Preparing for an ERO Review (in an unschooling kind of way)
By Craig and Barbara Smith
Eduction Review Officer (ERO)
When the ERO comes, they generally don't look closely at what you have
written down. Such journals and notes as you may have are mostly
useful as a reminder for you to talk about what you have done. So
remember, if keeping a daily journal and/or extensive notes of what
you do during your day is not your style, if it is a burden to you, if
it is a stress to you, if you feel it is taking time away from the
time you could be spending with your children or your precious spare
time, then don't do it.
The ERO are just as happy to look at photos of events and things that
you have been doing. So get the camera out on a regular basis and
click away.
Then absolutely forget about the ERO until you hear from them. When
you do hear from them, they will suggest a date something like a month
away. Decide that it is too soon and write telling them that the date
they suggested really isn't convenient. Then propose two other dates
that are convenient for you and make sure these dates are two or so
months down the track. This gives you plenty of time to prepare for
the review. Once the date is settled, and you are perfectly happy with
the date.....the date selection is ultimately up to you, not up to
them......then start planning for the review. Please note: we are not
trying to get out of having a review; we are scheduling it to our best
advantage. This is only sensible.
Do nothing with the sole aim of pleasing the ERO; this does not
advance your objectives in raising/training/educating your children.
Keep to your convictions. If you are worrying about an upcoming ERO
review, then you may begin, even unconsciously, to do things simply
because you think it would please them, straying away from your unique
programme to one you think they'd like to see. Resist this temptation.
You will be able to speak convincingly about your own programme, but
you will not be able to speak convincingly about a programme you
followed because you thought it was the PC (politically correct) thing
to do.
The time to begin thinking about what you have been doing is once the
ERO contacts you. Then I would get out a huge piece of paper and write
in all the subjects you can think of - way more than the schools do.
As unschoolers, this is the one concession we'll make to "eduspeak"
(more on this later). Here are the lists from the national curriculum
guidelines:
The seven essential learning areas:
Language & Languages
Technology
Health and Physical Well Being
Mathematics
Social Studies
Science
The Arts
The eight essential skills:
Communication Skills
Problem Solving Skills
Numeracy Skills
Physical Skills
Information Skills
Work and Study Skills
Self-Management and Competitive Skills
Social and Co-operative Skills
Then I would add in a whole bunch of other topics and subjects using
words which make sense to me. For example, what is Social Studies (in
the list above) anyway? I don't know. So I'll write down "History"
and "Geography" because they make sense to me, even though they may be
covered in the above subject of Social Studies (though I doubt it):
English
Geography
History
Music
Art
Horticulture
Home Economics (sewing, cooking)
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, French etc
Politics
Note Taking
Book Reports
Letter Writing
Essay Writing
Grammar
Drama
Medicine
Debating
Reasoning
Logic
Research
Creative Writing
Handwriting
Spelling
Calligraphy
Worldviews
Psychology
Bible
Critical Thinking
Farming
Industry
Sport
Dancing
Culture
Nature
Memory Work, etc
That is just a quick list I thought up on the spot. With more
imagination I could come up with more and hopefully some even better
topics. You can probably come up with some really good ones.
Then you think through on every encounter you have had and everything
you have done or read in your home education endeavours over the past
year or two (since your last ERO review, or since you started home
educating) and write it down under the appropriate topic. Most things
will go under a number of topics - that is the nature of home
education and especially unschooling. So think of books you have read
to the children; books your children have read; visitors to your home;
homes you have visited and the uniqueness of these encounters; the
things you have talked about and done; the field trips you have been
on, officially and unofficially; the fun things you have done as a
family, with others or on your own. I hope you are getting the picture
here. Just think of everything that has happened and slot it under
several of the above topics.
For example: A trip to the beach goes under: Science, PE, Mathematics
(you stopped for an ice-cream on the way and worked out the cost and
change), The Arts, Health and Physical Well Being, Communication
skills, Self Management (putting on togs, washing off later) and
Competitive skills (foot racing, ball games on beach, best sand
castle) and some others depending on what you did, who you talked to,
etc.
Reading a book about David Livingstone would go under: History,
geography, science, missions, exploration, courage, loyalty, Home
economics, farming, technology, languages, world views, cultures,
medicine, slavery, etc.
Playing the board game "Risk" would go under: geography, maths,
strategy, history, languages, communication, problem solving,
politics, worldviews, etc., and under more things depending on the
discussions you have while playing.
Having a guest around could go under many topics depending on the
guest and what their interests are where they have travelled, etc.
This sheet of paper is a mind map. Have it hanging on a wall with easy
access from the moment you hear of your ERO review, and write in
events under the topics as they come to mind, as they will, at odd
times throughout the day.
Now when the ERO come to visit (and preferably that will be in a hall,
library or some such place and not your home) do not show them this
mind map until the very end. All this preparation will arm you with
lots to talk about with the ERO. But talk to them in unschooling terms
not eduspeak. Why? Because this is the language you, as an unschooler,
are familiar with. Again, resist the temptation to do things because
you think that is what they want to hear and see. Remember the wording
from the Exemption Application says you are not required to follow the
National Curriculum Guidelines, but that they want to hear about "what
you intend to cover" and "your curriculum vision". The key is that you
have a vision and are able to clearly articulate this to the ERO,
whatever it may be.
Explain to them all the wonderful things your children have been
learning. You don't have to show them heaps of things. It is not
learning outcomes that they are reviewing but how your children have
been "taught as regularly and as well as in a registered school." So
be very clear on your philosophy and how to explain it to the ERO. If
necessary write some quotes or phrases that you want to get across to
the ERO on paper to prompt you when talking to the ERO. The review
should mostly consist of you talking with the ERO and not the ERO
talking to your children.
When we had our last review, we prepared a huge mind map in just the
way described above. When the Reviewer arrived for our review (in a
church hall), I straight away told him that Jeremiah at 10 1/2 was not
reading, writing or doing any formal maths. Further, I said I had not
started to do these things when we knew this ERO review was coming up.
Yes, Jeremiah knew how to read; it's just that he found it such a
laborious task that he wasn't doing it, nor were we forcing him. He
knew how to draw the letters and string them phonetically into words,
but since that too was nearly impossible for him to do for more than
60 seconds at a stretch, we were not insisting that he do any. And
yes, he was doing arithmetical work in practical ways all the time,
but pencil and paper activities with him were out of the question. We
then talked about our philosophy, our assessment of Jeremiah's
capabilities and developmental delays and why he wasn't doing these
things and how we planned to tackle them in the future and what we
were doing to sort of compensate in the meantime....and we passed the
review with flying colours. The Reviewer's (correct) evaluation of our
situation was that we had the matter in hand and were working with
Jeremiah's personal and unique characteristics to maximize his
potential. (By the way, today at age 13, Jeremiah is an avid reader of
normal print-sized chapter books, staying up late at nights to finish
off the next chapter! His handwriting is looking better than average,
he is happy to write thank-you letters to relations and remonstrances
to politicians and requests for information to companies, making
expert use of computer spell-checkers and email.)
We are in a pioneering time still in some areas of home education.
Training the MOE and ERO on unschooling is one of these areas. This
may always be a pioneering area because the MOE and ERO officers keep
changing, necessitating that we train up the new batch. Although
awkward, the main time for doing this training is when applying for an
exemption or during a live ERO Review.
Always check to make sure that they find your home educating "as
regular and as well as in a registered school" before they leave. Ask
that before you show your mind map so you can pull it out as extra,
compelling evidence in a form of "eduspeak" the reviewer may be more
personally comfortable with. (Of course, if the review is already
going really well, you may not have to show the mind map at all.) This
mind map and the preparation it represents plus all your other
preparation for the Review should ensure it goes really well. 95% of
reviews are really positive experiences for all concerned. Again, the
key is being prepared, knowing what you're about and explaining and
demonstrating this during a review in such a way that you simply drip
with confidence, competence and enthusiasm.
In Part Eight of "Keeping Going When the Going Gets Tough" (Keystone of March 2004) we discussed the need to be building strong interpersonal relationships with our children and spouse. We discussed how it is hard work, very hard work. It doesn't just happen all by itself. We need to be working on it diligently (when we sit in our house, walk by the way, lie down and rise up) with our children. We can have no rest from this. Tom Eldredge in Safely Home(1) says "we should devote enormous amounts of time to them (our children), even to the point of weariness."(2)
So we need to have strong interpersonal relationships with our children, and we also need to look at what, why and how we are teaching them.
Psalm 119:98, "Thy commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me."
Psalm 119:99, "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation."
Psalm 119:100, "I understand more than the aged, for I keep thy precepts."
When we teach the commandments, statutes and ordinances diligently to our children, then they will be wiser than their enemies, then they will have more understanding than their teachers. When our children apply and keep the precepts, then they will understand more than the aged. In Deuteronomy 6, God is commanding us to teach His commandments, statutes and ordinances diligently to our children, and we should talk of them when we sit in our house and when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise. To our ears that means all the time. If we do this with our children all the time, with our whole hearts, then when they are older and on their own, we believe they will do likewise. Look at Proverbs 6:20-22. "My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them about your neck. When you walk they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you." If we spend 5-10 minutes each day teaching our children the commandments, statutes and ordinances, then when they are older and look back on their father's commandments to them and their mother's teaching, that is how much time they will invest in the commandments, statutes and ordinances: 5-10 minutes each day. But if we command and teach our children diligently when we sit in our house, walk by the way, lie down and when we rise up, then when our children are grown and look back on their father's commandments to them and their mother's teaching, they will likewise teach them diligently to their own children. Remember Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." We are required to train our children in a very definite manner as opposed to the other child-rearing strategy of just letting them grow up in spite of us. Training requires hard work. Those in bodily training pommel their bodies. We need to train our children in the commandments of God. There is no rest from it. It is a 24-hour-a-day job, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Psalm 1 also talks this way. The man of God who does not seek counsel from the wicked or stand with the sinners but whose "delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night....In all that he does, he prospers." Teach diligently....meditate day and night. This is all hard work. But the blessings of obedience are repeated: "In all that he does, he prospers."
You say this is just going to add to your stress, not take away from it. "Am I supposed to educate my children as well as spend all my time in building good relationships, and then spend all day and night in meditation on the Scriptures? How can anyone do that?" You see three huge tasks enumerated here. Looking at it that way is most definitely a recipe for burnout. We want to show you that all three are done at once. Meditating on God's Word is educating your children is building good relationships.
Abraham Joshua Heschel encapsulated this approach to study by saying that the Greeks study in order to understand while the Hebrews study in order to revere. God's Word and ways are ineffable: only by doing them does one understand them.3
This is the great divide between the way virtually all of us have been trained up by our schooling - to see the acquisition of knowledge by schooling as the road to success. As Christians we even apply this to the Bible, thinking that by studying it and knowing what it says we gain spiritual maturity. No. The Hebrew way, the Biblical way to spiritual maturity, is not via studying in order to gain knowledge. It is by studying in order to know how to more perfectly obey, do, practice, follow, perform, behave according to the Scriptural commandments, ordinances and precepts. That is, we study the Bible to learn how to love and revere the Lord. This is to know Him: to love Him, which is to obey Him (I John 5:3). Then, having studied and followed through by doing what we found in our studies, then we will gain knowledge. It is a different type of knowledge: heart knowledge borne of walking the walk, walking in obedience with the Lord we love, as opposed to pure theoretical head knowledge. This head knowledge approach is how we were all taught at school. It is the Greek method. It is the kind of knowledge that puffs up rather than builds up (I Corinthians 8:1). Knowing the Lord by loving Him in obedience is what builds up and gives us true knowledge of Him.
We could put it another way: The Jewish Talmud tells a story of an elderly rabbi's counsel to his young nephew. The boy already knew the Torah, the Old Testament Law. Now he wanted to study the wisdom of the Greeks. The rabbi recalled God's words in Joshua 1:8: "You shall mediate on it [Biblical Law] day and night." "Go, then," said the rabbi. "Find a time that is neither day nor night, and learn then Greek wisdom."(3)
Let's invest our time, our days and nights, studying....and doing!.... the really important things, the things that God tells us to teach our children. That is, teach them to live a life of obedience in all areas by ourselves living a life of obedience in all areas and ensuring our children are involved with us in all our activities. This contrasts to our normal method of lectures supplemented with workbooks and texts as we strive to see our children acquire superior Biblical and secular knowledge. We can still acquire this superior knowledge, in fact we must, but we can do it in the context of doing things and being involved in planning and executing activities, rather than in the context of lectures and discussion for the sake of gaining the knowledge. In the classroom or lecture model of instruction, there is no immediate use for the knowledge just gained, except perhaps for the purposes of sitting an exam. And then, of course, that body of knowledge is quickly forgotten. But as we plan and do things in obedience to the many things the Scriptures commend to us, we can gain knowledge in the doing, a more practical sort of knowledge. We can also make use of the lecture/classroom model, but with the added dimension that we are learning this for the specific objective of putting it into immediate use.
No, this is not neglecting our academics. John D. Beckett explains in his book Loving Monday, "A Biblical worldview has [great] implications for those of us in the secular, Greek-thinking West. As we allow it, the Bible speaks to us concerning government, economics, education, science, art, communications and business. Really, it speaks to all of life."3 Have a look at the very first words God Himself spoke to Adam and Eve at their creation, Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." What sort of academics will we need to fulfill this one commandment? Animal husbandry, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, mining, metallurgy, engineering, mathematics, statistics, soil sciences, meteorology, horticulture, agriculture, genetics, etc., etc. Combining the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 with the call to bear both the message and ministry of reconciliation as Christ's ambassadors in II Corinthians 5:17-20, we find we will also need to master, in order to obey these verses, communications in all its forms (written, spoken, non-verbal body language, electronic), art, history, languages, cultural studies, inter-personal relationships, music, poetry, education., etc., etc.
Meditating on God's Word is educating your children is building good relationships. The objective of meditation and study is to obey more properly and consistently what we find in God's Word. To obey in this way we will need to master the academic disciplines. Now, it is clear that no one person can master all of these academic disciplines listed in the previous paragraph. Here is where each person, as he matures, senses God's personal calling to him to specialise in one area of work in His Garden or another. That is, Johnny does not become a carpenter because he likes to work in wood, although if his calling from God is carpentry, he will most probably like it. But Johnny's work as a carpenter is to glorify God by bringing every thought and every effort and every product of that occupation into captivity to Christ, acknowledging Him as Lord over all. His service in this industry provides others with things they need to advance God's kingdom in their particular spheres of specialty and influence.
Home educating mums have a far more direct line in building God's kingdom on earth than does Johnny the carpenter. They are training up disciples for Jesus Christ from the time they are conceived until the day they leave home, launching them into a world that could be transformed, as history has shown us, by the committed and focused efforts of any one of them, an Augustine, a Whitfield, a Wesley, a Carey, a Wilberforce. That is, such mums can and should be wielding undisputed authority, under God and under their husbands, over the lives of their children for 16, 18, 20 years. There is simply no other position of such immense power and influence under the sun. The imprint that a God-fearing mother's handiwork can have on the mind, heart, soul and character of a number of children she might rear, an imprint that is felt and passed on to one or two further generations, numbering dozens of people, is immeasurable and second only to the impact of our Triune God's own sovereign work of accomplishing His will on this earth in the affairs of men. We have mostly lost sight of this unbelievably powerful position of mother hood. Why else would any woman willingly trade it for as little as $7.50 an hour?
Meditating on God's Word is educating your children is building good relationships. The key to these good relationships is that this task is so immense, so comprehensive, so far-reaching that all involved recognise it is far bigger than any of them can handle as an individual. They are working on this task together as a family unit. Team work, between husband and wife, between mum/dad and the children, among the siblings, is essential for making any progress in fulfilling this task. This task becomes an integral part of, not additional to, the family's raison d'etre, its reason for existing as a family unit, with each member holding a vital portfolio in the running of the family corporation. (This language may sound strange, for few of us have thought in these terms. We are instead used to thinking of our children as the little people we raise as our contribution to society, and once they're off our hands, we can get back to enjoying the good life.) In this Hebrew approach, each family member recognises how much each needs the other: the children see the vital nature of their contribution, even if it is only making the beds and washing the dishes, for it allows mum and dad more time to devote to the big task of winning the world for Jesus Christ and for adorning the Gospel with their good works of excellence and gracious attitudes and unstinting hospitality and edifying conversation.
You can see how radically different this hands-on, relational, interactive Hebrew approach is to the theoretical, intellectual, individualistic Greek approach to doing things that we all grew up with. The Hebrew approach creates and values families and closely connected communities. The Greek approach values and creates the lone ranger, the "autonomous individual" which the state school system is actively promoting and which the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is always talking about.
Yes, the family is the powerhouse of evangelism, education, discipleship training and Gospel effort, especially within a Biblical church fellowship and under mature church leadership. We may well feel some pressure from our local churches to get more involved in church activities, but we home educators need to help the church see that we are in fact fully engaged in doing church work. As the home education movement matures beyond the pioneering stage, the institutional churches will, Lord willing, recognise this more readily than at present and begin to encourage us more directly. More on this in a future article.
Tom Eldredge in his book, Safely Home says,
The sad truth is that rather than building a distinctively biblical approach to life, education, and work, the Christian community has been absorbed into the culture, such that the priorities of many of our local churches and church leaders are often at war with the Christian family.
The way of life God designed for His people supports itself in every way. There is no conflict within God's design. Each of God's institutions was designed in such a way that it does not diminish the importance of the family. God even set aside one day a week for the Israelites to spend together as a family: the Sabbath.
