Don’t Wish Yourself Away

Christmas weekend we took our grandchildren to see the new Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In this story Lucy is fixated on being as beautiful and popular as her older sister Susan, and in one scene stands in front of a full-length mirror comparing her appearance to Susan’s. As she stares at her image, she sees herself morph into Susan. She then steps into the mirror and finds herself at an outing where she is the center of attention. As she basks in her new-found popularity, however, she discovers that when she became Susan, Lucy had ceased to exist, either in the past or the present. As a result, all of Lucy’s contributions to the family had disappeared along with her, and Narnia had never been discovered. Lucy is then pulled back through the mirror and Aslan appears beside her. When she asks what happened, he replies, “You wished yourself away.”

I believe that this may be the most important lesson in this latest theatrical release in the Narnia series.  It is a lesson that is especially appropriate for this time of year when many of us are preparing our New Year’s resolutions—most of which will be some version of losing weight and/or going to the gym regularly. As a society we long to be someone “better” than who we are. We are constantly exposed to people who are better looking, smarter, better educated, and more successful than we. As a result, we try to remake ourselves into their images. We begin to believe that if we were better looking, smarter, better educated, or more successful that other people would value us and we would lead more fulfilling lives. We end up wanting to be almost anyone other than who we are.

It is, of course, important to always look for ways to improve ourselves, but it is equally important to recognize that we already have value. God loves diversity and he made each of us unique. While it is true that you cannot become someone else, it is equally true that someone else cannot become you.  You have special work to be done in a special way that is unique to you. If you were suddenly to morph into that person whom you admire so much, who would do those things God entrusted to you? The truth is that God’s world would have a little hole in it shaped just like you.

I hope that as you prepare your New Year’s resolutions you will give serious thought to the things that need work in your life and make a genuine effort to improve in those areas. I also hope that you will remember that you are God’s unique creation. He made you exactly the way He wanted you to be, and no one else can take your place. Whatever else you do in the New Year, don’t wish yourself away.

Give What You Have—Not What You Haven’t

                                                                       

This time of year most of us are focused on giving. Gifts, time, charitable contributions; the list is endless. For those of us with more family than money, this is an especially difficult season. We try to get creative and shop smart, but the truth is that little kids do not lie awake at night dreaming that they will find a package of socks and underwear underneath the tree on Christmas morning. They want video games and talking Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear toys.

It is easy for parents to feel sad or embarrassed or inadequate. We fear that come Christmas morning we will disappoint the children in our lives to some degree. We recoil at the critical stare of those collecting for all sorts of charities when we are unable to help them meet their goals. It is difficult to explain to various people at church why we do not have the time to volunteer for free gift wrapping in the mall or a Christmas cookie giveaway as an outreach to share Christ with busy shoppers.

We tell ourselves that we are just plain selfish if we do not somehow come up with the money to buy those really special gifts or make that generous contribution. After all, isn’t that why someone invented credit cards? Furthermore, if we refuse to make time to perform all sorts of acts of kindness during this most wonderful time of the year doesn’t that prove that we are sort of a cross between Scrooge and the Grinch?

In times like these we will do well to remember what Paul says to the Corinthians:  “…it isn’t important how much you have to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you haven’t” (2 Corinthians 8:12, The Living Bible). God never expects anyone to give more than he has, and the Bible addresses this point in numerous places.

We have the example of the widow’s pennies (Mark 12:42). Jesus sat watching the crowds dropping their money into the collection boxes in the Temple. Some who were rich deposited large sums. Then the poor widow came and dropped in two pennies. Jesus told his disciples that she had given more than all of the rich men put together because they had given only a small portion of their great wealth while she had given everything she had.

Likewise, Mark 14:3-10 recounts the story of the woman who came to Jesus and poured the flask of expensive perfume over his head. She washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. The Jewish leaders criticized her for her “waste,” but Jesus told them to leave her alone. “She has done what she could….And I tell you this in solemn truth, that wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and praised (The Living Bible).”

