that my kids would enjoy each other. It seemed like a simple prayer and we have had our challenges but they are good friends. I believe homeschooling really helped make that happen.
The shorter school days and learning together, gave them time to be the creative kids God made them to be. I know there is a lot that goes into making a family, but I am thankful that homeschooling gave us the flexibility and freedom for us to discover them and for them to discover each other.
Now that is Another Homeschool Success Story!
Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
I once got a "B"
I remember it well. All of life depended on getting straight A's in high school so I could go to college, get a job and make my life count. But no mater how I tried, I could not type fast enough in typing class to ever register an A grade. I worked so hard. I stayed after class and practiced whenever I could but I just could never turn the corner in my fluency of the old Selectric typewriter machine. (Yes, this was before computers.)
So I managed to go through all of high school with A's in every subject from choir, to ap chemistry to airplane building, but got one "B" in typing class. It was devastating. How could I go to college now? What University would take me?
Yes, this is all very dramatic, but it is actually how I felt and worse yet, so did my mother. The good news is that God still allowed me go to college. (A very good one I might add.) He allowed me to earn 2 degrees. He figured out a way for me to pay my college debt back within 2 years of graduating. (The key is to marry well!) I even got married, raised a family and have been greatly blessed, all in spite of getting a "B" in high school.
I think you get the point. Our God is bigger than the grades. We can ease up in this area a bit, both on us and our kids. I find homeschoolers have a strange relationship with grades. I loved that grades were not a big part of our homeschooling. It allowed the emphasis to be on the content, not just retaining the content until testing. Education can turn into fact retention very quickly. So it was freeing to just focus on the joy of learning.
But then there is that icky feeling always creeping in the back of your head. "Am I doing enough? Are they really learning anything?" The freedom seems to come at a price. Often when I was around other homeschool families, I found myself constantly comparing my school day to their school day. "Hmm, we don't seem to be doing latin derivatives like that family. Hmmm, I don't start my school day til 9am. They are at the table at 6am." If the goal had been to learn some new cool things to try, then the comparisons may have been useful. Instead I continually found myself just feeling like a failure.
This is the hard part about not having grades. We all want some form of a measuring stick and yet that is supposed to be a positive of homeschooling; less emphasis on grades and more on the joy of learning. So I needed to just let go and trust that my love for learning was enough for my kids. I also needed to rest in the idea that God would pick up the slack. From where I stand now, it is clear He has done just that.
So chill out! Stop comparing your school plan to everyone else's. They are your kids and you are their teacher. It will be unique to you and shouldn't look like anyone else anyway. Feel free to exchange ideas with other families, but hold them loosely and keep what you like and throw away what you don't. I would have died (or killed someone) if we had tried to be at the table every morning by 6am! Good for them. Sleep for me!
You're doing great mom (or dad). Look to Jesus to affirm the work of your hands. Give yourself some room to pursue the things that interest you. Don't miss that one of the things you teach your kids is the joy of learning. So just enjoy learning with them today.
So I managed to go through all of high school with A's in every subject from choir, to ap chemistry to airplane building, but got one "B" in typing class. It was devastating. How could I go to college now? What University would take me?
Yes, this is all very dramatic, but it is actually how I felt and worse yet, so did my mother. The good news is that God still allowed me go to college. (A very good one I might add.) He allowed me to earn 2 degrees. He figured out a way for me to pay my college debt back within 2 years of graduating. (The key is to marry well!) I even got married, raised a family and have been greatly blessed, all in spite of getting a "B" in high school.
I think you get the point. Our God is bigger than the grades. We can ease up in this area a bit, both on us and our kids. I find homeschoolers have a strange relationship with grades. I loved that grades were not a big part of our homeschooling. It allowed the emphasis to be on the content, not just retaining the content until testing. Education can turn into fact retention very quickly. So it was freeing to just focus on the joy of learning.
But then there is that icky feeling always creeping in the back of your head. "Am I doing enough? Are they really learning anything?" The freedom seems to come at a price. Often when I was around other homeschool families, I found myself constantly comparing my school day to their school day. "Hmm, we don't seem to be doing latin derivatives like that family. Hmmm, I don't start my school day til 9am. They are at the table at 6am." If the goal had been to learn some new cool things to try, then the comparisons may have been useful. Instead I continually found myself just feeling like a failure.
This is the hard part about not having grades. We all want some form of a measuring stick and yet that is supposed to be a positive of homeschooling; less emphasis on grades and more on the joy of learning. So I needed to just let go and trust that my love for learning was enough for my kids. I also needed to rest in the idea that God would pick up the slack. From where I stand now, it is clear He has done just that.
So chill out! Stop comparing your school plan to everyone else's. They are your kids and you are their teacher. It will be unique to you and shouldn't look like anyone else anyway. Feel free to exchange ideas with other families, but hold them loosely and keep what you like and throw away what you don't. I would have died (or killed someone) if we had tried to be at the table every morning by 6am! Good for them. Sleep for me!
You're doing great mom (or dad). Look to Jesus to affirm the work of your hands. Give yourself some room to pursue the things that interest you. Don't miss that one of the things you teach your kids is the joy of learning. So just enjoy learning with them today.
I hate grammar!
I love science. I hate grammar! When we first started down the road of homeschooling, I was very fearful that my kids would be poor spellers and writers because it was such a struggle for me. Well that is largely how things have played out. 3 out of 4 of them are poor spellers and each of them struggles with grammar concepts. They have slowly become better writers but I will give the schools more credit for that than myself.
Both my husband and I are hard science people and though he knows his grammar concepts better than I do, I honestly just could not see the point of drilling those things into my kids heads. Our focus, rather, has always been exposing them to good writing.
I specifically chose a curriculum that was very strong in literature so we were always reading a number of books together and individually. We also spent an entire year just going through the Chronicles of Narnia. At my retirement party, each one of my kids said they would miss sitting on a blanket together eating an afternoon snack and listening to me read. I could cry just thinking about how much I enjoyed those times together.
So all I wanted to say was don't miss the experiences of doing things you enjoy with your kids in order to check more things off your to do list. If you are really going to linger in some places along the way, somethings gotta give and that is ok. God will be faithful to clean up our messes or fill in the holes we leave. I have yet to meet a homeschool mom that wasn't a bit (a lot) overly responsible. Be sure to put yourself in the equation. Are you having fun? What can you do differently today that will allow you to smile and laugh with your kids before the day is out? Why not try it.
Both my husband and I are hard science people and though he knows his grammar concepts better than I do, I honestly just could not see the point of drilling those things into my kids heads. Our focus, rather, has always been exposing them to good writing.
I specifically chose a curriculum that was very strong in literature so we were always reading a number of books together and individually. We also spent an entire year just going through the Chronicles of Narnia. At my retirement party, each one of my kids said they would miss sitting on a blanket together eating an afternoon snack and listening to me read. I could cry just thinking about how much I enjoyed those times together.
So all I wanted to say was don't miss the experiences of doing things you enjoy with your kids in order to check more things off your to do list. If you are really going to linger in some places along the way, somethings gotta give and that is ok. God will be faithful to clean up our messes or fill in the holes we leave. I have yet to meet a homeschool mom that wasn't a bit (a lot) overly responsible. Be sure to put yourself in the equation. Are you having fun? What can you do differently today that will allow you to smile and laugh with your kids before the day is out? Why not try it.
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