From sundown on the last workday in the week, until the same time Sabbath evening, God's people were to go home and rest (Exodus 16:29), reflect on the goodness of God over the past week and worship Him. It was a prime teaching opportunity for the father. It also served as a weekly reminder that life was not based on survival of the fittest but on relationship and faith. The Sabbath said, trust in God to provide, look how He is providing! Jesus taught that this special day was not to be observed as a mere legalistic requirement. The Sabbath was made for man's mental, physical and spiritual refreshment (Mark 2:27, Isaiah 58:13-14). It was to be a day of sharing and hospitality (Exodus 20:10). It also served as a time for teaching, a time spent in every home preserving the spiritual heritage of the family.
God has established the pattern and time sequence in creation for the education of children. The first six years of life present an opportunity that cannot be postponed. At no other time in the child's life is it as easy for the child to learn language. In fact, the child will never learn another language as well as the language he learns during those years. It is also a time when the child can absorb facts phenomenally. The Hebrew mother, in a loving and joyful way, cultivated a thirst and love for learning in her children and created the opportunities and moments in which to give them the treasure of knowledge.
The Hebrew mothers were diligent and creative in the way they taught their children. Hebrew mothers know if they were not diligent in their training of their children, they as mothers would be brought to shame (Proverbs 29:15; 22:15). The Scriptures teach that when a woman serves her family well, her children and husband will arise up and call her blessed (Proverbs 31:28). Hebrew mothers knew the importance of wisdom, language and the Word of God (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
The Hebrew father had three responsibilities: to instruct his son in the law, to bring him into wedlock and to teach him a handcraft. By the time a son reached age thirteen, he was held responsible to know the law and to keep it. Since the father was responsible for this part of his son's training, it is evident that the father's involvement started early in the life on his son. In fact, the Hebrew fathers began teaching their sons the law as soon as they were able to speak, enabling the son to develop a manly spirit.
The Hebrew mothers did not wait for learning readiness in their children: they developed it. Much if not most of Hebrew training was oral (Proverbs 1:8). Even before a child can read, he absorbs tremendous amounts of information and grows in knowledge and understanding as he listens to his parents. Parents can help children to learn by speaking clearly and repetitiously so that children will hear what they must hear.
Mothers need to relearn how to make the maximum use of their homes as worship centres, hospitality centres and education and craft centres. Some of these craft centres will no doubt become platforms for the development of home industries. Often home industries are the first steps towards deliverance from the many forms of bondage in which today's families find themselves.
Home education is not an end in and of itself. It is a God-ordained means to a biblical end: The training of the child after the image of the God who made him; the building of the family; and the promotion of a multi-generational legacy of faithfulness.(1)
"Be still, and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10. How are we going with being still like this? We have had the holidays - a good opportunity to take some extended time alone with God to think on the year ahead. I had some forced time on my hands after an operation and nearly two months of recuperation just after I wrote part 7 for the November 2003 issue of Keystone. I had a wonderful time in the Psalms! I made all sorts of promises to myself that I would keep up these wonderful extended times with the Lord in His word after my recuperation finished. But, well, you know how it is....I got busy...isn't life like that? We have to ruthlessly make the time to "Be still", set it as a priority and take the time from some other activity. This is really tough. And that is what this series of articles is about: how to keep going when the going gets tough. Our first article touched lightly on the need for us to plan for time alone with God each day. We had three articles on dealing with marriage difficulties and one on child discipline. We explored the need for each of us to be readers and how to be effective readers, and then we looked at what we should be reading and some guidelines to help us to be discerning readers.
So how do we make more time for the important things in our lives? In part 7 we looked at Support Groups and our involvement in the local Church. This time we want to explore other areas in our lives and see if we are doing the best with our time and talents.
Some of us work really hard and appear to get great results in our home education. Some of us work just as hard and appear to get fewer results. Stop looking at each other! Let us instead examine, first, what results are we actually aiming for; second, how focussed we are on getting them; and, third, what distractions are hampering us. We all struggle over various curriculum, different philosophies of education, marriage difficulties, discipline problems, etc. We desperately need to find ways to keep going when the going gets tough.
When Craig and I began home schooling, we created a wee school in our home which even included a teacher's desk. We used a variety of curriculum until we discovered more by accident that the children loved us to read all sorts of books to them. They also loved to have long discussions around the dinner table and getting extra time with us. That is, even though we were with them all day, they wanted their own individual one-to-one time. So Craig started getting up earlier each morning, investing individual time with a different child each day of the week. They all loved it! We also realised that when we interacted with our children rather than leaving them to interact with books on their own, we got far greater results.
So we morphed through three different educational philosophies: schooling at home, curriculum centred and delight directed, our family's favourite. Craig actually mis-read the article he had on "Delight Directed" learning: he thought it meant whatever delighted him would direct what he taught the children. The official version said what delighted the child should direct the studies. Craig reckons he developed a new philosophy of Home Education! You know why our children loved this approach? We reckon it was because they loved to study the things their Mum and Dad were interested in, just like the toddlers who want to play with your pots and pans, papers and pens, rather than their bright expensive toys.....because they see and sense your far greater interest in the pots and pans than in their toys.
Later we became interested in character training, thinking that this was the most important aspect of home education. We were telling this to Genevieve, our then 22-year-old daughter, shortly after she arrived home from the States in December 2002. But she said, "No, the most important aspect of education after learning to fear God is interpersonal relationships. When we looked back on our 19 years of home education, we saw that the most enjoyable times, the times our children remember the most, the times when our input was most effective, were the times we majored on one-to-one interaction. Now this isn't rocket science: we've heard it all before, but we get to thinking and worrying about and stressing over all the "work" the children "should" be producing (we're not sure for whom) and all the "school work" we think we should be doing with them. So we do the bookwork, etc., rather than just sit and talk or play games or simply enjoy some unstructured time together because the bookwork /formal teaching scenario appears a better use of time. We now suspect most of us think this way only because we underestimate or give no value at all to the quality of our interpersonal relationships with the children and among the children. These relationships need work, for both maintenance and improvement....just like our marriages do. We should be making time for each child just as we should be doing with our spouse.
We used to let our children go to the normal range of things like youth groups, sports clubs, etc. But we had to ask the question, "Who has the personal relationship with our children?" Some children, especially those who go to school, really have no-one training them as in Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 22:6, not even their parents. Some children go to school, Sunday School, Youth Group, Children's clubs, ATC, Catechism, sports practice, the neighbours, watch a bit of TV/Videos each day. The parents get the time left over, usually when the children are rushing in the mornings and tired at night. Many of these clubs and the schools give out homework and practise exercises. So by the time the homework is done, there is no personal time for parents with their children. In fact, when the children go to all of these activities, no one person or authority has responsibility for the overall training of the children or building strong relationships with them. Consequently, the children grow up in spite of the parents, with little reference to them, their convictions, their plans, and worst of all, their responsibility before God to be responsible for their children. Is this what we want for our children. No!
Tom Eldredge in Safely Home(1) says about schools: "It is time for Christian leaders to re-examine the Word of God to discover what He has revealed regarding the education and training of children. We can no longer continue to adopt what we have learned about efficiency in our factories to the training of our children. We have developed a thirteen-year program [public schools] run by professionals and specialists in which children experience a routine of ever-changing, superficial relationships with teachers and classmates. This program teaches children some hidden messages: that no one really cares and that their life in this world is a survival-of-the fittest type existence. When these children become adults they naturally expect to experience the same types of shallow relationships."
We did not want our children to grow up as we did in these superficial and shallow relationships. After Genevieve's comment about interpersonal relationships and discussing the need to work on relationships as a family, she said the priority there was knowing one's own children. As we evaluated our family relationships, which we reckon are pretty good on the whole, we realised that we don't really know our children as well as we would like. In fact, we'd say, we don't know them the way we should: that to properly shepherd our children and have their hearts as the writer of Proverbs constantly urges, we needed to have been maintaining a close walk with them day by day. The fact that we are with them nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week doesn't mean we know them that well. It is something we specifically need to be working on daily from when they are little. We need to listen: when they read a book, they want to tell us every detail. We need to listen like it is the first time we heard it. We need to be discussing with them many of the things going on in our day. Then keep doing that when they get older. Genevieve invited us to ask all sorts of questions of her and her siblings on an ongoing basis, so we would learn all about them and what they are thinking. We need to be their best friends, not like when a parent tries to be up on all the latest teeny-bopper stuff, hoping to connect with the child in that way. We parents should be the older-wiser confidant to whom our children look first for advice because they are so comfortable and trusting of us, knowing we always have time for them and have few higher priorities than them. This starts when they are little. If your TV or newspaper or hobbies take up the prime time, and you often say you're too busy with them when your child wants your attention, they'll learn a lot sooner than you think that these things are for you higher priorities than they are. Don't let that happen! It takes constant vigilance. If you feel maybe too much water has already gone under the bridge and your children are getting older, then just begin asking questions. It is never too late. Yes, it's hard! Neither of us had any such close, warm relationships with any of our parents or siblings. We have had a hard time coming to grips with this. By God's grace our children are willing and wanting close relations, so as Craig especially began to turn his heart to the children, their hearts began to turn to him. (Malachi 4:6, Luke 1:17) What a joy to have our children wanting to have such a close relationship with us! But it takes work. We believe most children are crying out for better relationships with their parents - and that many times they do this via acts of incredible rebellion and apparent lunacy.....they are dramatic - and desperate - calls for attention. We parents need to do the drawing out, we need to take the initiative.
How can we add all of this to our lives as well as the things mentioned in previous articles! We will just stress out, crash and burn! Well, no, not necessarily. Not if we take a total new look at how we do things.
Our interest in Classical Education led us to the Bluedorns, www.triviumpursuit.com, authors of Teaching the Trivium. Their definition of Classical for the Christian includes anything that is of good form and lasting value, and which conforms to a Biblical standard within a Biblical worldview. We noticed a difference between them and other Classical enthusiasts. The difference was the way in which they looked at the ancient Classical Greek writings. Many don't conform to a Biblical standard within a Biblical worldview; that is, they're too pagan, too vile and too perverted for mixed company, let alone our children. The Bluedorn's perspective led us to investigate this further.
Tom Eldredge in Safely Home points out that the first conflict in recorded history was a battle over education. God was building a relationship with Adam and Eve. It was not quick enough for them. They took a short cut to knowledge, sacrificing their relationship with God. Eldredge says: Since then, Satan has never forgotten that man tends to sacrifice relationship for knowledge...We are so efficiency-minded today that we leave little time for things in life that take time: things like relationships, discipling our children and helping others...Our failure in the educational world exists because we have failed to understand the importance of relationships: relationships with God, relationships in the family, and relationships within the local Church.
In many respects, the gymnasium [Classical Greek schooling system] became the antithesis of the biblical and Hebraic approach to education. Where Hebrew education had stressed learning in the context of family relationships, multi-generational training, and the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, Greek education and the establishment of the gymnasium emphasized the development of the child as a creature of the state who finds his identity as an individual, not a member of a family...Traditional Hebrew education with its emphasis on a reverence for God, familial relationships, holiness, humility, and moral development was the very antithesis of the Greek ideal, with its deification of reason and its glorification of the body. The Hellenization of the Jews contributed to cultural downfall and judgment. The hearts of children turned from their parents.
The Greek system only worked by removing children from their parents and handing them over to experts who were responsible for guiding the next generation...Because much of modern education is driven by ancient Greek ideals, the Christian must be especially wary so that he can rebuild his educational philosophy on the one true Rock, Christ Jesus.
We get stuck into home schooling by doing maths, science, history, etc., building knowledge to knowledge, just as Adam and Eve did, so that our children will have a good education. But: we are to build our worldview exclusively on Holy Scripture, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. To the extent that our mature children should study classical culture and writings, it is to identify the many false philosophies and intellectual strongholds which have infected Western civilization, and against which the Christian soldier is to wage war...The extent that Classical Christian education emphasizes important biblical disciplines such as masteries of languages, logic and reasoning, history and the fundamentals of communication skills such as grammar, rhetoric and reading comprehension, we applaud it...The point is that we must have a system of education which is intensely personal, familistic and relationship driven so that virtue is added to faith, and knowledge to virtue, as required by Scripture; a system that trains the believer to 'think God's thoughts after him' through a presuppositionally biblical approach to truth; a system which rejects the idea that either our methods or our philosophy of education are neutral; and a system which emphasizes that the supreme goal of education is not simply to fill the mind with facts, or to get a credential, but to see the child 'Transformed after the image of the God who made him.'(2)
So how do we achieve all this? We've already made a marvellous start by bringing them home to educate them ourselves. As we constantly re-evaluate all things around us, we see that home education is not just for our families and us. It is for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren and for the future edification of the Church. We're just making a start, but we've done some of the hardest work of all: breaking with the pattern of the world to more closely follow Christ ourselves and disciple our children for Him. This is by far the most valuable and far-reaching aspect of our home education. As we re-evaluate our activities, we will find we'll need to assign new priorities to things like spending time with our children and building personal relationships with them. We may find some things high on the priority list at present may get moved down or bumped off altogether; perhaps items such as striving for a top position in academia or earning top dollar and credibility within the business community. We pray the Lord will give us all the vision and the courage to do what will bring Him glory in the raising of our children. "Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments! His descendants will be mighty in the land." - Psalm 112:1-2.
Keeping Going When the Going Gets Tough - Part 7
by Craig and Barbara Smith
Life is just so busy, and at this time of the year it just gets even busier. Why is this always so? Is this good for us? Is it good for our children? Is there anything we can do about it? Should we be doing anything about it? How do we slow down in the 21st century? How can we do as Psalm 46:10 says: "Be still, and know that I am God."?
In the midst of all this busyness, can we say that the Lord is our refuge? Are we safe under the shelter of His wings? Do our souls wait in silence for God alone, for the hope of our salvation? Are we pouring our hearts out before God? Do our souls thirst for God? Do we have trouble sleeping at night because we are meditating on the Lord and just can't get Him out of our minds? Does our soul cling to Him? These verses from Psalms 61-63 have been a challenge to me over recent weeks. We need to "Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us." - Psalm 62:8. In all our busyness shouldn't we be pouring our hearts out to God for our spouses, our families, our community, the world and ourselves? Not just a casual prayer once or twice a day, but praying constantly as in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Wouldn't it be marvellous if we could say with the Psalmist, "My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night; for thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to thee; thy right hand upholds me." - Psalm 63:5-8. Let us be refreshed in the Lord daily and "Be still" when we can during the busy days ahead.
So, in practical terms, how can we slow down? We'll assume we are agreed: we need to spend time with our Saviour and to train our children to do this as well. Psalm 78:1-8.
There are areas in our lives that we can take a long look at to see if we are doing the best with our time and talents. There are so many good things out there to be involved in, so many needs to be met and so few willing people to meet them. Some of these things are very good and if nobody takes them on, they'll crash. We can't imagine Project A crashing, it's so worthy, so we add it to our busy load.
Stop right here. Let each of us take an honest look at our involvements and commitments. List them out. Are we making the best use of our talents and gifts in the context of those duties to which our God has clearly called us? This is a very difficult one to discern sometimes, for we are trying to discern the best on this side from the best over here. We can only do this with God's help: Proverbs 16:25 says, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." Suddenly we see that we must spend that time with the Lord simply to ensure any of our involvements are right in the Lord's sight. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths." - Proverbs 3:5-6. This will mean different kinds of involvements for different people because God created us as a body with many parts.
Support Groups When Craig and I began home schooling Genevieve in 1985, socialization was one of the main issues. (It hasn't changed much, has it, except that today most home educators would say character training is the biggie, while the normal concern of group socialization is a non-issue.) Over the years we've had contact with a number of home education support groups in New Zealand and the USA. Every one wanted to go on field trips and have all sorts of activities for the children. Many groups have been quite successful at this, often having several activities in a week, all to give the children great socialisation opportunities. The problem (in NZ or the USA) was that it seemed to fall on the same people week after week to organise the activities. Some activities would be well supported, others not, but either way, it meant the same workload for the organisers. Over time these leaders/organisers would burn out or give up. The good (serving others in organising socialization activities) caused the best (home educating their own children) to be compromised or discontinued altogether.
Over and over we've also heard it said that the families who went to all the activities were often the families with the naughtiest children. So much for socialisation! Older parents began to see that children need consistent discipline, which is best accomplished when their surroundings are constant rather than constantly changing. In other words, younger children especially became insecure and confused about their boundaries when the surroundings and the accompanying rules kept changing. Few parents can be so disciplined themselves as to clearly and consistently set new boundaries for their children for every occasion, several times a week, especially when a new mix of peer children would be calling them to a new set of spontaneous extra-curricular socialisation experiences.
So what is the function of a good Support Group? I believe support groups are for the parents, not the children. Parents need encouragement to get started in home education and to keep going. Workshops, Conferences, Seminars and camps are ideal.
When we began home educating, there was virtually nothing like this going on. Craig and I began to put on two- and three-day National Christian Home Schooling Conferences, with programmes for the entire family, the first in 1987, the last in 1996. While the feedback was always very positive, the logistics and costs to the families attending were considerable. But the overall organisational and logistical workload was a nightmare, with the children's programmes many times more work than the catering and adults' programme combined. And guess what? The children's programmes were exactly like the school outings we went through the exemption process to escape: no individual attention, too many badly behaved children due to a small number of minders who were not as familiar with or committed to the children as the parents would be, restrictive timetables, minimum time for each child per activity which didn't begin to satisfy the curiosity of some or even begin to pique the curiosity of others. We as organisers would be exhausted afterward, and our own children's home education efforts had been shelved for at least a fortnight both before and after the event.