These women gave it all. They gave everything they had, but they did not give what they did not have. Their giving was sacrificial but it was kept within the bounds of what they had to give—no more and no less.  Jesus himself proclaimed that these two women had gotten it exactly right.

As we head into the last few days before Christmas, I hope that you will remember these women of faith and follow their example. Give what you have in terms of gifts, charitable contributions and time. Be generous, but remember it’s alright to buy one special toy for your little guy and also include the package of socks and underwear beneath the tree. Make a list of your special offerings and stick to it. Unless you know that God is leading you to give something that you had not anticipated, don’t feel guilty about saying, “I can’t.” Time is the only thing that is always limited; you can never make more than twenty-four hours in one day, no matter how hard you try. Save some of it to spend with your family, and take some to enjoy the wonder of Christmas yourself. Most of all remember to give what you have, not what you haven’t.  Jesus says that is enough.
                                                                                    

What Time is it When the Calendar Strikes December 1?

     What time is it when the calendar strikes December 1? It’s Party Time! At our house we make the entire month of December a celebration of Christmas, and that takes a lot of the “work” out of all those holiday preparations.

    When I was homeschooling my ten children, they looked forward to the holidays with huge expectations. Of course, all children love Christmas, but like so many homeschoolers, we had more children than money. We could not afford to attend costly Christmas performances or take family trips. Our holiday celebrations had to be cheap and close to home. As a result, we learned to make every aspect of our Christmas preparations into a series of little parties. By making the events leading up to the big day as much a part of the celebration as Christmas Day itself, we were able to satisfy the desires of those little hearts for a magical Christmas season.

    One of the things I did was to check out the television listings for special programming. We did not have cable so were limited to the three networks, but that limited selection provided everything we needed. I noted when A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlotte’s Web, and other special programs would be televised, and I always made it a point to watch those programs with them.

    I designated one Saturday as Fudge Making Day. No one was required to join in, but everyone did. We made a huge amount of chocolate and peanut butter fudge which we stored away for Christmas, but everyone had to taste everything and scrape the pans. By the time we finished, they were all full of fudge.

    For these occasions I allowed everyone to be as involved as they wished, but sometimes I had to really think about what some of their contributions could be. One year when Victoria was only two years old, she really wanted to help. I put a line of miniature marshmallows, a line of chocolate chips, and a line of pecan pieces on the counter.  I then stood her four year old brother on one chair and her on another and told them to eat the various ingredients so that I could make certain that they were good enough to put into the fudge. I told them that they were “quality control” and that if they found any pieces that were not good, they had to let me know right away. Every few minutes I would ask, “Is everything still okay?” They assured me that everything was okay. By the time they had eaten everything that I had put on the counter for them, I had finished making most of the fudge. They felt very important that year because they had made sure that the fudge was “safe to eat.”

    Every year we had a gift wrapping party and a separate tree decorating party—we always put up the tree the closest Saturday to December 10. I turned on Christmas music while we worked and provided “treats” in the form of cheap store brand sodas and a big bowl of M&Ms.

   Daily Bible reading was always part of our lives, but at Christmas I put aside our regular reading so that the last couple of days before Christmas we would read the entire Christmas story from the Bible. By reading the accounts from all four Gospels, we were able to cover everything that the Bible records concerning Jesus’ birth.

    I have known families who are able take lavish trips to celebrate Christmas; they go to ski resorts, or they take cruises, or they rent a house on the beach in Maui. I am certain that they have some wonderful Christmas memories, but I suspect that the most precious component of those memories is the time they spent together at those various vacation spots.

    Love and friendship are free. By taking the ordinary things that have to be done to prepare for Christmas and turning them into special traditions, we can make all that “work” the best part of the holiday. We can stop dreading the various tasks that must be performed and start looking forward to a month-long celebration of Jesus’ Birthday that every family member will cherish for a lifetime.

                                                                        

It May be Later than You Think

Why do so many parents stop homeschooling just when their children need them most? If you are tempted to exit prematurely, check your clock. It may be later than you think.

A couple of years ago I saw a store display for digital clocks that were supposed to set themselves, adjust for daylight savings time, and, in the case of a power failure, come back on displaying the correct time. I was mesmerized at the thought that I would never have to deal with resetting my clocks. Giddy with excitement, I purchased two.

