The Danger of Educating your Children?



The decision to homeschool our children was made before we even had children.  I am not sure why, but Jeremy and I both felt strongly about homeschooling any children God blessed us with.  We didn't really know any homeschoolers (only a childhood friend's family).  But, we did know how we felt about the education we both had.  We wanted our children to love learning, to desire to learn.  We wanted school to be fun and beneficial.  We knew that we could not afford to pay for schooling, and pubic schooling left a lot to be desired.  In the beginning, it really wasn't about God, as much as it was about our children getting the best education.  When our first two children were old enough to start school we bought books and materials.  We got excited about the whole homeschooling thing, and we were scared silly that we wouldn't be able to do it.  But we jumped in with everything we had. 

That first year the goals were simple teach the basic, teach them to read, and most of all teach them the love of learning.  For most of my childhood school was torture and no fun.  I didn't truly learn the love of learning until I went to college.  So, my goal, from the beginning, was to teach my children to love to discover and learn knew things in books and in experiences.  Well, I had no idea that this goal:  The Love of Learning, would come to change my life forever, year after year.  The more my children learned the more they challenged me to keep learning and that has become our life.  A journey of learning. 

One of the areas that our life has changed the most is how we participate and celebrate holidays.  In the next couple of posts, I want to share with you how educating my children has caused me to have to give up things I held dear for so many years. 

It all started in the school year 2008/2009.

 As  the years of homeschooling went on we became more confident and more focused on why we kept our children home with us.  Instead of it being just about giving them a better education, it started to become about being obedient to God's calling as parents.  We had met lots of homeschoolers and we had been challenged by them and God to make our school focused on training in righteousness.  So, Jeremy and I had started using a new teaching style, using KONOS as our guide.  Each school year we would choose a couple character traits and make that our focus for the year.  Then everything we taught would line up with the character traits we were studying.  The character traits for 2008/2009 were joy and generosity.  Little did we know that studying these two character traits would change our lives forever.

To be continued......