Today's smaller and more local one-day workshops, happening with spontaneity and regularity in many areas of New Zealand, appear to us to return much greater value for the much lighter workloads involved. People can attend more than one a year, rather than waiting for the one big one we used to do every second year. The few activities that do require a large group of children: a proper athletics competition, a Home and Country Show, a drama production, etc., are still being run by support groups. But the many smaller support groups springing up everywhere, some composed mostly of a local church congregation, often have the activities and field trips back where they belong: among the home schooling families who actually want them. Like-minded families are clubbing together for these as they want them, rather than an organiser putting something on to fill the blank in the events calendar for the month and hoping people show up. Organisers aren't put out when few turn up, and those who don't really want to attend don't feel bad about not supporting the organiser's efforts. The generally smaller groups are finding that this is a much better way to go. And the children are better socialised and the overall stress is nil compared to doing stuff for a large group of children.
Church
The way our churches are structured today can cause a lot of stress in our families with a different family member at a meeting of some sort at Church most nights of the week. When is the family at home together? Very little. Preserving our family time together is precious, for it has become such a rare commodity. This family time will become even more difficult to preserve, and yet even more precious and necessary, as our children get older. Our family knows full well what it means to be booked out every day and night of the week. Having thought about it a fair bit, we've concluded we need to see ourselves more as a family unit and to be involved in the Church as a family unit rather than as individuals.
Eric Wallace in Uniting Church and Home - A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community(1) says:
What I see happening in churches of all denominations is a movement away from the hurried, superficial, age-segregated, activity-laden ministry. They are moving toward a whole different approach that centers on freeing up the body to build godly households through heart-level relationships and age-integrated ministry. The equipping that people need cannot be provided through the traditional age-segregated approach. Strong households are the core of strong churches, and strong churches are the foundation for outreach to our communities, nation, and the world.
Howard Snyder tells us in his book, Liberating the Church, "If the church is seen primarily as an institution, its ministry will be largely institutional and program-oriented. But if the church is viewed as a community, its ministry will be person-oriented, focusing on building structures of human interaction. And in this perspective, the structures of family, church and neighbourhood are most basic."
Ministry that occurs outside of the home, generally speaking, is ministry that is out of touch with everyday life. I think this is why there is such an emphasis placed on hospitality in the New Testament. If you want to get to know someone, visit them! Have them over for dinner! It is difficult to know what someone's needs are if we can't see them in everyday life. Hospitality is not difficult. It involves seeing the daily activities of the home as expressions of God's sovereign rule in our lives. In its simplest form, it is inviting people to our home for lodging, meals, activities or just a visit.
A household approach to ministry places an emphasis on building biblical households in which parents disciple their children and "adopt" other members of the congregation who do not have families, and where fathers practice spiritual leadership in the home. In effect, the leadership begins to work through fathers and mothers instead of working around them. Discovering the church as a household will impress people outside our churches because they see Christians loving and serving each other. They will not have to wait to hear the Romans Road, The Four Spiritual Laws or Evangelism Explosion. They will see it with their eyes and hear it with their ears! They will say, "Wow!"
By thinking through our activities and reducing where possible, we have found we now have more time for the important things we believe God would have us do. We worship God at church together as a family twice each Sunday; we worship God together as a family after every meal each day. We are involved in the Church as a family, and we are involved with the community as a family. Our fellowship with other believers and our evangelism are centred in hospitality in our home or our friends' homes. Our support group activities are more Church orientated now, and our involvement with the local Home Education Support Group is more on a parent-to-parent basis. We have stopped to think about what we are teaching our children and what will be passed on to the generations after them. We are working at having time to "Be Still, and know that [He is] God."
Note:
1. Available from the Home Education Foundation
In part 5 we looked at Parental Reading, how it is one of the most important aspects of Home Educating our children. It follows after: developing an attitude of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever; working on our marriages so that they reflect the relationship of Christ and His Church; and the need for us to be consistent in the way we discipline our children.
Realising that the reading habits of us parents are so important, we now need to look at what we parents read. It should be obvious that some books are better than others. What isn’t so obvious are the guidelines one should use to decide what’s worth reading and what’s not and whether we should use the same guidelines for ourselves as we use for the children’s reading.
I had difficulty with this at first. Once I started reading in earnest, I ended up buying way too many Historical Fiction novels. These are OK in small doses, but we need to learn to be more discerning. We need to ask questions like:
1. Are all Christian books good?
2. Are all Classical books good?
3. Are all Non-Christian books bad?
The answer to all three questions is, “Definitely, no!”
Two books that helped me understand the issues here are The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn1 and Teaching the Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn.2
Reasoning Skills
Why did the Bluedorn brothers, sons of Harvey and Laurie, write The Fallacy Detective? “We see a need for Christians to strive for a higher standard of reasoning. We believe God wants His people to become aware of their lack of discernment, and logic is an important part of the science of discernment. For instance, many Christians adopt beliefs and practices without properly evaluating the arguments which are used to support them. We need to rediscover the way of the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures daily to see if the apostles’ teachings were true (Acts 17:10-11)... We will never be as logical as the Lord Jesus Christ was, but we must work at it... Logic is the science of thinking the way God thinks – the way Jesus taught us to think. Remember, most people never study good thinking skills. So people who take on this quest of learning logic are breaking out of the mould, and this takes courage. It also takes humility. But most of all it takes self-discipline.”
Nathaniel and Hans wrote this book so we parents could improve our thinking and reasoning skills and could then teach these essential skills to our children. They’ve put together 36 lessons on how to recognize bad reasoning. Once through the lessons we should be able to:
1. Put a high value on good reasoning;
2. Know how to spot many forms of bad reasoning;
3. Know how to avoid using many fallacies in our own reasoning.
Discernment Skills
In Teaching the Trivium Harvey & Laurie Bluedorn draw a distinction between “humanist classics” on the one hand and a broader definition of “classics” on the other. The former are generally understood to be “noted works and authors of ancient Greek and Roman literature.” The broader definition includes anything that “is of good form and lasting value – regardless of the time period.” Consequently you will find for yourself good, edifying reading material – “classics” – among the Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation as well as Modern time periods. The Bluedorns point out that because the two criteria for a classic piece of literature, “good form and lasting value”, are so subjective, no one can be said to have the final word on what should be counted “in” and what is “out”. Ultimately, as good stewards of all Christ has given us to use for His glory – our time, our own and our children’s hearts and minds – each of us needs to take responsibility for what works of literature we determine constitute “good form” and which ones we determine constitute “lasting value”.
The Bluedorns give further liberating advice regarding what other people recommend:
“You will find numerous lists of classics, great books, recommended reading, desired reading for college, required reading for cultural literacy and so forth. We would collapse in financial and emotional bankruptcy if we read all of the books on these lists. Some suggest that we should at least be familiar with the substance – the plots and characters, the themes and contents – of all the books on these lists. It is not possible for the ordinary person to do that and also have a life.” As the Bluedorns suggest, perhaps we need to come up with our own lists. What criteria do we use to place a book on the list or leave it off? “In the end we must bring all classics into obedience to serve Christ, or they are useless. If we cannot use them to promote the Biblical standard with the Biblical worldview, then we cannot use them.”
Harvey and Laurie tell how they got themselves weaned off of depending on lists provided by others. “We were using a curriculum which required the reading of Greek mythology. Our children observed that it was full of immorality, and they did not think they should be reading it. We had never read it, but we trusted the curriculum and suspected that they wanted to escape the assignment – until we read it! We repented. It did not agree with our principles on how to evaluate literature. Require your child to read those classical works which agree with your family’s principles and forget the rest. There are a large number of classical works which are good reading, and there is only so much time in the day.
“When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they were commanded to wipe out all of the Canaanite literature (Numbers 33:51,52). In the New Testament the repentant Ephesians burned their books of sorcery (Acts 19:19). It does not say that they burned all of the books there were but only that there were some books which, regardless of their worldly worth, were better burnt. Likewise, there may be some things which the world considers of ‘literary value,’ but which, because of their ability to cause little ones to stumble, we are better off leaving alone until a mature age, or, in some cases, leaving alone altogether (Matthew 5:29,30). We must be willing to give up everything of this world before we can redeem any of it back for the Lord’s use (Luke 14:33). The world’s values cannot be our values.”
Teaching the Trivium goes into detail on each of these Ten Principles for choosing what to read:
1. Do what is pleasing to the Lord (Colossians 1:10, Hebrews 11:6).
2. Do not follow the world (Romans 12:2).
3. Do not allow the world to follow you (James 1:27, Proverbs 4:23).
4. There is only so much time in the day (Colossians 4:5).
5. Older does not necessarily mean better (Colossians 2:8).
6. Is this profitable? (1 Corinthians 6:12,13, 1 Timothy 1:8).
7. Does this promote good habits? (1 Corinthians 6:12).
8. Will reading this further my education? (1 Corinthians 10:23; Proverbs 4:14,15; Ephesians 5:11,12).
9. Does this material have lasting value? (1 Corinthians 7:31).
10. When in doubt, leave it out (Romans 14:23).
“We all recognise that it is necessary to draw the line somewhere, but sometimes it can be difficult to see where that line should be drawn. There is no rule book which gives us exhaustive directions. Different situations call for different judgments, and those judgments must be made in a mature way by applying sound principles.” The Bluedorns go on to explain some of the borderline areas where lines will need to be drawn:
1. Between the sacred and the profane.
2. Between the godly and the ungodly.
3. Between the decent and the indecent.
4. Between what is appropriate for children and what adults may be able to tolerate.
5. Between the worthwhile and the worthless.
6. Between the good and the best.
7. Between the best and the best.
We also need to be aware of the worldview of the writer of the book we are reading. Sometimes we can read a biography of a person by two different authors, and it would seem that we are reading about two different people! This demonstrates that the worldviews of the authors, how they perceive, judge and value the elements of their subject’s life, are radically different. Knowing the worldview of the author will let us know first of all whether we should be reading the book at all. It can also help us to be more discerning, to perhaps question some of the writer’s statements rather than just accept them if we know he does not have a Biblical worldview. Three books that have helped me to be more aware of the different worldviews and how it effects my reading are: Understanding The Times or Battle for the Truth both by Dr David A Noebel and Let Us Highly Resolve by David Quine3
So by becoming discerning readers we will be able to keep going when the going gets tough. The reading we will be doing will be encouraging us, building us up, giving us new ideas for Home Educating our children, making us more interesting for our spouse and children, giving us new visions and motivation for Home Education, showing us how to train our children in the way that they should go and drawing us nearer to God where we can be refreshed/built up in our relationship with Him.
Notes:
1. The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn. Available from: Home Education Foundation; see ad on page 18 or visit www.christianlogic.com
2. Teaching The Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn. Available from Home Education Foundation; see ad on page 18 or visit www.triviumpursuit.com
3. Understanding the Times, Battle For The Truth and Let us Highly Resolve are available from Christian Education Services, 55 Richards Ave, Forrest Hill, North Shore City, New Zealand. Ph/Fax (09) 410-3933 email: cesbooks@intouch.co.nz , www.cesbooks.co.nz
So far in this series of articles we have briefly looked at:
1. The need to improve our personal relationship with God: to be going to Him with all our needs, frustrations, hurts, joys - everything - and finding satisfaction in Him. To glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
2. Our marriages are to reflect the relationship of Christ and His Church. Such a high standard requires us continually to work in every area of our marriages, for something will always require a bit of attention.
3. We need to be consistent in the way we discipline our children.
Being on top, or at least making progress in each of these areas, will help prevent burnout. It may sound contradictory, that to prevent yourself from stressing out too much you need to take on other projects you're not currently working on, but it's true! Being fully occupied with minor things, even though they are good things, is a huge source of stress when it causes us to neglect the really major things.
This brings us to the fourth area that we as parents need to be concentrating on - our own development. Over the years Craig and I have recognised the truth indicated in Deuteronomy 6:1-6: that Home Education is all about us parents first, then our children. If we are going to be giving out day by day, we need to be taking in day by day, or the well is going to run dry.
This self-development is best done through our own reading. So often we hear parents saying, "Oh, I don't have time for personal reading." We must make that time...it is, after all, that "time for yourself" everyone seems to advise us to take. And that time for reading must be taken away from something else.
The writers in Classical Education - The Home School say, "And we state emphatically, again, that the reading of the teacher is more important than the reading of the student. If the teacher reads as he should, the reading of the student will naturally fall into place."
These writers also say, "...as diligent parents, we are confronted with two areas which stand out with respect to the necessity of hard work. The first is the necessity of reading, and reading some more. A person can successfully sell someone else on a vacuum cleaner without reading, but he cannot sell someone else on books without reading. Education is the process of selling someone on books. Parents who will not read simply cannot be equipped to supply a classical and Christian education for their children.
"As the task of educating yourself and your children continues and broadens, you will always have a need for more books. And once your reading has begun in earnest, and you have gone down some of the bibliographic trails suggested by that reading, you will soon be in a position to start compiling your own book lists...We should remember that with such preparatory reading, a good pace to maintain is to try and finish a book every week or two. This may seem intimidating at first, and if it were considered a hobby, it would be overwhelming. But the task is the education of your children, which is not a hobby but a vocation. The word vocation comes from the Latin verb voco, which means 'I call'. A person's vocation is his calling; a parent's vocation is to learn in order to teach."1
After I left school, I hardly read a book at all. When I was around The Navigators in the '70s, I was challenged to read a book a month. I found it a struggle, perhaps because I was committed to reading the Bible through once a year during this time. Once we got married, I was busy with babies, and reading the Bible in a year seemed to be all I could manage. In the mid-'90s I became interested in Classical Education and began to read a bit more. After reading the book Classical Education - The Home School, I was challenged to read a whole bunch more. This reading gave me the confidence to Home Educate our children. Teaching The Trivium is a must for a Christian home educators reading list.
I don't think I will ever reach the reading habit of Summit Minitries' Dr David Noebel: one book a day. But I am in the middle of about 12 or 13 books that I am reading to myself, plus three books that I am reading to the boys and one to Charmagne. Craig and I are still reading a book together. Craig has always been a reader. Now with both of us reading, there is plenty of material for discussion. Not only that, our children are also avid readers. The older ones read much faster than I. This is frustrating for me, but I am very pleased for them. I will never even get through all the books in our personal library. But I am excited that our children will be able to have a good go at it. Even though Jeremiah, at 11, is not reading for pleasure yet, he has the desire and love of books his older siblings have. For example, when we are planning a trip, he will put out half a dozen books for himself to read on the way should his reading skills suddenly click into place....he wants to have enough books on hand to keep him going.
Andrew Sandlin writes: "When I first encounter a book I intend to read, I do what Mortimer Adler calls 'inspectional reading.' His book How to Read a Book, is an outstanding work; and it is probably the definitive work in this field. By inspectional reading, I mean what some people call "skimming". I will read the table of contents, any chapter subheadings, the blurb on the back cover, the book jacket's inside and outside flaps (although I am careful here, since these promotional blurbs are not always an accurate description of the contents!) and even glance over the index. The problem with people who skip the inspectional phase of reading, as Adler notes, is that they are forced to learn the book's general content while they are reading it. This is silly, unnecessary and counter productive. If you have a general idea of the author's thesis, you are much more likely to understand his detailed, sustained argument. In short, you should know the writer's viewpoint and thesis before you start reading his book.
"I get a pen and straight edge (and sometimes highlighter) and start reading. When I encounter especially memorable statements, or those I intend to cite or refer to later, I underline them and put words and other notations (like stars) in the margin. I have never encountered a reader who marks up the text of his books as much as I do - there probably is somebody out there; it's just that I haven't met him. Not only do I underscore; I use brackets, carets and braces; I annotate all four margins, and I copiously turn down the edges (both top and bottom) of certain especially memorable pages....My wife Sharon once chided me when she saw how my marking had massacred a page, 'Why do you do that? Now, nobody else will be able to read it!' 'Precisely,' I responded. 'This is my book. It is not meant for other people to read. Let them get their own copy.' This is why I rarely read library or any other borrowed books - if I can't mark a book, I simply don't read it."2
Reading the previous two paragraphs by Rev Sandlin for me was so liberating. I now mark the books I read to my heart's content! This has greatly helped me find important or interesting things again so that I can use it or point others to it. Recently Diana Waring gave me a signed copy of her new book Reaping the Harvest. She had written such a nice note in it that I decided to read it without marking it. I regret that now. I told Diana that I would write a book review of it, but I now have to re-read the book - marking it this time! And I know I'll use it more if I mark the many things that impressed me. I also find I enjoy reading books after Craig has as I can see the things that have caught his eye, and it helps me to appreciate him more and can be a source of discussion for us.
I now want to quote Mr. Adler at length:
"People go to sleep over good books not because they are unwilling to make the effort, but because they do not know how to make it. Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up to their level. It is not the stretching that tires you, but the frustration of stretching unsuccessfully because you lack the skill to stretch effectively. To keep on reading actively, you must have not only the will to do so, but also the skill...the art that enables you to elevate yourself by mastering what at first sight seems to be beyond you.
"If you have the habit of asking a book questions as you read, you are a better reader than if you do not. But, as we have indicated, merely asking questions is not enough. You have to try to answer them.... The pencil then becomes the sign of your alertness while you read...Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake-not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words. Spoken or written.
"The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.
"Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject that you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to be willing to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
"There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here are some devices that can be used:
1. Underlining
2. Vertical lines at the margin
3. Star, asterisk, or other doodad at the margin
4. Numbers in the margin
5. Numbers of other pages in the margin
6. Circling of key words or phrases
7. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page
(See Adler's book for an expansion of these ideas.)
"The endpapers at the back of the book can be used to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance. To inveterate book-markers, the front endpapers are often the most important. Some people reserve them for a fancy bookplate. But that expresses only their financial ownership of the book. The front endpapers are better reserved for a record of your thinking. After finishing the book and making your personal index on the back endpapers, turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page or point by point (you have already done that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic outline and an order of parts. That outline will be the measure of your understanding of the work; unlike a bookplate, it will express your intellectual ownership of the book.