When I arrived home, I plugged one in next to my bed where I could see it whenever I awoke during the night. The other I installed in our exercise room. I set both to display mountain standard time and to adjust for daylight savings time. I was thrilled at the prospect of never having to adjust them again.

I noticed that the other clocks in the house—the old undependable kind that need to be reset from time to time—never quite kept pace with my super-duper self- setting clocks, but what would I expect? After all, the literature that came with them said that they were set by a tower in the Atlantic Ocean. Their time keeping abilities were clearly superior.

I soon noticed, however, that there was a two-minute difference between the identical clocks regulated by the same tower. That was a little disconcerting, but since I could not manually reset them, I pushed that information out of my mind.

As the months passed, I noticed that the two clocks were displaying times that continued to widen the gap between their time and the time on my other clocks—although they did continue to be exactly two minutes apart from each other. Finally, in desperation, I checked the time displayed on my cell phone, the time reported on the radio, and the time displayed on the television. All of them agreed with each other. I began asking other family members what time it was, and when they consulted their watches or cell phones to give me the time, they all agreed with the manually set clocks in my house.

In one final attempt to rectify the situation, I unplugged my self-setting clocks and gave their little digital brains a chance to clear. I then plugged them in again and found that they were still two minutes apart and that one was still displaying a time that was six minutes earlier than the regular clocks and the other was still displaying a time that was eight minutes earlier than the regular clocks. Although I had done everything I knew to rectify this situation, absolutely nothing had changed.  When I consult either of those clocks, I must add the appropriate number of minutes to the time they are displaying because it is always later than I think.

This experience got me to thinking about homeschooling. Many parents sacrifice a great deal to homeschool their children through elementary and middle school. They give up one income and readjust their lifestyles so that their children will be protected from the negative influences that are so often present in the public school system. They work hard to teach the reading and math skills that are frequently lacking in public school children.  They give, and give, and give some more to ensure that their children will really learn their lessons in geometry and history and literature, but when those children are ready for high school, they turn them over to the public system.

Parents often make the decision to allow their children to go to a “regular” high school partly because the children pressure them. They, naturally, want to be with their friends and to be like their friends.  But there is something else that comes into play that is more often than not the real reason that parents opt to enroll their children in the local high school. By the time the children are ready for high school the home teacher is often so tired and over-extended that the temptation to “set them and forget them” is almost irresistible. After all, as their children’s educations advance, it seems likely that they will be better trained by various teachers who specialize in the subjects they teach than by a home teacher who teaches every subject. Logic says that if they live in a good school district, their children are in good hands. The thought of being able to “retire” as a home teacher can make almost any parent giddy with excitement.

Before you enroll  your children in your local high school, however, take time to think about the consequences. Once you turn them over to the professionals, you can no longer regulate the process. If they begin falling behind—either scholastically or morally—you will not be able to reset the mechanism. All that information being beamed from that tower that controls their little brains will read as correct. One day, after it is too late to do anything about it, you may take a good hard look at them and discover that it’s later than you think.

The Absolute Worst Thing about Homeschooling

The absolute worst thing about homeschooling is something that no one ever warns you about. I have been forced to deal with the problem before, but Thanksgiving weekend I, once again, came face to face with this inescapable downside of homeschooling.

As a mother who homeschooled her ten children from the first grade through Master’s Degrees, I can attest that there is an awful lot of bonding that takes place in the home classroom. Bonding among siblings and bonding between parents and siblings occurs on a level that is nearly impossible to achieve under other circumstances.

Nevertheless, I expected the close ties that resulted from so many hours spent in such close proximity. I was prepared for the “my siblings are my best friends” attitude that is a natural result of spending all day every day interacting with one’s brothers and sisters. I took it for granted that we would always share wonderful holiday celebrations, and I looked forward to the day when the children would marry and the family gatherings would include grandchildren.

