Beyond the 3R's

Alex and I grew up in mainstream, churched, middle class families. He attended a private Christian school where he was involved in sports and SGA. I grew up in the public school system until high school when I attended a private school and was involved in dance and cheerleading. We met while attending a major state university. He was involved in fraternity life and SGA and I was involved in sorority life.

We married and eventually decided to add to our family. Our plan without even thinking about it or discussing it, was to continue living a mainstream life. Our children would go to a Christian school where they would get their Biblical and spiritual training, and be involved in sports, SGA, or cheerleading. Then attend our alma mater and continue to be involved in those things we were involved in. In other words, relive our lives for us.

But God had a better plan.

In the late 90's we had the opportunity to hear someone speak on some radical thoughts on fathers being the spiritual leaders of the family. (Actually, they weren't just thoughts...it's Biblical.) Norm Wakefield was a homeschooling father of four. His children were high school age and older. We observed he and his family over that summer and there was something different. Something we wanted for our family. He never really addressed homeschooling, but he did speak on turning the hearts of the fathers to their children. He spoke of fathers being responsible for the spiritual development of their families. He spoke of not being conformed to the world. And what spoke to Alex's heart the most was not getting the "warm fuzzies" about the thought of reliving your life through your children.

It was at that point we began researching homeschooling. None of our friends had even considered such an option. But after prayer and discussion we decided to give it a try with plans to evaluate year to year.

We are now in our fifth year. Madison is considered 3rd grade and soon Chas will be joining us. Still none of our long time friends have chosen this route. But it has transformed us in ways we never would have imagined. It has deeply involved us in training our children spiritually, mentally, physically and socially. It has brought about a love and cohesiveness which would have been difficult for us to achieve if our children attended traditional schools. It has grown Alex and I spiritually because we now seek His guidance and strength in carrying out the task of raising our children and living our lives before the Lord.

The benefits we have seen are:

• We are able to better protect the innocence of our children.
• We determine the curriculum for our children based on a Biblical world view and their interest and abilites.
• We are able to socialize our children with a variety of ages of children and adults.
• We have the flexibility to school and not school at our convenience.
• We are able to better protect our children's hearts from world and from negative influences.
• We are able to better control who is making an impression on our children.

Our experiences with the commonly stated "negatives" are:

Socialization. We want to teach our children to become adults. Spending the majority of their formative years with peers hampers those efforts.

Overly Protective. Each child matures emotionally at their own pace. We can determine the proper time and provide the support needed to process the realities of the world.

This has been our experience so far in the journey. Not all parents are to homeschool, but we parents are commanded to train them in the Lord. Homeschooling is one of the avenues the Lord has turned our hearts to our children.

"These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up." Deuteronomy 6:6,7