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Tiny Tips for Moms and Dads #69 Home Schooling is not limited to Monday thru Friday- 8-3

Home schooling is a natural part of engaging as a family. Learning takes place in all aspects of what we do with and for our children.

Home school

I know that the privilege of being able to home school your child is not always feasible for some parents! But there are ways to intercede in your child’s learning experience and take charge of what you want your child to learn and be exposed to! There are gaps in our institutional educational system that we as families can fill in. School or learning is not confined to Monday thru Friday- 8-3! There are teachable moments that happen organically and there are opportunities for us as parents and grandparents as well as extended family and the village we create and sustain to support our children.

I have been blessed as a grandparent to participate in home schooling our grandchildren, and after 34 years of teaching children and teaching teachers in training to teach children, I get to have the honor of teaching our grandchildren to love the gift of learning! One of the most critical gaps in our educational system is not integrating the need for curriculum that is eclectic, focuses on the needs of individualized learning, and the role of social emotional develop that needs to be engrained in the overall curriculum. We have a world that is evolving in some unknown direction at warp speed! We have a responsibility to step in and slow down the life our children are being engulfed into!

They need time to discover who they are and what they are passionate about. And we need to be present for them so that as they engage with the world in and out of school, we are afforded the depth of observation that can take place in the home schooling environment! I don’t want to generalize and say that every home school program is perfection because each of us are doing it differently, but opportunities are there to invest daily in the education of their children.

Those parents that can’t or chose institutional programs must still keep these elements in the forefront of educating their children! I will confess the most difficult challenge I had as a parent was how and where to educate my Nikki! I listened to her and followed her direction. At 4 years old she told me she had to go to a school where they talked about God everyday. So she started out in the Lutheran schools and by 3rd grade she decided she wanted to go to Catholic school and did so thru her college education! It was a fit for her! You have to find the fit for your child!

P.S. I don’t know how she found out about Catholic school because we were not Catholic! But it was sooo Niki!

Ua is an influence in his sister Aoluna’s life everyday and he takes being part of her world seriously

The beauty of learning is that it is limitless and shared with this we love!

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“I Realize that I’ve Been Given the Gift to be Your Parent and as Your Parent I Realize this is a Life-Time Commitment!

It is just about loving and caring for each other unconditionally!

Quote:
Elizabeth Stone once said:
Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.

What do I mean when I say that my child is a gift in my life?

Let me start by defining the word “gift” in terms of the Webster’s Dictionary so that while we are engaged in this conversation we have the same understanding. According to the definition “gift” means: That which is given; a natural endowment.
Perhaps the most amazing perception of our relationship with our children is that we must see parenting as a being given a gift. It is not something to take lightly. It is absolutely a divine interaction on the part of “Great Spirit”. Sometimes we are very intentional in our desire to be parents and we make all kind of promises if we are blessed with a child. I can remember every conversation I had with God about my yearning to have the honor to bring life into this world. I prayed for the chance to be a mother. I prayed for the opportunity for my husband to have the experience of being a father. All of my life I felt that I was ordained to be a nurturer. My life’s purpose was engulfed in being with children so that I could make a difference in the quality of their lives. I promised God that if he gave me a child, I would give that child back to Him. This is a covenant that cannot be broken. Think about the gift you have been given or the gift you want to accept as a parent in “waiting”.