My husband and I worked hard and sacrificed a great deal so that the children would all have their master’s degrees before they reached the traditional age for high school graduation. We wanted to ensure that they would be able to have successful careers and provide well for their families. Somehow, I never understood that those careers would scatter them in many directions and that their families would not always be with us, but this is the way it has turned out:

• In 1994 Francesca married; she and her husband and three children now live in Phoenix. 
• In 1996 Victoria married; she and her husband and two children now live in Dallas.
• Dominic is a photographer for CNN and travels all over the world shooting news stories. He is based in Miami but has spent a total of only two weeks there this year. Even as I write this, Dominic is in Haiti covering their elections.
• Israel is in Colorado studying to be a veterinarian.

Two weeks ago Benjamin, who was the main news anchor for the NBC television affiliate here in El Paso, dropped by the house unexpectedly and told us that he had just signed a contract for the position of the main anchor for a television station in Cincinnati. It is a huge career move for him, and he and his wife are thrilled, but his six-year-old looked at my husband with big tears in his eyes and said, “Grandpa, I’ll never see you again.” I trust that’s not true, but even to me if feels as though we will never see them again. On Saturday we kissed our son and daughter-in-law and their five children good-by and tried to not let them see how sad we were to have them go.

Five of my children still live in the El Paso area, but there are rumblings that some of them may soon be leaving here to pursue better opportunities and better lives. If I could keep them here, I would not do it; if I could bring the others back, I would not do that either. I made it my life’s work to prepare them to do the things that they were created to do. Those amazing relationships that were forged in that homeschool classroom will last, but the physical circumstances must change. It’s just that no one ever tells you that when your children never go off to school, you never learn to lose them a little at a time. You have never experienced dropping them off for their first day of school; you have never experienced the emotional separation that comes from having your teen decide that his high school friends are so much cooler than his family; you have never waived good-by to an eighteen-year-old heading off to college in some distant city.

No one ever tells you that when you see all your years of work reaping the benefits that you dreamed they would, you smile, but you are smiling through tears.

TECHNOLOGY IS GREAT, BUT…

The internet and DVDs provide many opportunities for homeschoolers, but there is just no substitute for Mom in the classroom.

Last week I invited questions from readers, and Rhonda submitted one that I found especially intriguing. She asked, “Did your children take only on-line courses, and what was the parent’s role?”

I began teaching my children in 1975—back in the dark ages of the movement when the term “homeschooling” had not yet been coined. In fact, I taught for eight years before I ever met another homeschooler.

One month before her fifth birthday I began teaching my oldest daughter to read with a system I had developed myself. By the time she was five years four months old, I had taught her to read, to print, and to tell time. She had also learned the basic one-hundred addition and one-hundred subtraction facts.

In those days there was no internet, no PCs, no DVDs. My “tools” were textbooks, pads of lined paper and pencils. The little battery powered hand-held calculators did, of course, exist, but I did not allow my children to use them. I insisted that they complete all calculations using only paper and pencil.

It was not until my youngest child was finishing his master’s degree that California State University, where all of my ten children earned their master’s degrees, gave students the option of e-mailing assignments. Since our computer was really only a word processor with no hard drive and no internet access, even that was not an option for us.

Yet, even with our limited resources, my ten children completed every grade level, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees, entirely through home study, and they did so by age sixteen.

I do not want to give anyone the impression that I am anti-technology. It is essential in today’s society, and I believe that we should utilize it as fully as possible. However, technology is never a substitute for knowledge, and I believe that this is something that we tend to forget. If the knowledge base is in place, technology is an extraordinary expedient, but no one, whether student or businessman, should ever rely on technology to provide answers he cannot verify independently.

My grown children who have children of their own are now homeschooling their little ones. They take advantage of the DVDs available with the various curricula now on the market that feature electronic teachers. I do not have a problem with that, but I frequently caution them to never rely on someone else to do their jobs. It is their responsibility to watch those DVDs with their children and talk to them about anything they do not understand. It is their responsibility to keep up and make certain that their children are deriving the maximum benefit from each day’s lessons.

