Yesterday, the little boys and I had a discussion that is pretty familiar. It often starts as the school bus passes our house. Where are the children going? What are they doing?
Teaching our children at home began as an experiment for us, but it has developed into a way of life, and we have no other option for accomplishing what God has set before us. The necessity of being the main influence for our impressionable children, the necessity of teaching them God's Word as we go about each day, seeking to live it....there are no other options.
It is sad that educational reasons for homeschooling have eclipsed what really motivated many modern Christian parents to return to keeping children home 30 or 40 or more years ago. We attended a wedding last year, where the 80-something year old father of the FATHER of the groom was present. He was a homeschool dad. Yes, I mean the groom's grandpa! Years ago, he had been a school teacher, and decided he had to pull his children out of the school and teach them at home. It was not for mere educational reasons.
Occasionally someone will ask us if our children ever wanted to go to school. As far as we can tell, the answers is no. From an early age, we have discussed many of the realities of school. These discussions, coupled with what they know already through experience, seems to have them brainwashed. Yes, we brainwash our children! We figure, someone is going to, so it better be us!
Where are the children going? They get up early in the morning and leave their homes and go to school. If they have brothers and sisters, they will not be able to be with them unless they are the same age. If their mom just had a new baby, they will be gone all day long and only see the baby after school.
Don't they want to stay home? At first, many do. But they soon find it more fun than being home.
They will sit in a room with other children their own age. There will be a teacher there who has to try to get them all to listen and obey instructions. Nobody is allowed to be spanked for disobeying the teacher. If the teacher has problems with a certain child, they will tell the parents, but the parents are not there when the problems occur. Sometimes the child convinces their parents that they didn't really do anything wrong.
If the children do or say something bad on the playground, they will not be spanked. Usually, they will have no consequences at all. There are too many children for the teachers to keep track of all the rude talk, or pushing or other bad things. Also, the children can do bad things at school that their parents don't want them to do. The parents may never find out.
The kids who do not dress cool or act cool or are not nice looking are treated badly by most of the other children. This makes most of the children beg their parents to get them cool clothes or hair cuts or to pierce their ears, because they want to be like the other kids. Sometimes they will refuse to wear certain clothes, even if they still fit, just because the kids at school will think they are not cool. They start to think it is more important to please the other kids.
When you go to Walmart, you can see racks and racks of the same clothes. Some are immodest. But the children want to be like the cool kids, so they wear them. The stores know what will be cool and stock up. Even if they are wildly expensive, that is what the children have to have.
At school, the children don't have to do any chores. They get to play on the playground a couple of times a day. When they get home, they want to watch TV or go and play with friends. So, many parents find it is extra hard to teach them to do work, since they only time they do work is when they are home. This makes it easy for them to not want to be home.
When the children are home, it can seem the only time they have to do chores is when they are home. Guess what happens. They usually want to avoid it. Also, the parents become used to a quiet, neat house. When the children are home all week for summer vacation, some parents actually wish summer would be over so the kids would go back to school! More and more, the children learn to want to be with their friends more than their family. That's why you see so many big kids out walking around without their families.
We don't really talk much about school shootings with the children. We don't talk much about the immorality, the increasing abuse, the social engineering, and the increasing drugging of school children as a means to control behavior. Just the above is enough to inspire our children to be content with not being on the yellow bus.
Teaching our children at home has not caused us to become the perfect family. That is another reality our children have experienced! But even through our stubborn blundering, we all recognize that pressing on, hand in hand, is the best way to move ahead.
Yes, we brainwash our children. Who is brainwashing yours?
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