"Any art or skill is possessed by those who have formed a habit of operating according to its rules. This is the way the artist or craftsman in any field differs from those who lack his skill...Reading is like skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and skiing are graceful, harmonious activities. When done by a beginner, both are awkward, frustrating and slow...It is hard to learn to read well. Not only is reading, especially analytical reading, a very complex activity - much more complex than skiing; it is also much more of a mental activity. The beginning skier must think of physical acts that he can later forget and perform almost automatically. It is relatively easy to think of and be conscious of physical acts. It is much harder to think of mental acts, as the beginning analytical reader must do; in a sense, he is thinking about his own thoughts. Most of us are unaccustomed to doing this. Nevertheless, it can be done, and a person who does it cannot help learning to read much better.
"Every book has a skeleton hidden between its covers. Your job as an analytical reader is to find it. A book comes to you with flesh on its bare bones and clothes over its flesh. It is all dressed up. You do not have to undress it or tear the flesh off its limbs to get at the firm structure that underlies the soft surface. But you must read the book with X-ray eyes, for it is an essential part of your apprehension of any book to grasp its structure.
"Cervantes may or may not have been right in saying, 'There is no book so bad but something good may be found in it.' It is more certain that there is no book so good that no fault can be found with it."3
Home Educating parents must be readers. This could mean radical changes at home. Reading to our children and personal reading are usually the first disciplines, the first victims, sacrificed to the TV and VCR. As we said at the beginning, reading time must be taken from somewhere else: try taking it from these two, "redeeming the time for the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16).
Notes:
1. From: Classical Education-The Home School. By Douglas Wilson, Wesley Callihan and Douglas Jones. Available from Geneva Books.
2. Chalcedon Report, No. 439, March 2002, "On Reading Books" by Rev. P. Andrew Sandlin, www.chalcedon.edu.
We will find it really difficult to home educate/disciple our children if we do not have a system in place for disciplining/training them. In fact, to produce a disciple of Jesus Christ takes another disciple of Jesus Christ, one who has himself been disciplined and trained. That is, Christian discipline starts with us parents.
Tedd Tripp in Shepherding a Child’s Heart says that :
You must shepherd his (your child’s) thoughts, helping him to learn discernment and wisdom. This shepherding process is a richer interaction than telling your child what to do and think. It involves investing your life in your child in open and honest communication that unfolds the meaning and purpose of life. It is not simply direction, but direction in which there is self-disclosure and sharing. Values and spiritual vitality are not simply taught, but caught. Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with the wise becomes wise." As a wise parent your objective is not simply to discuss, but to demonstrate the freshness and vitality of life lived in integrity toward God and our family. Parenting is shepherding the hearts of your children in the ways of God’s wisdom.
If you are to really help him, you must be concerned with the attitudes of heart that drive his behaviour. We demand changed behaviour and never address the heart that drives the behaviour. What must you do in correction and discipline? You must require proper behaviour. God’s law demands that. You cannot, however, be satisfied to leave the matter there. You must understand, and help your child to understand, how his straying heart has resulted in wrong behaviour. How did his heart stray to produce this behaviour? In what characteristic ways has his inability or refusal to know, trust and obey God resulted in actions and speech that are wrong?
Remember that Proverbs 4:23 instructs you that the heart is the fountain from which life flows. Your child’s heart determines how he responds to your parenting. Training and shepherding are going on whenever you are with your children. Whether waking, walking, talking or resting, you must be involved in helping your child to understand life, himself and his needs from a biblical perspective (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).Genesis 18 calls fathers to direct their children to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.
Then most importantly Tripp says, "Many parents lack a biblical view of discipline. They tend to think of discipline as revenge or getting even with the children for what they did. Hebrews 12 makes it clear that discipline is not punitive, but corrective. Hebrews 12 calls discipline a word of encouragement that addresses sons. It says discipline is a sign of God’s identification with us as our Father. God disciplines us for our good that we might share in His holiness. It says that while discipline is not pleasant, but painful, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace. Rather than being something to balance love, it is the deepest expression of love."
"What is the first rule for disciplining children? You must have more discipline than the child." This quote came from Lou Priolo’s book The Heart of Anger. This is so true. In our home Craig and I use the 4 Ds of discipline to help us in this task. It helps us to be and to appear more disciplined because they are so easy to remember. Making up rule after rule on an ad hoc basis is useless: "If you bounce that ball in the house again, I’ll take it from you for a week." "If you don’t turn that thing down, you won’t be allowed to have it on for a month." Your children will remember every detail of every one of those rules made by you on the spot…..but will you? If you don’t back your threats up with action, you are teaching your children to both disregard your authority and to gamble with disobedience. The fallen nature of our children making sin attractive is bad enough without us adding the addictive gambling attraction of, "Can I get away with it this time or not?"
These 4 Ds are to help us identify heart issues of rebellion as opposed to maturity issues of clumsiness and mistakes. Rebellion is sinfulness or what is at times called foolishness, as in Proverbs 22:15: "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him." When this rebellious heart attitude, or foolishness, which the Bible tells me is part of my child’s makeup, manifests itself, this Scripture tells me it must be driven out with the rod of correction. We take that to mean a spanking, applying a stripe across the backside with a rod. Backside means buttocks, clothed not bared. It does not mean back, legs arms, torso or head. Rod means not your hand but something light and flexible which also doubles as a symbol of authority, like a septer.
A key objective of parenting is shepherding our children’s hearts, not just controlling their behaviour. It is important, therefore, that any discipline should be used for training the heart of the child, driving the foolishness out so that it does not become a permanent fixture. The discipline is not to be used for our "convenience" as a quick way to shut them up or get our own back or unload our anger or frustration. In fact, if any of these things are the motivating factors of the "discipline", whether that "discipline" be of a corporal nature or yelling or sarcasm or removing privileges, that "discipline" is not corrective, but retributive. It has jumped from the track of discipline onto the track of child abuse.
The 4 Ds of Discipline are:
1. Disobedience
2. Disrespect
3. Dishonesty
4. Destructiveness
Craig and I use the rod of correction — or call it Biblical chastisement, the discipline of spanking, corporal correction — when we see any of these four things in their behaviour. Now, dropping a dish so it breaks while setting the table and tossing a dish into the air so it breaks when you smash it with a baseball bat are both destructive: but one displays a heart attitude of destructiveness while the other is an accidental act of clumsiness. One needs a spanking to drive that lousy attitude out, the other may only need a bit of light verbal admonition to please be more careful, or not to carry so many dishes at once or whatever.
So consistent discipline "yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" — Heb. 12:11. Inconsistent discipline breeds contempt for you and your authority: "Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" — Ecclesiastes 9:11. No discipline is a disaster: "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother" — Proverbs 29:15. And so-called "discipline" motivated by anger, frustration and the like is just plain abuse: "For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God" — James 1:20 and "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death" — Proverbs 14:12.
The beauty of consistent discipline is that by doing some hard work now, it means a lot less work later on. There is no way that sending our children to school "because I can’t discipline them" will make it any easier. If we are not motivated enough to discipline our own child properly, how on earth can we rationally expect anyone else to be? We parents each need to get on top of the disciplining of our children ourselves.
I have gone for long periods where I focused on the discipline and not the home educating. At such times, whatever studies and work we get done is a blessing and a bonus! Even so, my main focus is always on the discipline, for if that is not right, no academics will be accomplished anyway. At the moment I am working on my son’s attitude and his tendency to be disrespectful. We (the children and I) learn verses like:
Philippians 2:14: "Do all things without grumbling or questioning."
Proverbs 21:23: "He who keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble."
Proverbs 22:15: "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him."
Colossians 3:20: "Children, obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord."
Psalm 141:3: "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, Keep watch over the door of my lips."
So when Jeremiah has a bad attitude, I drop everything and deal with it. Sometimes it requires that I do this over and over in a single day. Getting on top of his attitude is more important than his times tables; i.e., if he never learns his times tables yet has a good attitude, I reckon that is better than him learning his times tables and having a bad attitude. But we aim to get on top of his attitude and master the times tables as well. I know: it is a pain and a hassle having to stop and deal with bad attitudes, disobedience, whining and complaining, getting their own ways, etc. But it is a hassle not dealing with them, too…..a much bigger and uglier hassle, one that only gets worse, if you ask me. Our younger children see all this, and are also being trained by it. However, I was concerned that Jeremiah was still needing to be spanked at 8.
Diet
Then I remembered Sharyn in Wanganui, a home schooling mother we had known for a long time, and thought that it was about time I gave her a ring. You see, Sharyn is associated with the Wanganui Allergy and Hyperactivity Awareness Association (Inc.). Maybe Jeremiah’s behaviour was food related. I talked with Sharyn for about 30 minutes, and at the end of our converstion she put Jeremiah on a very restrictive special diet. Actually it is an elimination diet. We took out of Jeremiah’s diet a lot of foods and other household products for a period of time and have since been testing these as we slowly try to introduce them back in one at a time over several days. We have found that nearly every time we introduce something new, Jeremiah has a bad reaction to it. So Sharyn’s strict diet seems right for him. The amazing thing to us is that whereas Jeremiah couldn’t seem to control his bahaviour before, he can control what he eats, and this actually helps control his behaviour! He actually polices it better than we do. He is in control, in a round about way, of his behaviour because he can control what he eats. Sharyn is happy for people who suspect their child’s behaviour could be food related to contact her at phone (06) 345-8393 or email cabri@xtra.co.nz.
Movement
I want to finish this article talking about another book that I am reading at the moment: Pain Free for Women: The Revolutionary Program for Ending Chronic Pain by Pete Egoscue with Roger Gittines, authors of Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC. This book is not written from a Biblical World View, but it does have some wise insights. The authors say things like:
Children from five to twelve years old are supposed to be hyperactive. They are intended to be nearly non-stop motion machines...Step by step and hand over hand, children build mental capacity and competency as they move....Children in motion also experience an interplay between activities that require finer eye-hand coordination and those that call for gross locomotor skills.....If the child gets less than 90 minutes a day of energetic free play, then there’s not much chance that his musculo-sketetal system will remain functional. With 90 minutes or more — preferably more, and with the activity broken into morning, afternoon, and evening segments — children, even those who didn’t get enough crawling time as infants and toddlers, can develop and maintain full musculoskeletal system function.
We need to look at our children’s behaviour and determine if they are just being normal, active children, perhaps requiring a bit of coaching in self-control at appropriate times, or are they displaying in some of their hyper-activities a heart attitude that needs to be dealt with? Are they normal, active children just having fun, or are they being deliberately Disobedient, Disrespectful, Dishonest or Destructive? If they appear to be chronically rebellious, constantly displaying one of the 4 Ds, could it be rebellion made worse by food intolerances or allergies? Or now that we’ve got them sitting reasonably still, do we require them to be this peaceful and "good" for unreasonable lengths of time at the expense of their need for active motion?
The authors of Pain Free write:
Parents who feel frustrated by an unruly child and are genuinely concerned that the youngster is losing ground educationally and socially need to take a hard look at these so-called symptoms and ask questions. Among them:
1. How much energetic free play does the child get each day?
2. If left to choose his activities, does he run, jump, climb, crawl?
3. Does he sleep through the night?
4. Does he get enough sleep?
5. Does his hyperactivity follow sedentary periods?
6. Do his focus and attention span improve after a period of energetic activity?
7. Are you feeding him a diet high in salt, sugar, nitrates, caffeine, dyes and other chemicals?
8. How many hours of TV (or videos) does he watch each day?
9. How structured are his routine and his environment?
10. As a parent, how much time do you spend with him in energetic, unstrcutured play and interaction?
This line of inquiry has two purposes. The first is to determine whether the child is just trying to blow off steam and behave like a normal, active and functional six- to twelve-year-old in a modern motionless world. The second is to find out if the symptoms are caused by musculoskeletal system dysfunction rather than a disorder that requires drug therapy. I have to admit that there is a downside to functional children. They are a handful, two hands full. The world is their playground. The upside, however, is that they are healthy, strong, and smart.
We need to be training our children in the spiritual as well as the physical. I Timothy 4:8: "For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."
As we work on the spiritual training of our children, we also need to keep in mind the physical training. We need to think, "Is this physical behaviour from lack of exercise and motion, as a result of eating the wrong foods, or is it a heart issue?" Are one or more of the 4 Ds being displayed in this situation, or do we need to take something out of the child’s diet? Or do we simply need to go outside with our children, let off some steam and unwind with a good old game of tag or hide and seek? Whatever action you take, it’s probably best to get out and play that game of tag as well! Try it!
We were horrified to discover, after the last issue of Keystone was printed, that the last two lines of Part 2’s article were chopped off! The final paragraph should have read:
"And may God richly bless us all as we seek to be obedient to Him in our desire to please Him in our marriages. Let us remember to continue to meet the needs of our spouses we are already meeting well. Then work at improving how we meet other needs. We do these things, as difficult as they sometimes are, for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of our marriages, for the sake of our children….but knowing that we personally also benefit by enjoying the fruit of a more peaceful, enjoyable and satisfying marriage partner from now on!"
This is a tall order. This is something that we need to be continually working at. We will never get to the point where we will be able to just coast along: something is always changing, and we can let things change by themselves (the doctrine of original sin and the second law of thermal dynamics both say the change will be downhill) or we can work with the changes in an effort to ensure the overall effect is beneficial. The lists and books that we have mentioned in these and other articles are merely tools for us to use. None can claim to be exhaustive lists, fool-proof formulas for success or items that will necessarily suit our current needs. They are tools for us to use to help get us onto a better track, to help us come to grips with Biblical principles that we need to be applying to our lives. Sometimes people try to use books or lists of ideas as a quick fix for marriage difficulties. It doesn’t work like that. There are no quick fix methods (in this quick fix age) for getting our marriages back on track once we get stuck in a briar patch of thorny problems. We also believe that all marriages have difficulties of some sort. Good marriages call for hard work and a need to be doing what we know is right. We two just want to mention again that the most difficult part for us getting on track again with our marriage was the decision we made together to do so.
Craig will now mention what he has been sharing at workshops about the clinical part of getting our marriage on track again. For us this was a key to begin communicating again......
We’d tried talking about the difficulties, but always went round and round in circles. This is what happens when neither is willing to admit to their failures, but is more concerned with finding fault with the other. This is especially hard for me (Craig), for in the final analysis I am the one to carry the full responsibility as head of the household, head of the marriage. It was imperative to find someone we could trust, a godly man of Biblical wisdom and maturity, to whom we could bring our difficulties, laying them on the table for him to see and give counsel, a man unafraid of offending us by telling us the truth! The description I used at the time was someone who would use a two-by-four to whack us between the eyes, who would pull out his six-shooters and give us both barrels, who would not handle us with velvet gloves for we are not very good at taking hints, but need it spelled out in no uncertain terms. Our counselor did exactly that: told us what terrible sinners we were against God and each other, how we had been defrauding one another in our attitudes, how we had some serious confessions to make to one another and to God, and how I especially had better start shouldering my responsibilities, taking charge and start working on some solutions with Barbara who had better be a lot more cooperative.
The first challenge was to read a book together. And discuss it. And work out applications, that is, things we were going to start doing that we hadn’t been doing. Our initial list has on it signs of affection which I (Craig) needed to start performing, even in public: holding hands, giving a hug, buying flowers. "Give me a break!" I said. These things will now seem cold and clinical because each of us will know I’m doing it only because the book suggested it; these acts won’t be "spontaneous" or "from the heart" and therefore not properly valid. They’ll be fake tokens of affection, not real ones.
Well, the fact is, just as Naaman’s servant in II Kings 5 convinced Naaman that he had nothing to lose from doing something so simple as dipping seven times into the Jordan River to fix his problem, I decided holding hands wasn’t so hard to do. The truth is, I really wanted to hold hands like we used to do when courting. But now things were different, I said to myself, and went through the arm-chair psychologist routine for a bit. Look, just forget all the analysis stuff; it’s all just an attempt to make excuses anyway. Just hold her hand, you big oaf!
The act of showing such signs of affection, even after they’d long been dropped, even when they’d probably appear to be mere clinical actions, demonstrates a commitment to making things better, a commitment to Barbara, a commitment to changing my habits and routines for her sake. I tell you what, there is more meaning in our holding hands now, more significance, than there ever was 25 years ago in our courting days. And yet, I’m aware that I’m talking about some fairly basic things here, Philippians 2:3 kind of stuff. But it is vital to be on top of this if we are ever to be immersed in the lifestyle of Ephesians 5:21-33 to which we have been called.
There will always be work needed in our marriages, especially if we were not trained in purity, particularly emotional purity. The Bible’s standard for our emotional purity is, first, to be so totally committed to our spouses that our marriages each reflect the relationship of Christ to His church. This is a unique union which should be obvious to all onlookers as a one-of-a-kind relationship. Second, the Bible says this about our relation to all others outside our family: "Exhort [older men] as you would a father; treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity" (I Timothy 5:1-2). Don’t flirt with anyone apart from your spouse in your mind or with your eyelashes or with your words or with physical touch or closeness. We need to be continually working towards purity and emotional purity in our marriages. And that includes how we effect the emotional purity of others.
We as parents need to be working at training our children in purity, emotional as well as sexual. We are training our children in something, either in purity in all of their relationships or that flirting to some degree is ok. So how far is ok? Even to ask the question shows we have erred: purity is in the exact opposite direction. We counsel our children, "Pay attention to all, show intention toward none." Like many of you I (Barbara) was trained to be in the dating scene from an early age - it really did affect me. Consequently I now really struggle to be emotionally pure every day. Most days I get the victory now, but it has been a struggle for me over the years. If we train our children from a young age in purity, then, by God’s grace, they should not have the same struggles in their marriages that many of us have. Even though we fail in this area at times, we must see the need to be training our children in all purity. It is worth the struggle to be pure and to train our children to be pure. I know this is not a popular message in these days of excessive freedom in forming relationships, independence in how youth spend their time, the fashions they follow, independence in transport and finance, etc. But as Matthew 7:13 says, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Craig and I want to be found by God to be seeking Him in all areas of our lives, and we want this for our children.