When I began homeschooling, we wanted to make certain that our children were getting everything they needed for a well-rounded education. We also wanted them to progress to undergraduate and graduate work when they finished high school. As a result, we always used curricula provided through well-established schools that offered complete home study courses. We also bore the additional expense of having the schools do the grading and record keeping so that every grade level was fully accredited and each child had grade transcripts at every school.

I read every textbook that my children were ever assigned. I discussed every lesson with them that they ever completed. I read and critiqued every paper that they ever wrote. I was fully involved in every aspect of their educations. I was always willing to spend as much time as necessary to make certain that they understood their assignments. Nevertheless, because I was so involved, my children’s school day was only three hours long. I think that is a pretty good trade off—three hours of no nonsense, no distractions schoolwork in exchange for twenty-one free hours.

It is natural to want to find better ways of doing things, and when I was homeschooling, I constantly looked for ways to make my school day easier. However, there is a reason why Thomas Edison commented, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Most of life is hard. If we are going to reach our goals, we have to be willing to give whatever it takes to accomplish them.

The advancements in distance learning are exciting. Today’s homeschooling families have access to volumes of information with just the click of a mouse. Thirty-five years ago I could never have imagined that in 2010 homeschoolers would have so many choices available to them. My advice is this: Take advantage of everything that makes your job as a homeschooling parent easier. Use technology to the fullest, but always remember that a computer is never a substitute for a home teacher who knows her children better than anyone else and who loves them enough to sacrifice her time so that they can succeed. At times you will be tired and discouraged, but when your last student has finished his last assignment, you will look back on these days as some of the most rewarding of your life. You will always be glad that you shared this great educational experience with the people you love the most.

Thanks for sharing your concerns with me. I will be posting my blog every Tuesday morning. I invite you to post questions that you would like to have addressed in future blogs.

                                                                     

The Three Most Important Things

Having worked in the mortgage industry for nearly twelve years, I know that any real estate agent will tell you that the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location.

Having homeschooled for twenty-five years, I know that the three most important things in homeschooling are commitment, commitment, commitment.

The first commitment is commitment to Jesus Christ. While it is true that some homeschoolers do not choose to homeschool for religious reasons, it is also true that the vast majority do. As Christian homeschooling parents we want the best possible educations for our children, but nearly always we are first attracted to homeschooling because it enables us to keep our children away from corrupting influences and classroom indoctrination that are in direct conflict with our Christian principles. Most of us agree that if our children fail to emerge from our homeschools with a firm Christian foundation that lasts a lifetime, we have failed.

The second commitment is commitment to our children. When we make the decision to homeschool, we are taking on the responsibility of ensuring that our children will be scholastically equipped to meet the challenges of the world in which they will live and work. It is a huge undertaking, and we have only one chance to get it right. Whether we homeschool  from the first grade through Master’s Degrees as I did, or only through high school, as most homeschooling parents do, we are taking on the task of educating our children so that their scholastic performance is equal to or better than their traditionally schooled counterparts. Our commitment to them includes not only preparing them to compete for admittance to colleges and universities, but to compete in an increasingly technological job market.

The third commitment is commitment to community. I am not referring to the next door neighbor, although, as Christians, we certainly have a responsibility to share Jesus Christ with those in our physical community. I am referring to the homeschooling community.  As homeschooling parents we need to encourage each other and build each other up as much as possible. Paul asks, “Is there any such thing as Christians cheering each other up?” (Philippians 2:1, Living Bible)As Christians we do need to cheer each other up, and as homeschooling Christian parents, we often need cheering up more than the average Christian parent.

My youngest child received his Master’s Degree in May of 2000. At that time I happily closed my homeschool and went to work full-time in the family business. Recently, however, I have been advised that even with all of the resources available to homeschooling parents, there is a continuing need for “cheering each other up.” That is why I have chosen to write this blog. In future blogs I will discuss my methods for conquering the little things that are often responsible for causing homeschooling parents to throw up their hands and say, “I just can’t do this anymore!”

You will like some of the suggestions and not like others. Think of this blog as a smorgasbord—take from it what you like and leave the rest. If you have questions you would like answered, post them in the comments section, and I will address them in future blogs. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.