Home Schooling Points and Practicalities

     In the "about me" section I casually mention that I have eight kids.       How to have eight kids, home school and conquer more laundry every week than a diaper service should be interesting to many.    I hope to bolster the pride you hopefully have in how incredibly important the role of homemaker is.    I am no stranger to seeing  home life as a frying  pan that always keeps me struggling, frazzled, and deflated.   Falling into bed at night in an exhausted heap is my normal.     Is there a way to be a great mom and maybe loosen up on our high hopes and often unachievable demands?     Many of us are proud to be obsessive parents--It's a badge to wear honorably perhaps.   "I do this better than everyone else and I make sure everyone knows it."   I sometimes need to remind myself  of the fact that in trying to have all aspects of my life fit into a template,  I am actually destroying the spontaneity that makes life fun and interesting for all of us.  These are general principles to keep in mind in order to save your sanity and still be a person that your spouse and kids enjoy,  but I will explain more about our choice to home school.

• Spiritual concerns about the dragging down that so many kids from Christ centered homes experience once they are put in the peer group spin cycle.
• A concern about safety.  The alarming rate of the all new "cyber bullying" bears this out to some degree.    
• Discipline is becoming ever weaker in schools.    Many kids face very little consequence for ever increasing anti-social behaviors.
• Sexual promiscuity
• Drug and alcohol abuse among kids. 
• Absence of biblical world view teaching and training in a setting that would be my child's main training ground.  
• Pedophile teachers and administrators.

     This is a short list of my major reasons for home school choice.    I am saddened by the unchecked growth of all that I described above and fully realize that I'm accused of throwing out all the good just because of "some" bad.     As a Christian parent  these issues cannot be taken lightly if we believe in this verse,  "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." --Deuteronomy 6:7 ESV.     I cannot and do not speak for anyone else.    Many traps have been set in this country and they are not easily escaped.    If you home school as well,  then I hope you feel affirmed because I know we don't get much of that.    I encourage all Americans to be open to freedom in choice for their kids and others kids where education is concerned.   Nothing is more important than the plans and purposes that will be relayed to a child's heart by his or her many notable influences.   While we are setting a guard at the door of our hearts,  let us seek the same for our future generations.