II Corinthians 3:18, Philippians 2:12-13, I Corinthians 9:4-27, Philippians 3:12-16 and other passages mean our sanctification and maturity in Christ, becoming the kind of husbands, wives and parents we want to be, is a constant struggle. The closer we get to Him the more faults we’ll see in ourselves, the more impure we will realise we are. This is depressing. Yet here is a proper, a balanced, a Biblical self-image, one that is totally at odds with the popular notion that people need to have positive self-esteem and always feel good about themselves. No, we need to know we are weak and faulty sinners, that it is the grace of God alone that carries us on, allowing us to see that even while we are truly becoming more and more sanctified, and that a part of that sanctification is perceiving that the true gulf between our righteousness and His is getting wider all the time, even so, His grace allows us to see more of the true extent of His love and commitment toward us in Christ! When we are weak, then we are strong; let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, not in his journey to discover a positive self image!
Another key to having a fulfilling marriage is for us to be content in our marriages. Paul says in Philippians 4:11b "for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am". For some of us it is taking longer than others to learn to be content. Contentment doesn’t just happen when we marry. We should have learned to be content in God before we married. If we did not, then we may tend to look towards our spouse as the source of contentment, something our spouses cannot be; only God can be that source of unfailing contentment, one that never lets you down or disappoints.
Norm Wakefield stated in his book, Equipped to Love, "Whenever someone looks to anything or anyone rather than God as the source of all things, he commits the sin of idolatry. This may sound strange, but it’s true. Here is a good definition of idolatry: looking to any person, object or idea to supply what only God can supply." Heather Paulsen says in her book , Emotional Purity (see back cover), "We must examine things in our lives that may be idols. Could it be the idea of marriage? Or could it be the ‘friend’ you have?.....When discontentment is felt in life, when one does not find true contentment with God alone, problems can easily occur. Ask God to point out areas in your life where you are not content, then ask Him to help you be satisfied with His plan. He will begin to reveal areas where you are not fully in His will. Once this lesson is learned, you may need to lean on God ‘the Educator’ to continue to keep you reminded of His instructions. If you are married, where do you find your satisfaction? Are you longing for your spouse to fill your empty heart? It will never happen. Only God can fill this hole in your heart. He designed it that way. Your husband has not been created to make you happy. Your wife has not been created to satisfy you always. Look to God to fill this area of your life. Trust Him to take care of your marriage. Be content with where you are in life. As difficult as marriage can be, continue to draw near to God. God can use another person, your mate perhaps, to contribute to your happiness and satisfaction, but remember it ultimately comes from God and He deserves the glory."
I Timothy 4:6b-7: "Train yourself in godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." 1 Timothy 6:6: "But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment." We need to be training ourselves in godliness and learning to find contentment in Christ Who will give us contentment in our marriages.
All this training and learning starts to sound like hard work. But look at it from different angles at the same time. Why not decide - the two of you together - that you could have the best marriage anyone around you has ever seen? Why not decide that as a couple? Team up to mutually decide to have a marriage that is going to set a benchmark for Biblical conformity, attract attention, make your children the happiest and most secure little ones around - and incidentally, a marriage that is going to thrill you down to your socks as well! It is a simple, fairly well-defined, identifiable goal. And if we don’t get the title of "best", we will surely greatly improve what we’ve got in the effort!
In Church last night I was challenged by the verses in Hebrews 12:1-3: "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart."
I was thinking of this in relation to our marriages. "Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us from keeping our marriages in all purity and keeps us from having good marriages. Let us run with endurance the race (working on our marriages) that is set before us. We need to look unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (it is only as we seek to please Him that we can do it; we are not pure as He is pure; we do not suffer as He suffered), who for the joy set before Him endured the cross (nothing in our marriages can compare with that), despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (to be there with Him being our goal). For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself (our marriages, no matter how bad, will not be this bad) so that you may not grow weary and lose heart."
Many of us have grown weary and have lost heart. Let this be a challenge for us not to grow weary and lose heart any longer but to do as we are told in Luke 9:23: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." It is dying to ourselves, denying ourselves as we seek the Lord Jesus Christ, as we fix our eyes on Him, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, that we are able to do it. As we fix our eyes on Him, we can look forward to the joys of a fulfilling marriage and the ultimate fulfillment of meeting with Him, in godliness and contentment, at the end of our days.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the positive feedback from Part 1 of this article. We have never had so much feedback on an article we have written before. Because of that and realising that this is an area of real need, we thought that we would extend this series out a bit. So this article will be dealing with marriage again.
(If you have not read Part 1 that was in the November copy of Keystone, then please contact us for a copy of it as this Part 2 will make more sense after reading Part 1.)
When we have had marriage difficulties, we have to work even harder on our marriages. Some one wrote to us, “Really appreciated the November issue of Keystone. Thank youfor your honesty and encouragement to others in your article on Burnout. Your honesty has been a blessing and a great benefit to us.”
I want to be honest with you again and say that it has not been easy.I said in Part 1, “But we still had difficulties and had difficulty trying to work it out until we began reading His Needs Her Needs by Willard F. Harley Jnr. This book is amazing! We are reading it together, and after reading the first three chapters, we saw our marriage do a complete turn around. It was unbelievably instant. It wasn’t easy at first, as we faced the need to read this book together, but once we got into it and both wanted to work on it, all things came together for us.”
There was an immediate turn around. This happened in our minds and actions towards each other, not that we suddenly were head over heals in love and lived happily ever after. There was quite a struggle to overcome the fear of being hurt again by both of us. We struggled with the need to come together to work on this.
So first we made a clinical commitment to each other. Our love actions towards each other were clinical. We both knew that they were clinical: you know, doing nice things to each other because the Bible and the booksaid we should more than because we suddenly had this spontaneous, romantic desire to. We neither of us had it in ourselves for it to be otherwise. We were doing what we knew was right to be doing for the other. We thought it would come across as really fake and put-on, which made us hesitate to do anything at all, which would only leave us back where we started: doing nothing. But you know what? The emotions and feelings followed the actions! It was unbelievable when we knew each other was acting clinically towards each other that other good feelings could come out of it. So when Craig took my hand, or put his arm around me, or whispered sweet nothings to me, my heart responded positively to him. It made me want to meet a need of his.
Many of us are probably like this next person who wrote to us:
“I just thought I’d write and thank you for your input into my life with your magazine and your talks at homeschool conventions. I guess you’d be about five years ahead of us in the homeschool world - we benefited from you pioneering….But I particularly wanted to thank you for sharing your lives in ‘Over a Cuppa’. It has encouraged me to think that things could change for the better. I think I’d decided just to accept the good points of our marriage and thank God for them and leave my disappointments over unmet expectations with Him also. But perhaps growth is still possible! I had chucked in ‘marriage books’ a while back because I felt they just made one discontented! But if you are still growing and learning at your age (which is probably similar to ours) and stage, I feel encouraged! Thanks for your openness.”
Merely accepting the good points of our marriage and leaving the disappointments with Himis also what many of us do. This is the way so many of us are living out our married lives. We gel together as husband and wife well in some areas and not in others. We are meeting some of the needs of our spouses but not all of the needs.We settle for this half-way situation because it is too hard to do anything else. We are tired of the past hurts, so we accept the current situation and don’t work at it anymore.
Willard F. Harley says in the book His Need Her Needs, “Every couple has the choice to let unmet needs hamper or even ruin their relationship, or they can decide to preserve their marriage. Limping along in disappointment and bittersweet frustration doesn’t do any better. A mature coming together to meet each other’s needs is always the best solution.”
“Marital conflict is created one of two ways. (1) Couples fail to make each other happy, or (2) couples make each other unhappy. In the first case, couples are frustrated because their needs are not being met. In the second case, they’re deliberately hurting each other. I call the first cause of conflict failure to care and the second, failure to protect.”
“The [legitimate] needs are so strong that when they’re not met in marriage, people are tempted to go outside marriage to satisfy them.... But aside from the risk of an affair, important emotional needs should be met for the sake of care itself. Marriage is a very special relationship. Promises are made to allow a spouse the exclusive right to meet some of these important needs. When they are unmet, that is unfair to the spouse who must go through life without ethical alternatives.”
“Couples that find their needs unmet often become thoughtless and inconsiderate. When that happens, marriages slide into ugly and destructive scenes. The failure to meet these needs is often unintentional, but reaction to unmet needs develops in intentional harm. That often leads to unbearable pain and, ultimately, divorce.”
Harley goes on to say, “In or outside marriage,most people resent denunciations, criticism, or corrections. If others tell us we have made a mistake, we often try to justify our failure or cast blame elsewhere.”
“On the other hand, if someone we care for explains that he or she would like us to meet a personal need, we are usually willing to help. As long as we are not cirticized, we can willingly accommodate others with some change in our behavior.”
“Successful marriages require skill - skill in caring for the one you promised to cherish throughout life. Good intentions are not enough.”
Let’s look at these needs from His Needs Her Needs again. The husband’s five most basic needs in marriage tend to be:
Sexual fulfillment
Recreational companionship
An attractive spouse
Domestic support
Admiration
The wife’s five most basic needs in marriage tend to be:
Affection
Conversation
Honesty and openness
Financial support
Family commitment
So we settle for our spouse meeting some of these needs of ours and being resigned to never having other needs met. Disappointment and bitterness can play on our minds and hearts at this stage. And we are vaguely aware that we let our spouses down in some areas, that we’re not meeting their needs in one way or another, but just leave it in the too-hard basket. We may flirt with someone who somehow seems to be meeting a long-unmet need. In the worst case, even Christians have fallen into having an affair. Those who do end up in an affair usually find that this liaison only meets one of their needs! Suddenly they realise more of their needs were being faithfully met by their spouse than they realised. This new liaison may meet one need that was wanting, but it doesn’t come close to what they just threw away. So let’s learn from this horrible situation and look at our marriages: which needs of our spouses are we meeting and which ones do we need to work at meeting?
The needs of ours that our spouses are meeting will be filling their Love Bank with us. The needs that are being neglected will be causing withdrawals in that Love Bank. So as we work on these unmet needs, we should see less withdrawals. This didn’t happen over night for Craig and I. In fact we are still having to work on this. We have habits that are hard to break. Especially when we get busy we fall back into our old ways. Because we now want to have a good marriage does not by itself make it a good marriage. Effort is required. We need the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) operating in our lives to help us to make our marriage be the best it can be.
“I just wanted to write and encourage Barbara. Having received my Keystone today, I was reading the article she wrote on Helpful Hints for Dealing with Marriage Difficulties. _______and I have gone through a very similar thing. Having been married now for 16 years, we have struggled most of that time. We did have other relationships before we got married, but I attributed a lot of it to the fact that I came from a ‘broken home’. My parents split up when I was 12. I didn’t have a Christian upbringing either, my husband did but he was adopted - which had issues he had to deal with also. The Lord has also been teaching us, and we have read the books you have suggested, but it is still a struggle. I believe the marriage is the foundation to the family, so if the enemy can disrupt that he will. Our son left home this week, but I feel a large part of it was because WE couldn’t get our act together!! Matt 12:25 says, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided itself will not stand’. And verse 29 says, ‘How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.’ And as Malachi 2:15 says, ‘Has not the Lord made them one? Because he was seeking godly offspring.’ And my favourite scripture Proverbs 14:1 which I got at an Above Rubies camp a couple of years ago: ‘The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.’ Yet this is what I seem to do all the time. It seems knowing what to do and doing it are two different things. Also if the husband isn’t doing his part. But we’re only responsible for ourselves. Sometimes I moan because I always seem to be the one trying to work things out, but I think females tend to be like that, and the Lord encouraged me to do it as ‘Unto Him’. This week I’ve been reading Spiritual Mismatch by Lee and Leslie Storbel. As 1 Peter 3 says - they’ll be won over without a word. It’s like we can change but we can’t force them too. I’m having to learn GRACE. While we were yet sinners Jesus died for us. Therefore we have to die to ourselves. And I’m learning the definition of love probably doesn’t even mean what we think it means...I have such a passion for this subject. I could go on all day, but just to encourage you, we’re not there yet either, but I feel it’s a real key for restoration in the whole family. And you’re brave being so transparent about it, I hope a lot of others will be encouraged as I was.”
I wanted this letter included because too often our children leave home as soon as they can because of the undercurrents in our homes. We not only have a responsibility to our spouses to make our marriage as good as it can be but also to our children. You may have often heard it said that the best thing we can be doing for our children is to love our spouses as God intended us to. Unhappy children who give us nothing but trouble and who can’t wait to leave home are the unhappy fallout of inattention to this duty to love our spouses as God would have us do.
“Thanks, Barbara, for your openness and humility in sharing the way you have about your marriage - may God bless you RICHLY, and I’m sure He’ll use it to bless many others (us included).”
And may God richly bless us all as we seek to be obedient to Him in our desire to please Him in our marriages. Let us remember to continue to meet the needs of our spouses we are already meeting well. Then work at improving how we meet other needs. We do these things, as difficult as they sometimes are, for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of our marriages, for the sake of our children….but knowing that we personally also benefit by enjoying the fruit of a more peaceful, enjoyable and satisfying marriage partner from now on!
“Most of us are the authors of our own stress. We want everything to be perfect and go according to schedule, everyone in the family to be happy all the time…well, life just doesn’t run that smoothly” Nancy Plent (Unschoolers Network)
Let us look at some things that make life tough for us. What are the symptoms that make or break us.
Symptoms of Burnout
*Marriage difficulties
*Lack of discipline in children
*Lack of Patience
*Overeating or no appetite
*Overreacting to minor issues
*Making irrational decisions
*Unable to make rational decisions
*Irritability
*Feeling overwhelmed
*Lack of confidence
*Yelling
*Feeling frustrated
*Crying easily
*Depression
*No Motivation
*Physical symptoms
*Clutter
*Nightmares
*Blowing up - short fuse
*Blaming others
*Not enough time
*Wanting to throw it all in
Causes of Homeschool Burnout
*Not having regular time alone with God
*Not putting our marriage first
*Illness
*New baby
*Added responsibility
*New job
*Moving
*Change in routine
*ERO review
*Over-scheduling activities
*Unrealistic expectations
*Rigid adherence to a curriculum
*Lack of support
*Too many commitments
*Falling into a repetitive pattern
*Forgetting to take care of and take time for ourselves
*Pushing children ahead before they are ready
*Child with a different learning style
*Special needs
*Death in family
*Feeling pressure from family and friends
*Children feeling/thinking they should be at school
*Pre-schoolers
Strategies for Avoiding Burnout
*Plan for time alone with God each day
*Dealing with marriage difficulties
*Implementing the 4 D’s of child discipline
*Declutter
*Exercise and diet
*Map out ERO Visits
*Take time off when stress levels are too high
*Be flexible
*Lower your expectations
*Change your teaching style
*Limit scheduled activities
*Get support
*Raise independent learners
*Strategize for meal times
*Fathers taking charge
In this first of three articles we will be dealing with the first two on this strategy list. The second two will be covered in the second article, and the third article will deal with all the rest, Lord willing.
Plan for Time Alone with God Each Day
We need to be meeting with God each day individually and as a family. This is number one. Our thorough devotion to our God, or lack of it, will direct everything else we do. Individual and family devotions are covered brilliantly in many books and tapes. We like keeping it varied yet simple. I (Craig) read the Scriptures, we all sing a couple of hymns or Psalms and we take turns praying.
Helpful Hints for Dealing with Marriage Difficulties
Craig and I were both trained up to have marriage difficulties. I believe that many of you were as well. Let me explain…..
At primary school it began with little crushes onfellow class mates. This was followed by school or Church dances in the local hall even before I went to high school. I used to hate going to them, but my mother took great delight in taking us to them. My mother was never allowed to go to them as a child, so she made sure my sister and I got along to them. Being at Boarding School for four years was no barrier to having boy friends, then after leaving school it was one boyfriend after another until the Lord saved me at 20 years of age. But do emotional entanglements finish when you stop dating or get married if you have been trained in them?We will look at this further a bit later on.
I then got involved with The Navigators, an organisation which was involved in evangelism and personal growth. They were also known as “Navigators, never daters”. In this organisation I was being trained for leadership. So my early life I was trained in emotional entanglements and to be a leader, to be independent, self sufficient and other strong leadership characteristics which are great in themselves but not helpful to my role as a submissive wife.
It took me a long time to recognise all of this. It was also very painful for both Craig and I to understand it and to deal with it. I am still working on the effects of this early training.
Emotional Fornication
The first emotional relationship (whether it is real or in our imaginations, like a secret “crush” on a movie star) we grasp with all our being, we give everything emotionally to it. We don’t hold back. This is exactly what God intended for our first emotional relationship, only He planned it for when we get married, not as adolescents. Then something happens to break up this first emotional relationship. Oh, the pain and heartache, just like all those early 1960s rock ‘n’ roll songs told us about. So when we give ourselves to the next one, we hold back a little. We have been hurt, so we keep a little of ourselves for protection. Then as we go to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc., etc., etc., relationship, we give less and less of our emotional selves each time. The odd thing is, a common pattern of such behaviour is to become increasingly more physically involved each time, leading to physical as well as emotional fornication.
When we finally get married after a number of these broken relationships, we are only holding onto our spouse by the emotional finger tips. Along comes the first argument and it is just so easy to let go. I was talking to a friend’s sister recently. I explained all this to her, and she said that in her current relationship she was holding her arms across her chest and leaning backwards with her emotions. How many of us are doing this in our marriages and don’t even recognise it and can’t break from it? We know we are in trouble but cannot figure it out and don’t know what to do.
Well, praise God, Craig and I are now seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel for us. We did not know what to do, but thankfully Craig made an appointment with a minister in our church denomination who is a good friend and who we really respect. We knew he would treat us with boxing gloves and / or brass knuckles as needed rather than with velvety soft kid gloves. He got us reading two books that began to change our lives: Reforming Marriageby Douglas Wilson and The Fruit of Her Hands byNancy Wilson.1 From these I realised that I needed to bring God more into our marriage and into my reactions. Driving a stake into the ground, I determined that my sole purpose on earth is to please God. So when I came to a hard place in our marriage, instead of reacting away from Craig, I needed to react toward him in a way that would be pleasing, conciliatory instead of reactionary. But it was too hard, too hurtful, too painful for there were too many things in the way after many years of wrong reactions.So I just couldnot do it.
From reading The Fruit of Her Hands, I was challenged to react to Craig not for Craig’s sake but to please God. And do you know what happened? As I reacted positively to Craig, he reacted positively back to me, which made it easier for me to react positively back to Craig. His Needs; Her Needs
So it began to make a difference in our marriage. But we still had plenty of difficulties. Then we began readingHis Needs Her Needs by Willard F. Harley Jnr.2 This book is amazing! We are reading it together, and after reading the first three chapters, we saw our marriage do a complete turn around. It was unbelievably instant.It wasn’t easy at first, as we faced the need to read this book together, but once we got into it and both wanted to work on it, all things came together for us. Harley begins talking about the fact that we each have five basic needs.
“The man’s five most basic needs in marriage tend to be:
1.Sexual fulfillment
2.Recreational companionship
3.An attractive spouse
4.Domestic support
5.Admiration
The woman’s five most basic needs in marriage tend to be:
1.Affection
2.Conversation
3.Honesty and openness
4.Financial support
5.Family commitment
These basic needs may not apply equally to everyone. Harley says that this disparity between men and women in regard to the priority of these ten needs makes it difficult for the two sexes to empathise with each other. “Why,” each asks the other, “are these five things so important to you? None of them strikes me as so vital that I couldn’t get along without them, at least for awhile. What’s the matter withyou?”
“Because of this lack of understanding, the couple unknowingly works at cross-purposes, each trying to fulfill the needs he or she feels, not the needs the mate feels. So wives often shower their husbands with affection because they appreciate it and want it so much themselves. Conversely, husbands smother their wives with sexual advances, because sex is one of their most pressing needs. Each becomes confused when at best their mate responds with mild pleasure and at worst becomes annoyed, irritated, or frigid.”
“This sort of behaviour - in which one spouse gives the other something he or she really doesn’t need that badly - becomes self-defeating and destructive. Because the priorities of men’s needs are different than the priority of women’s needs, each partner must take the time to discover and recognise the other’s most important needs: those with the highest priority. Amazingly, many people think they can do this simply through intuition, but I’m convinced it can only happen as a result of clear communication and effective training.”
“In numerous counselling situations I have found men incredibly inept in regard to showing their wives affection. With few exceptions these men complain bitterly about ‘not enough sex.’ Meanwhile, their wives, who don’t really understand how to have a fulfilling sexual relationship or how to enjoy making love, complain, ‘All he wants is my body; he never just wants to be affectionate.’ The frustration that results on both sides can easily lead to an affair and possible divorce. It need not be! Let me show you why.”
Harley says marital breakups occur when one or both partners lack the skills or awareness to meet each others’ needs. “I want to show you how to affair-proof your marriage by building a relationship that sustains romance and increases intimacy and closeness year after year.”
The Love Bank
The thing that really helped me to understand myself and our marriage was when Harley said, “Figuratively speaking, I believe each of us has a Love Bank. It contains many different accounts, one for each person we know. Each person either makes deposits or withdrawals whenever we interact with him or her. Pleasurable interactions cause deposits, and painful interactions cause withdrawals.”
“As life goes on, the accounts in my Love Bank fluctuate. Some of my acquaintances build sizable deposits. Others remain in the black, but have small balances, perhaps because of fewer interactions with me…Two love Banks constantly operate in marriage: his and hers”.
So the question is: who is filling our Love Bank? Oh, to have never been trained in emotional detachments before we were married! Oh, to train our daughters and sons to be emotionally attached to their fathers and mothers until marriage then have their first attachment to their spouse!
Joshua Harris in his book I Kissed Dating Good-bye3 mentioned how a girl Anna had a dream of when she walked down the aisle to David. As she took his hand, one by one all these other girls stood and came forward to stand on the other side of him. She felt betrayed. These were all the girls that David had dated. He hadgiven each one a bit of his heart. They all came into his marriage even though they meant nothing to him now. She thought about it and realised that there was also a line of men standing next to her! She wondered, “How many times have I given my heart away in short-term relationships? Will I have anything left to give my husband?”
Anna and David had many people filling their Love Banks. Those old Love Bank accounts remain high because those who made the deposits are not doing anything to cause withdrawals. Once we have been married for a while and have a few children, if we are not constantly working on keeping our spouse’s Love Bank account balance high, there will be lots of withdrawals, possibly more withdrawals than deposits. Consequently the Love Bank balance of our spouse can actually get lower than the balance of those with whom we had previous relationships. It can also get lower than new relationships that come into our lives.
Before marriage, we had been trained in going into and out of emotional relationships. Do you think this behaviour pattern just stops because we get married? Not unless we work hard to stop it. So when the difficulties come and our spouse is making more withdrawals than deposits in our Love Bank, and we find ourselves in a negative balance with our spouse, it could happen, if we don’t fight against it, that we are back into previous or new emotional relationships, “usually work mates or the spouse of good friends” according to Harley. We experience what Paul describes in Romans 7:15-25: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” There are plenty of Christians who have done what they hate: broken their marriage vows of faithfulness simply because they weren’t watching their marriage’s Love Bank balances.
We need to seek God and the sanctifying power of His in-dwelling Holy Spirit through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so that we can be delivered from this body of death and can serve the law of God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We need to work hard at being pure in all areas: intellectually and emotionally as well as spiritually and sexually. This is especially true of those who have been trained in the worldly ways of emotional fornication in their earlier years. But if we are filling our spouse’s Love Bank and our spouse is filling our Love Bank, then it will be so much easier to be pure in all areas. Loving your spouse, striving to meet his or her needs, is a great investment in more ways than one!
So Craig and I are working now on filling each other’s Love Banks. The aim is to keep it as full as possible so that we can break away from the habits and behaviours which make emotional withdrawals. We need to finish reading His Needs, Her Needstogether, and then we want to read togetherThe Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman4 so that we can learn to better meet each others needs.
This has not been easy to share with you. We are all walking different roads with our marriages. This information will not be helpful for some who have not been trained in the way we were. But others of you will be struggling with these same issues and not know how to break out of it. This was written for you. No matter where we are in our marriages, I believe Harley when he says, “The husband and wife who commit themselves to meet each other’s needs will lay a foundation for lifelong happiness in a marriage that is deeper and more satisfying than they ever dreamed possible.” If the writing of this article helps to bring this about for you then it will have all been worth it.
Notes:
1 Reforming Marriage and The Fruit of Her Hands are available from Geneva Books, Wibo and Lisa de Jonge, 13 Tararua St., Upper Hutt, ph. (04) 527-0565, wibo.lisa@actrix.co.nz.
2. You can often pick up His Needs, Her Needs from a second hand book shop or from Geneva Books.
3. I Kissed Dating Goodbye is available in all Christian Book Shops including Geneva Books.
4. The Five Love Languagesis available in all Christian Book Shops including Geneva Books.
This verse is a promise for us to claim. It is not a “probability”, that our children “might” not depart from the faith when they get older: it says they “will not depart from it.” Neither is it a verse to comfort us because our children have gone astray, saying that one day they will come back, as in: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will come back to it.”
No, if we train up our children in the way they are to go (the condition God lays on us before He will fulfil His promise), then God promises that they will not depart from it, even when the child is old! When we were expecting Genevieve (22 now), we went to Parent Centre as we prepared for her birth. The leader there made a comment that has influenced us ever since. She said, “Your children will grow up in spite of you.” We looked at each other and decided right there and then that we did not want our children growing up in spite of us. The comment reflected a nonChristian worldview wherein you just sort of take what comes and hope for the best. No, we would be involved a great deal in the training of our children. We would claim God’s promise in Proverbs 22:6.
As this promise indicates, we need to be training up our children in every area of their lives. Training them implies discipline and methodology, goals and objective standards. This needs to take place in every area, not just in some and hoping they’ll “turn out” (a baking term used in kitchens) ok in the other areas. And among all the areas of training, what greater one exists than training children in the worship of God? It is an activity with everlasting consequences. It is to be our all consuming vocation in this life as well as in the life to come. Psalm 111:10 tells us, “His praise endures forever.” Revelation 4:8-11 indicates that in heaven they do not cease to sing, praise and worship God, for ever and ever, Amen!
God Values the Praise of Children
We know this from passages like Matthew 19:13-15 or Mark 10:13-16, but we often have quite a sanitised and idealistic picture of Jesus blessing the little children, all standing orderly before Him, each in his or her own national costume….why the disciples would object to this is somewhat problematic, but we like the scenario nevertheless. Karl A. Hubenthal in Children & Worship says that this scene was possibly far from tranquil. These women and children may have walked a long way. The children were probably hungry, thirsty, tired, needing a change, one or two infants even screaming their lungs out. Yes, this raises implications for an orderly and reverent church service, which is why older folks need to be patient with parents as they train their children to worship. Maybe they could reserve the pews at the back or near the door especially for such families. Some churches have a sound-proofed room with speakers and a large window so little ones in training and their parents can still be part of the worship without unduly distracting others.
The Challenge of Worship
Think about it for a moment….exactly how are we training our children when it comes to worship? “Ssssshhhhh!!!! Be still!!!!” For many, that about sums it up. It perfectly describes the training Craig had. And Barbara hardly went to church. So we two are only just now starting to understand what it means to train our children to worship. Robbie Castleman’s book Parenting in the Pew showed us the vast difference between “going to church” and “going to worship”. When children are not trained to worship, “going to church” is about your only option. Castleman writes, “For many parents, sixty minutes in a pew with a squirmy toddler or a sulky teen can seem like forever! Worship can be the farthest thing from our minds when children are distracting.”
Wasn’t it Loyola of the Jesuits who said, “Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man”? James Dobson in Dr Dobson Answers Your Questions also says that these first seven years are “prime time” for accomplishing the most important aspects of child training. We Christians must be doing something wrong in our training to worship, for we know exactly what Robbie Castleman means when she mentions squirmy toddlers and sulky teens. And haven’t most of us seen the heartache of teens who just plain refuse to come to church anymore? Sunday morning with children in the pew can be the longest hour of the week, or it can provide the very best preparation for eternal joy. To ensure it is the latter, we must actively train our children to worship, not just lessen the stress of that hour in the pew.
Castleman says, “Worship is not a refueling to get us through another week. Worship is not a system of traditions built up over many years of congregational life until everyone feels comfortable. Worship is not a time to unwind, relax, tune out or take a mental vacation. Worship is not an hour of Christian entertainment. It is not what makes us good people, faithful Christians or successful parents. Worship is the surrender of our souls to a God who is jealous for our attention, time and love. Worship is a challenge. With children it is a bigger challenge.”
We need to get our thinking right. Is going to worship primarily for our benefit or God’s? Romans 12:1 says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” or “your reasonable service.” Worship is our reasonable service….that’s why it is called a worship service. But as living sacrifices, everything we do is to be an act of worship, our vocation being our calling from God, whether we eat or whether we drink, we are to do all to the glory of God (I Corinthians 10:31). Castleman says, “Worship is the exercise of our souls in blessing God. In the Pslams we read or sing, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul!’ However, our chief concern is usually ‘Bless my soul, O Lord!’” We need to change this kind of thinking. Worship is for God’s glory, not our benefit!
It is a true saying that today people worship their work, work at their play and play at their worship. Christians, we need to work at our worship. With children we will need to work harder. It is just like excelling at anything, says Castleman. “Great baseball players are not made in the bleachers. Ballet dancing is not learned by remote control. Children learn to worship by worshiping - through participation, practice and patience.”
We parents must personally be full of anticipation before worship and full of joy and celebration and reverence and holy fear during worship. Then our children can learn from our example. We do not want to be self-consciously wondering what others are thinking of the children’s behaviour nor full of resentment and frustration at having to control these unruly children when, before they were born, we could look forward to an hour of peace and quiet in the pew. Such activities of the mind are called “stinking thinking”, and are not a pleasant odour to bring before the altar of God. We cannot expect our children to worship, we cannot train them to do so, if we are having difficulty worshipping ourselves. Work at it!
Too many adults are simply being quiet in church, just as they were taught, but tragically remaining unmoved by the holy presence of God….and passing that on to their children. Training children to worship while there in the pew can help parents pay more attention to the worship service as well. Pastors of even the quietest congregations love it when to the rhetorical questions of Isaiah 6:8, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”, a wee five year old will answer, “I’ll go if mum will let me!” The little one was paying attention as well keen to be involved. Active listening may include a judiciously placed and clearly audible, “Amen!” in response to a point made by the preacher, as well as the usual positive body language and facial expressions.
Work at Our Worship
Though “worship” in the dictionary follows “worn-out”, “worry” and “worse”, let not your Sunday morning follow a similar sequence. The noticeable drop-out rate of older children is clear evidence that we need to do more than just get them to the church on time. Let us follow the fourth commandment: “Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.”
During the week
*Talk about preparations for worship
*Memorise and review scripture relating to the sermon
*Memorise the creeds, 10 commandments, prayers, etc.
*Teach children world geography and current events so they’ll recognise those items during the congregational prayers.
*Use family devotions as a time of training for worship (more on thislater)
*Teach youth the meanings behind Psalms and hymns
*Plan big parties for Friday nights rather than for Saturday nights.
Saturday
*Clean our homes
*Cook for Sunday
*Prepare clothes for Sunday (1 Samuel 16:7)
*Dress for worshipping God, not impressing others
*Wear comfortable clothes that will not be a distraction
*Wear modest clothes that will not be a distraction
*Prepare the tithes and offerings of yourself and your children. Train the children to be cheerful givers of their own money -- 10% of $1.00 earned is important to God
*Prepare attitudes for Sunday - build a joyous expectation for worship
*Have an early night
Sunday morning
*Don’t sleep in, causing Sunday morning to be rushed
*Have Psalms and hymns playing in the back-ground
*Have a good breakfast so children are not hungry during Church
*Make something special for breakfast
*Restrict liquid so children won’t need to visit the toilet during service
*Allow plenty of time to arrive and settle in at Church unrushed
*Ensure conversation in the car leads into the worship of God
*Before going into worship take children to the toilet
During Worship Service
*Family sit together
*Older women and older childless couples can help younger families in training by temporarily having certain children sit with them
*Children sitting with other children doesn’t help with training but only winds them all up.
*Aim to have no toys or colour-ins to keep them quiet and occupied. Try starting by making them wait for 10 minutes with no toys or colouring-in, then each Sunday extend the wait time longer until they don’t need these items anymore. Of course youare using the “wait time” to train them to worship.
*No going to the toilet unless there is a medical need.
*Help children and toddlers prepare for worship during the silent confession as well - young children can be quietly guided in this
*Older children can take notes.
*Younger children can draw picture portraits of the sermon, bur watch that it does not turn into doodling.
*Give young readers a list of key words for them to tick each time they hear the words spoken during the sermon.
*Parents work at the follow-through of training the child to worship: -- We use our daily devotional time around the table to train the children how to behave as they should in Church. One will have the toddler on his/her knee and whisper, “We are praying now,” and we expect the toddler to pray as well. Use the same forms of discipline around the table as in Church. When the child’s behaviour is unacceptable, it is taken out of the dining room or church, dealt with, and brought straight back into church. Otherwise the child may see misbehaviour as a passport out of worship services, exerting his little will on you.
*Encourage children to sing or hum during singing no matter how young, just as at devotions at home. Make sure you are singing with gusto, according to the mood of the hymn.
*Trace a finger along the words of the hymn while singing - we also point out words the child already knows, and he will sing them while humming the rest.
*Sing church favourites at home so the children learn more quickly and can join in the congregational singing earlier.
*Have children stand up and sit down with the rest of congregation.
*Trace a finger along Bible passages as it is being read.
*Train the children to make the preacher’s prayers their silent prayers.Train them to pray themselves.
*Help the children listen to the sermon. Encourage them to listen by directing their attention to specific things: nudge and point; whisper, “Did you hear that?”, “Remember reading about that last week?” If children have questions during the service, write them down to answer afterwards if they require a long answer.
*Help the children see how the preacher’s point is relevant to them.
*During training time sit near the back or near doors so a quick exit to discipline or whatever is easy.
*Older children can write down their own questions to be answered after Church
After Worship
*Children should stay near parents not running and bumping into older folks.
*Parents’ talk should always be edifying.
*No complaining about the service or other people.
*Practice hospitality by inviting others to lunch.
At Home After Worship
*Watch the talk in the car on the way home from worship - no complaining about the service, minister or people there, but let our talk be of how wonderful it was to be able to worship the Lord with His people.
*Go over the sermon with family and guests at lunch - review the highlights.
*Ask questions. If we expect our children to answer questions on the sermon afterwards, we’ll be surprised at how much they remember and how they begin to enjoy listening to the sermon.
*Visit those prayed about during the service and continue to pray for them as a family. Children will often remember better than we do those who need prayer.
*Do sermon post-mortems. Dr D.M. Lloyd-Jones says in his book Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home and Work, “What are parents to do? They are to supplement the teaching of the church, and they are to apply the teaching of the church. So little can be done in a sermon. It has to be applied, to be explained, to be extended, to be supplemented. That is where the parents play their part.”
They Don’t Understand the Sermon
JC Ryle in The Duties of Parents says, “What I like to see is a whole family sitting together, old and young, side by side, - men, women, and children, serving God according to their households.” There’s that idea again of corporate worship being a service rendered to God, rather than something we attend to get something out of. He answers the objection often raised that little ones cannot understand the sermon by showing how neither Samuel nor the Apostles seemed to understand, yet they did their duty (I Samuel 3:7, John 12:15).
Do we go to church or do we go to worship? As Castleman says, “God must be real in our experience of faith. He must be known and encountered. We cannot be satisfied with worship that simply fulfills social and religious obligations.” It is clear also that we will not be satisfied with worship that simply fulfills social and religious obligations…..our children will not stick around if that’s all it is.
There are already countless activities specifically for children. But corporate worship is unique. This is where children belong: within the family of God, as one body, worshipping Him. Like home education, there are many wanting to break it up, who insist on special programmes just for children. But remember, worship is to serve God, not to serve children, although of course children’s best interests are served as they perform with you this service of worship.
Christian parents, brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no greater calling in our lives as Christians than to raise up the next generation of faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely within that calling, the most noble, the most necessary, the most foundational task is to ensure our children have been thoroughly trained to properly, earnestly, honestly, from the heart and soul and mind and strength, offer their reasonable service, their spiritual worhip to God the Father Almighty in the name of His only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
For the first 10 years of our home education, Craig did all the academic stuff. My education was very poor: the NZ state school system, including an expensive girls’ boarding school, did not cater to my kinaesthetic learning style (My parents did all they could to give me a good education, driving for miles every day of my primary school then sacrificing to send me to a good school as a boarder but the school system let me down). So when our situation changed and demanded that I do the teaching, I thought I had to be ahead of them all the time and was frantically trying to study up on every subject. Then I worked out that I probably only needed to be one night ahead. But praise the Lord, I discovered that if I just get in there and learn along side of them, which was the usual situation anyway, my excitement about learning things was contagious! We all enjoy our time a lot more when there is excitement in the air.
I am convinced that, if I can do it, then by God’s grace anyone can do it, and do it well. Ask the Lord to give you a conviction that your unmatched commitment to your children will cause your tutoring/mentoring home education situation to produce superior results. Your home education programme, almost regardless of what it is, has vast advantages over even the most gifted of teachers in a classroom simply because it is you, their mum, doing one-on-one for as long as you like, any way you like, any where you like, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. With such a conviction you will be spilling over with the kind of confidence that stirs up not only your own children but nearly everyone else you engage in conversation to want to know more!(Excitement, enthusiasm, conviction and lastly confidence…those who have heard me speak know I am developing some of these things at least, even if my formal education was no good. And don’t be fooled by this essay: much of the grammar and punctuation are a result of my husband’s editing skills!)
Keep it simple and set yourself up to succeed. Big ambitions and big plans are great, but if they are unrealistic, you will burn yourself out and set yourself up to fail. I’m currently teaching a 15-year-old, a hyper-active 10-year-old and a typical talkative 4-year-old (while the 18-year-old is at polytech fulltime and the two eldest are travelling overseas, all 6 totally home educated).I know this is a piece of cake compared to some of you, so just apply the principles. We always begin with our Number One goal: reading the Bible together and discussing it as a family around the meal table. We also pray and sing Psalms and hymns together. Being the number one priority, Craig takes the lead. We believe that whatever the Dad does with the children is considered by the children to be a bit more important than usual, especially if it is done at the beginning of the day. Since Craig’s office is here at home, we read the Bible and pray after nearly every meal. Sometimes this takes 10 - 15 minutes and other times we have long discussions. (We know of Dads who start work so early each morning that they structure their day the Hebrew way, beginning it at dusk! In that way the Father is still able to lead family worship at the beginning of their day!) If this is all we manage to get done in the day, we don’t worry, for we have at least achieved our Number One goal. Our day was a success!
Next I set out to train the children’s minds in capacity. At school and with some curriculum, children are taught facts for a test. The test comes and goes, and they immediately forget most of what they learned. We need to train our children’s minds to remember important facts long term.One of the most effective ways of doing this is Scripture memory or poemsor maths facts etc . Now I am not talking about the way Scripture is usually taught at Sunday School, learned in order to get the lollie or the sticker and then forgotten. In fact, I am not talking so much about Scripture memory as I am about Scripture review. We want every Scripture our children have ever learned to be firmly remembered, imbedded in their minds forever. It is hard work to learn verses by heart, so why learn them to forget them next week? The key to remembering verses for the rest of their lives is review, review and more review. So this is how we begin nearly every morning after breakfast and chores: reviewing, that is, me hearing them recite their newest verses nearly every day for at least 7 weeks. Then I review those verses only weekly for a few weeks and finally they end up being heard only once a month.
Review goes like this: the child always says the reference, then the verse, then the reference again. The standard is word perfect….near enough is not good enough, especially when we are handling God’s Word. Either the verses or just the references are written on file cards. To keep track of where we are, I have a box with different sections in it. In the front I have two separator cards for the daily review: behind the first are the ones I need to do that day, and behind the second go the review cards once we’ve done them. The next section has 12 separator cards with the months on them, January to December.In the first three monthly sections I have five separator cards: one each for the four weeks of the month behind which I put the verses for once-a-week review and a “monthly” one behind which go the verses for review only once a month. There are several ways this can be set up. The important thing is to set up a system that suits you and works for you. I have a friend who has a system set up under each child’s name, and that works well for her.
Nearly every day we do the daily review. As soon as possible in the week we do the weekly review so that it doesn’t all fall on a Friday or Saturday. Once the weekly review is completed we work on the monthly review and try to do this from the beginning of the month so that the monthly review does not all have to be done during the last couple of days in the month. Today is 18 May and I have just finished Charmagne’s monthly review items for May. Charmagne is 15. But I only finished Alanson’s monthly review items for April last week! Alanson is 18 and a lot harder to catch between his study, work and social commitments.
Children from quite a young age can learn surprisingly large portions of the Bible or quite long poems. When Charmagne was 4 & 5, we were teaching the older children James chapter 1.One day Charmagne began to prompt the older children as they recited it. We asked her if she knew James chapter 1 and got a real surprise when she could say most of the 26 verses with just a little prompting. We had not been working with her on it at all. She had picked it up from listening to the older children every single morning. Ten years on Charmagne can still quote James 1 to me faster than I can read it.
This way of learning can be done individually or as a family. It is more fun as a family and more the Hebrew approach to learning.
As part of this review I have other things that we are committing to memory. So these things slot in with the verses. We are learning a simplified catechism for children as well as the Heidelberg Catechism. (A catechism is a summary of Christian doctrine in question and answer form. For a huge list of creeds, confessions and catechisms see http://www.gty.org/~phil/creeds.htm. The boys are learning their math facts which I have written out as flash cards for review during this time. Jedediah (4) has done the “+ 0” facts and is up to 5 + 1 = 6 in the “+ 1” facts. He just loves going through them. Both the boys are learning Latin words and the verb conjugation chants. Jedediah knows that “I love” is “Amo” and can do the “Amo” chant: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. I have a card for Jedediah’s alphabet and another for his numbers. Charmagne and Jedediah made up cards with each letter of the alphabet plus a picture or drawing of something beginning with the letter on that card. Now Jedediah also knows most of the sounds because we go over them most days like flash cards. Both Jeremiah (10) and Jedediah are learning the books of the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed.Another project we are planning on is learning the Treaty of Waitangi.
For something a little less formal, I try to read to the boys for about two hours a day. I read to them while they do the dishes (we don’t have a dishwasher), play with Lego, colour in, brush my hair, massage my feet and any other time that is suitable for us. I like to read a series of books or to have a pile of books always handy. If I don’t and I finish a book before they’ve finished the job, I am likely to tell them to carry on with the dishes just this time while I go do something that is really pressing. Next thing I know, a whole week has gone by and I still haven’t gotten around to selecting a new book to read because there just seemed to be all these “really pressing” things come up all the time.
I try to read a wide range of books: biographies, autobiographies, historical fiction, Church history, books on science, nature, musicians, artists, etc. We have a published timeline close by plus others each child is constructing to which we can add dates and events as we read about them.Having these timelines, a globe and maps nearby helps to bring alive the things we are reading about. Craig also tries to read to the children most nights.
The next two most important things for training the children’s minds are the two kinds of narration. I’ll read a passage to the children, and they have to repeat to me everything they heard. I’ll do easy pieces with Jedediah and more difficult ones with Jeremiah. They often try to begin telling me from half way through the story, especially if it is a longer piece. But I make them go back to the beginning, and it is amazing how much they remember when pressed to remember it. This is training them to listen and at least remember and perhaps even comprehend whatever is read to them. We want them to listen attentively whenever the Bible is read, whenever a sermon is preached, and I dare say the skill will come in handy during lectures at university, should they ever go there.
Next I get Jeremiah to read to me, then to narrate back to me what he has just read. This is training him to focus and concentrate on what he reads as he reads it. It will save him countless hours of frustration in the future. I know what it’s like….I have to read and re-read passages over and over, for my mind wanders all over as I was never taught to focus.
All these things are priorities for me, and I work at doing them first on most days. If this is all that I end up doing in a day, I’m really not worried, for I have achieved the important things with the children.But I do like to get more done.
So, if it is a good day, I do some more work with Jeremiah on his phonics. He can read but is not reading for pleasure yet. His mind works faster than his lips, and so he does a fair bit of guessing when he is reading. I am trying to slow him down a little and getting him to work on reading accurately. This year I have begun writing with him. This is the 3rd or 4th time we have started to learn this skill. The previous starts were all disasters, so I simply assumed he was not ready yet. He will do a couple of pages in a hand-writing guide book and has also begun to copy the Bible into a notebook. (Charmagne has also been copying out the Bible for a while, and says it is a really different and interesting way of getting familiar with the Scriptures.) At the moment we are also working on a project covering North American geography, history, music, art, etc.
Dr Moore’s formula has impressed us, so along with the academics we like to focus on work (chores, work ethic) and service to others. With our older children we concentrated mostly on the academics, and the standards around our home suffered because of it. I was swayed by the poem “I’m rocking my baby, the cobwebs can keep”. This is fine if you just have very young children, but I let my older children get away with not doing many chores so that they could focus on the academics. Now I believe that training the young children to do the jobs around the house to a high standard is training them to do their studies later in life to a high standard.
Most chores are considered duties, their proper service to the rest of the family as part of the Smith Family Corporation. They aren’t paid for these, nor do they get pocket money. There are occasional and regular bigger jobs around the house where they can earn money. So when your children want to begin helping around the home at age two or three or four, exploit the opportunity: get them to do a job, any job, and train them to do it always right. If we are sticklers for quality and faithfulness with the older ones, they will often be great teachers of and far more exacting on their younger siblings than we would be! Service outside the family can be part of multi-tasking: if the children bake a cake and take it to some older house-bound person, they can then ask the person what it was like growing up way back then. This is work and service and history all in one.
We have been influenced by the thinking of:
Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn - www.triviumpursuit.com. Have a good look at this one, especially at “Ten Things to Do with Your Child Before Age Ten”.
Roland Meighan (University of Nottingham School of Education) in Home-Based Education - not “Does it Work?” but “Why Does it Work so Well?” quotes Alan Thomas’s research: “Families starting out on home-based education who at first adopted formal methods of learning found themselves drawn more and more into less formal learning. Families who started out with informal learning at the outset found themselves drawn into even more informal learning. The methods that both groups grew into had much more in common with the methods of younger children. The sequencing of learning material, the bedrock of learning in school, was seen increasingly as unnecessary and unhelpful.
“Learning to read was a central concern, but parents showed less anxiety when their children showed no inclination to learn at the usual age. Curiously, these children who learned to read relatively late still went on very quickly to read material suitable for their age. Most of the children were voracious readers.
“Thomas stresses that his work is in the early stages and should not be regarded as the last word on the matter. Nevertheless, he is already aware that his research challenges one of the fundamental assumptions of schooling: the almost universally held view that children of school age need to be formally taught if they are to learn. In school this may be the case but at home they can learn just by living.”
Jeff Richardson, Monash Universtiy, Melbourne says, “The evidence shows overwhelmingly that these children perform extremely well, above average, when they re-enter formal education. That appears to be across the board, whether they sat at home and had formal lessons...or whether they were up-a-tree hippies who had no formal learning pattern. On any measure you like, socially or academically, they will do better.”
Dr Raymond and Dorothy Moore inBetter Late Than Early
You may have noticed that I have mentioned no text book learning above. This is because we don’t use text books until around 10 or older. Some children, especially girls, may want to begin text-book learning before 10. If so, go for it. Charmagne went straight into Saxon 65, a grade six text, at age 11 with no earlier exposure to any math textbook.
Life is a great teacher. I begin teaching shapes when I am cutting the toast for the toddler. Once the toddler knows the shapes we get started on fractions. Sometimes they know 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 before they can count to 25 because of cutting the toddler’s toast into 1/8ths. As they get a bit older and can handle baking, they learn more about fractions as they double or halve recipes. The clock or a watch is the best way to teach the time. The toddler quickly learns 7am, 12 noon and 6pm as the meal times. Our 4-year-old knows 3pm on the clock as he is not allowed to ride his bike outside the gate after that time because the school children are loose on the streets. We talk to our children as we go through the day so they pick up an incredible amount. We have found that most children do not necessarily learn as they interact with textbooks or workbooks. Just because a child has a lot of written work does not mean that child has learned a lot. But children do learn as they interact with their parents or with other adults, especially if they are encouraged to ask a lot of questions. When questions are coming thick and fast from the child and adults are giving serious answers, lots of learning is taking place. Now some children learn best from texts and work books. It is the preferred learning style for a significant number of children. If that is your child’s style, then go for it. But if your child doesn’t appear to be a book person, it may be time to change to something that works for that child.
Some people will be very nervous with the approach I’ve described above, and will want to follow a systematic scope and sequence to fill in all the gaps. Again, this particular learning style just doesn’t suit many children. In addition, learning gaps may be overrated. Do you know everything? Of course not. That is to say, you have learning gaps! Learning to recognise our gaps and knowing how to fill them when required is real education. Naturally as parents and adults who have gained a lot of understanding about the real world and the kind of education that really is needed out there, we will have a good outline of skills our children must master and knowledge our children must know. This will form the core of our curriculum. And as long as the children are asking questions, those interminable “Why?” questions, they are filling in the major gaps according to their own little scope and sequence system which the Lord seems to hot wire into almost all children. Again, here is where reading a wide range of books on a daily basis gives untold opportunities to discuss and explain an incredible number of issues and concepts that just crop up while your several minds are engaged with the passage.
The next step in training our children’s minds is to give them The Tools of Learning. These can be mastered in two to four years. I will explore this in a future article.
Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."
We find that we are not home schooling or even home educating our children now but are discipling our children. We began back in 1985/6 by bringing school into our home. This current movement of home schooling began to mushroom back in 1983 in the States after an interview between Dr Dobson and Dr Raymond Moore on "Focus on the Family". So we were there near the beginning. There was not much in the way of curriculum back then, only what was used in the schools. Local head masters gave out exemptions in those days, so the goverment had no idea how many children were being home schooled then.
We knew God was calling us to home school, but it was a new thing, there was not much information around at the time and the curriculum available was designed for schools. I thought that my education was lacking but Craig’s was good. His job was such that he was available to teach the children, so he taught our oldest three. For two years we struggled using a curriculum that our children were not responding too well to. Finally Craig took a child on his knee and worked through the workbook verbally: doing it this way caused them to get through it in a much shorter amount of time. We found that our children loved to be read to and to read. They especially loved to hear stories and would listen for hours, for Craig and the children would discuss all sorts of things from the reading they were doing. Gradually we realised that the school curriculum was not helping us at all, so we jumped ship and put together our own programme and began home educating our children instead of home schooling them.
I thought that you had to be one step ahead of your children. That meant you’d have to know everything you were teaching them and spend hours preparing each lesson. With the large numbers of families beginning to home educate, many more minds were exploring these issues. Home educators soon worked out (or perhaps simply rediscovered a principle lost when compulsory schooling took over in most countries) that one did not have to be one step ahead but could be more effective when learning along with the children.
As our personal circumstances changed, I also gained the confidence that I could home educate the children, so took on the task with our youngest three in 1997. I was challenged and have been influenced by the Charotte Mason and the Christian Classical approach, and later on by Diana Waring and family.
Our concern is that there are about 1000 children beginning home education every year in New Zealand and nearly 1000 children going back into the schools. We reckon this is largely because of stress and burnout of parents trying to keep too much of a school routine at home. This does not have to be. In a United Kingdom study of learning methods, Alan Thomas found that "Families starting out on home-based education who at first adopted formal methods of learning found themselves drawn more and more into less formal learning. Families who started out with informal learning at the outset found themselves drawn into even more informal learning. The methods that both groups grew into had much more in common with the method of younger children. The sequencing of learning material, the bedrock of learning in school, was seen increasingly as unnecessary and unhelpful." Then he goes on to say, "This study challenges the almost universally held view that children of school age need to be formally taught if they are to learn. In school this may be the case, but at home they can learn just by living."1
When do children learn the most? Yes, during the ages of 0-5. Do parents need a curriculm for this? No, although some within the teachers’ unions are trying their best to change this. Children ask lots of questions during this time which very effectively fills their current learning gaps. Tell me, do you have no learning gaps? Of course you do. When we began home schooling, we thought we needed to use a packaged curriculum so that we would not miss anything that our children should be learning, so that they would keep up with everyone else, so that they would have no learning gaps. Do the curriculums teach our children everything? No! So even the best curriculum will still leave learning gaps!!
How exciting to read Alan Thomas’s research and to put it together with our own experience and that of other home educators around us. What we find we are doing now is to extend the "natural" learning atmospere we have with our 0-5 year olds through to our 9 year olds. "You don’t need 15 years to educate somebody but you need 15 years to socialise somebody," says Sir Neil Waters, past vice-chancellor of Massey University and NZQA’s Board Chairman.2 Yes, he is right...you can teach your child all the tools they need for learning in 2-4 years. (More on this in a future article.)
Since the home schooling movement has been around for 18 or so years, there are children now in their 20s who have been totally home educated. There are a lot of parents who have learned a great deal over this time about what home education is and isn’t. Some are even writing books and curriculum from their experiences, meaning for the first time ever there are books and curriculum written by home educators for home educators who understand what home education is all about. On top of that there are home educators who have written these materials from a Biblical Christian worldview.
One of these books is Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson3 who say, "You may ask how we know we are cooperating with God’s design when home schooling, per se, is never mentioned in Scripture. It’s because home education is not our primary goal at home - home discipleship is, and home education is simply the natural extension of home discipleship....God designed the home for discipleship, and when we follow God’s patterns and prinicples, the natural and normal fruit will be not only spiritual growth and maturity, but intellectual growth and maturity as well.... Your home is a dynamic living and learning environment designed by God for the very purpose of raising your children to become mature, useful disciples of Jesus. When you begin to understand the dynamic, you will find a freedom you never knew was possible in your home education. Home-centered learning helps you discover that dynamic so your home will work for you in discipling and educating your children.
"Home-centered learning is not just a new perspective on your home and family, though, it is also a new perspective on your children. Not only did God design home and family to be a learning environment, but He also designed children to learn naturally within that environment. Because children are made in God’s image, they are already intelligent, creative and curious. No matter what you do (or don’t do!), God has already put within them the drive to explore, discover, question and to learn....Your role as a home educating parent, then, is to provide a rich and lively living and learning environment in which your children can exercise their God-given drive to learn, and then to train and instruct your children within the natural context of your home and family life. It’s that simple."
Discipling our children is a whole-of-life activity, not necessarily confined to a strict timetable, text books or so many pages in a workbook per day. Such an approach we have found to be far less stressful as well as a lot more fun, and we suspect that if more home educating parents caught on to this idea, fewer would be inclined to chuck it in after only a couple of years.
References:
1. Home-Based Education - Not "Does it work?" but "Why does it work so well?" by Roland Meighan, University of Nottingham School of Education.
2. NZQA’s magazine LEARN, Issue 10, November 1996, p8. as quoted in Preparing for an ERO Review by Craig S Smith, available from Home Education Foundation, PO Box 9064, Palmerston North.
3. Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson, available from: Christian Education Services, 55 Richards Ave, Forrest Hill, North Shore City, or visit website http://www.wholeheart.org
You help a child Learn to Read so that thereafter the child may Read to Learn. What does this involve? It is much more than just teaching a child to read. We have used five different ways to teach our five reading children how to read over 17 or 18 years. Different children will learn how to read in different ways. Some children will not learn how to read until they are 9, 10 or 11; others will learn while watching you teach an older child or sometimes even before the older child and sometimes without any help from you.
We as parents must not stress out about this. It takes longer for some children’s cognitive development of their brain to reach the stage where they can read, yet for others this happens early. Before this aspect of brain development is complete, the child can learn lots of facts but will have trouble stringing the facts togeth-er. So this "late develping" child can learn the sounds of the alphabet and blending but have trouble sounding out the word. By the time this child is at the end of a sentence s/he has forgotten the beginning of the sentence. But once the brain’s cognitive development has reached the stage which makes the decoding process of reading easy, the child will begin to read a lot, and, are you ready for it, will be reading at his/her own age/in-terest level, rather than at the beginning levels.
So take heart you parents of late developers. Once it connects for them, they will very soon catch up and possibly exceed their peers. We don’t talk about fast and slow learners now, but early and late developers. They all have their unique learning styles; some learn to read at 3 or 4 and forever after have their head in a book. Others in the meantime are learning all sorts of other interesting life skills which are broadening their minds in readiness for when they begin reading. So relax, just work on teaching reading a little each day, 5-15 minutes a day, until they take off in their reading. But remember to read to these children for at least two hours a day until they are reading on their own, and continue reading to them after that for the vocabulary development, family closeness and other benefits I’ll mention later.
But this is just the beginning of teaching reading.
Once a child has "learned to read" it is ready to "read to learn". It is also time to teach writing and researching skills. Most children will need to learn how to write reports, essays, letters, assignments and research projects. Teaching a child to read, write and research is the most intensive time in educating our children. Once this has been achieved, children are able to work more and more on their own until they are educating themselves. This also happens at different times for different children. Some children are always motivat-ed, others become motivated once they know what they want to do. Others need creative and patient parents who can come up with different triggers to get them going. For some it is getting out into the work force for a couple of hours a day or for one day a week and finding that they need to get more educated, or they will be working at that type of job the rest of their lives. Others are motivated by the reading they are doing.
This was the case for our son Zach, now 19. When he was 14/15 he worked for an engineer, who is a jack of all trades, all day every Tuesday. He learned that he did not want to be an engineer, mechanic, plumber, electrician or painter. He seemed to be no good with the pen, so we wondered where to from here. We kept getting him to do reports, etc., but it was a struggle. During this time when he was 15, Craig asked him to write a report on his holiday. It was full of "and thens", and incredibly boring to read. Later in that same week he came out in the morning and informed us that he was going to write a book. We despaired thinking of all the "and thens" that would fill the book. Well, he surprised us completely. The first chapter had no "and thens" at all. His first few chapters were the spitting image of Alistair McLean, the author he really loved to read. He ended up going to the library and getting books out on Amazon basin flora and fauna, various South American countries’ military and amunition capabilities, topographical maps, etc., as this was his book’s setting. He learned heaps doing this and came up with some really interesting plots.
Once your children become more independent in their reading and researching, you will not be able to personally review or become familiar with the content of all they read. Therefore during this "reading to learn" stage (which actually lasts all the rest of their lives) it is important to help your children come to understand and recognise the worldview of the authors of the books they are reading and how this colours their writings. This is why you continue to read to them after they can read for themselves: it gives your family endless opportunities to discuss the ideas, concepts and worldviews expressed by the authors you are reading. You want your children to be discerning readers, who will know when to put a book down and not continue with it, who will know when they are being fed a line of unChristian propaganda, who will be able to resist a high-powered sales pitch, who will be able to tell if even a Christian writer’s theology is either wonky or orthodox.
For example, in an earlier article, I mentioned that we are looking at buying New Zealand author Elsie Locke’s books because she had been highly recommended to us. Well, she has two or three good books, but the rest are not as good. In the 9 April 2001 Manawatu Evening Standard, this article appeared:
Special Tribute to Campaigner
She was a tiny woman physically, but her qualities and stature were enormous. Family and friends yesterday paid tribute to Elsie Loche, a peace campaigner, enviromentalist, novelist, historian, community worker, and "national treasure", who died at her Christchurch home at the weekend. She was 88. Mrs Loche’s huge list of community efforts include helping to found the group that became the Family Planning Association, starting the nuclear disarmament campaign in the 1960s, writing more than 20 books for children and adults, advocating for environmental protection, and forming and running the Avon Loop Planning Association, which limited development around Christchurch’s Oxford Terrace. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate from Canterbury University.
This tribute tells you a lot about Elsie Loche’s world view which may or may not agree with your own.
To help understand world views, there are several books on the market now. Understanding the Times by David A. Noebel of Summit Ministries in Colorado Springs is excellent. Our daughter Genevieve has studied the unabridged book and also been to Summit Ministries in the States for two weeks. She highly recommends this book and Summit Ministries. Diana Waring recommends the abridged edition of this book. The abridged edition is available from Christian Education Services and Answers in Genesis for $55.00. AIG say in their catalogue "Church leader Dr D James Kennedy believes that this massive book could be more valuable to young people than their university education. Looks at the inconsistencies of humanism, in the New Age movement, Marxism/Leninism and other world views, and shows the truthfulness of the biblical Christian world view. Helps students recognize bias in teachers, the media, and friends and helps adult Christians counteract false thinking in others. 402 pages."
Another great book is Let us Highly Resolve by David Quine. Diana Waring said of this book, "[It] deals with one of the most important issues facing us as Christian parents today - raising our children in a Biblical world view. That is the core, the very foundation, of who we are and why we do what we do, especially as it concerns our parenting. David and Shirley have issued a clarion call to us all, the call to carefully, thoughtfully, and Biblically prepare our children to be leaders in the 21st century. I encourage you to read this book prayerfully. It may be the most important book you ever read!" Let Us Highly Resolve is available from Christian Education Services, 55 Richards Ave, Forrest Hill, North Shore City, New Zealand, Ph/fax (09) 410-3933, email: cesbooks@intouch.co.nz . Carol (of CES) hopes to get other books on Worldviews, so ask her about them next time you are in touch with her.
It is 11:30am and I am surrounded by a lot of people, some are home educators others just love reading. The sale doesn’t begin until 12 noon. We are discussing where the best place to start will be. Yes, it is our annual Red Cross Book Fair. There will be 60,000 books for sale - some very good books too. We go every year and come home with boxes full of books.
I like to begin at the Classics table. I might be able to pick up some Henty books for $2.00. Last year we were looking for Wilkie Collin’s books, a new author Genevieve (21) is interested in. I pick up all the books with RTS (Religious Track Society of London) on the spine. I then go to the children’s section and pick out books according to the publisher. If I already have the book at home, well, there are lots of home educators or families in our Church who would like the book. The publishers I am interested in are:
Victory Press
R.T.S. (Religious Tract Society)
Pickering and Inglis
Epworth Press
Lutterworth Press
for they have some good biographies and history books.
My impulse is to buy every biography or auto biography I come across in the whole place. These bring history alive like virtually no other kind of book. They are really "living books", for you get to see into the lives of real people. Even the lives of unbelievers can be incredibly challenging when you read about their exploits and accomplishments as well as the conditions under which they lived and worked.
If I am not sure if a book I’m looking at is a good one, I put it through this check list:
1. Does it have a page inside the front cover showing it to have been given as a Sunday School prize?
2. Glance over the dust cover to get an idea about the book.
3. Read the dedication and notes about the author to learn something of his worldview.
4. Scan the last couple of pages of the book to see if they mention God and how He is men- tioned.
Sometimes you do end up bringing a dud book home, but at 25cents to a dollar you can afford to chuck out a couple of books.
I also look for books by the Author:
Elsie Loche - NZ author
G A Henty - Historial novels
E S Ellis - Usually about the Ameriacn Indians and the early settlers
Captain Marryat
R M Ballantyne
James Fenimore Cooper
Louise Andrews Kent
Georgette Heyer
Taylor Caldwell
Alistair MacLean
Wilkie Collins
Louisa May Alcott
Jane Austen
There are lots of other good authors. These are just the ones that I am on the look out for at the moment or have just finished collecting. (We have to our knowledge every book published by Ballantyne, MacLean, Alcott and Austen.) We would love to hear about your favourite Authors and Publishsers.
Gladys Hunt’s book Honey for a Child’s Heart lists good books for your younger children to read. She also wrote with Barbara Hampton Read for Your Life - Turning Teens into Readers. The first part of this second book contains:
A Warning to parents
Introduction
1. Three Cheers for a Good Book
2. Is Imagination Going Down the Tube
3. How to Read a Good Book
4. What Makes a Good Book
5. What is Happening to Books
6. Fantasy in a Real World
7. Read for Your Life
8. Feed Your Heart
9. A Word For the College Bound
The second part is divided into the following categories: Adventure, Animals, Contemporary, Fantasy, Historical, Mystery, Non-fiction, Science Fiction, and Tried and True, Glossary and Index. Each title has a description plus a recommendation, followed by age-group indicators: books for early teens, mid teens, late teens and good family read-aloud books.
The back cover of Read for Your Life says:
"Gladys Hunt discusses how to read a book, what makes a good book, what questions to ask, and how to discern between good, better and best. She has a way of making you want to read, while helping you to make the most of the opportunity.
"To help you choose what to read, Barbara Hampton has reviewed more than 300 books. Recommendations run the gamut from classics like A Tale of Two Cities to contemporary fiction like a Ring of Endless Light; from literary greats like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Alan Paton to moderns like Katherine Paterson and Chaim Potok."
The book contains:
- Pointers on becoming a more perceptive reader
- Tips on how to enjoy poetry, fantasy and fiction
- An annotated list of over 300 book recommendations
- Hundreds of plot synopses
- A complete index to authors and titles
(This book is available from Geneva Books, 199B Richardsons Line, R D 8, Palmerston North, Phone (06) 357-8826, email: geneva.books@octaholdings.co.nz .)
These books by Gladys Hunt and others like them plus several internet book lists also give you ideas of what books to buy. My favourite email book lists are:
Also the Diana Waring - History Alive books have lists of books in each chapter with recommendations on each book. URL
http://www.dianawaring.com/
These books and lists will keep you hunting for good second hand books for many hours at whatever Book Fair you may have locally. I will often go back several times to these big book sales as it is easy to miss a good book. The price often goes down as the sale progresses, and they’ve often got a lot of free books as well. It is an activity even home educating dads enjoy, if only because it gives them an opportunity to build another bookshelf for you!
------------------------------
Thanks to Wietske de Vries for her notes on Read For Your Life - Turning Teens Into Readers.
Below is an article that I wrote for the January 2001 Keystone Magazine.
Blessings
Barbara
Reading Aloud
by Barbara Smith
There is no greater pleasure for a family than to all be huddled around the fire on a cold, wet and miserable winter’s night, milo in hand, listening to Dad reading aloud a good book.
I read on an email list once that we should be reading aloud to our children at least two hours a day. Yes, you read that correctly -- two hours a day.
I took up the challenge on this and have been able to find all sorts of time for reading aloud to the children. I read to them while they are doing the dishes (less arguments), doing their handwriting, playing with lego, colouring in or doing art projects. Genevieve (20) loves Craig to read to her while she is sorting the washing. Genevieve gets Charmagne (13) to read to her while she is sewing. Genevieve reads to Charmagne while Charmagne plaits her hair. I read as we travel in the van.
We find we achieve the goal of at least two hours a day if we follow these helpful tips:
1. I find that if we are reading a series of books, they just flow on from each other. It is also good to have a pile of books that we just need to get through. If I do not have another book lined up when I finish the current one, there are a lot of other things that demand my attention, and I am likely to tell the children to go on with the dishes for just this one time. However this "one time" usually stretches into several times.
2. Some books are hard to read aloud because of difficult names in them. One book in particular we struggled through until we realised the problem. There were two characters with names very similar, although one was the good guy and the other was the bad guy. Charmagne thought that I was just mispronouncing the one name so was gettting very confused. Craig then suggested that we write up the names on card and write the characteristics under each name. This is great for a book with a lot of characters and for books with difficult names. We even managed to find a book doing this for us for JRR Tolkien’s books called The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth: From the Hobbit to the Silmarillion by Robert Foster. It is a detailed glossary of peoples, places and things arranged for convenient reference.
3. Have several books on the go at one time. I read to Charmagne and Jeremiah (8) as they do the dishes, to Genevieve and Charmagne as they are playing cards and to Jeremiah and Jedediah (3) as they play with the Lego or are sitting on my knee. Zach (19) and Alanson (16) join us when Craig is reading in the evenings. During that time hand crafts come out: Genevieve will sew, Zach will be doing is model air planes, Alanson polishing his Air Training Corps (ATC) shoes until they are shining, Charmagne does embroidery and Jeremaih and Jedediah draw until they need to go to bed.
4. Read books of varying difficulty. Read books at the child’s level. But also lift them up and read books that they find challenging to follow. When I am reading to Charmagne and Jeremiah (13 and 8), I’ll first read one book that is easy for Jeremiah. Next I’ll read one that is at Charmagne’s level, challenging Jeremiah. The three-year-old listens to the lot, possibly enjoying my voice more than the meaning, but enjoying hearing the words and getting used to a varied vocabulary at the same time.
I am really enjoying the variety of books. Some of the books the children choose and some I choose because they are books that I would like to read. We are avid book hunters. We can’t walk past a second hand book shop without checking it out. We look for books at the flea market, garage sales, Red Cross Book Sales and Church fairs. The best books in the library can sometimes be found in their "for sale" pile. We make bee-lines to friends’ bookshelves. Dayspring Resource Centre in Palmerston North now has a good number of books which can be borrowed by home educators from anywhere in New Zealand. Until recently we had book shelves wherever we could fit them in our home and lots of books still in boxes. Over the holidays Genevieve has set up a library for us in a former junk/storage room at the end of the garage. We finally have a library of our own (and a whole lot less junk!!) with no books in boxes. We even have space for... more books! The children still have all their own books in their own rooms. With all these books we still get lots of books out of the city library and the National library.
The way to give your children a love of reading is to read to them. So are you ready to take up the challenge to read to your children at least two hours a day?:
Craig and Barbara Smith and their 8 home educated children and 3 Grandchildren: Genevieve (born 1980) and Pete (married 2008 with Natalie 2008 and...); Zachariah (1981) and Megan (married 2005 with Cheyenh 2007 and Dusti 2009); Alanson (1984); Charmagne (1987); Jeremiah (born Mitchell 1992 and now adopted); Jedediah (born 1997 and now adopted); Kaitlyn (born 2000 and now adopted); Grace (born 2005 guardianship).
We use a Biblical/Hebrew/Classical approach to our home education.
Stumble It!
