A couple of Saturdays ago I attended a home school conference that I happened to host at my church. One of the speakers I knew well, Mary Hood, www.archersforthelord.com and also the author of “The Joyful Homeschooler”, and “The Relaxed Homeschooler” (which are 2 great books I highly recommend). The other speaker was Chris Davis. Prior to planning this conference I had never heard of him, and to be honest, I didn’t research him much, my bad because I would have definitely marketed it better. Well it’s a little late for that now, but I wanted to share a few of the great things he shared on that day from my perspective.
Chris is a very Godly man and he made sure his 4 kids knew who their “Father” was growing up. He said he was dad, but only God was “Father” in their house. What a great way to honor God daily. He also knew that God had created all of His children for a purpose, and that it was Chris’ job to help his children realize and find what that purpose is. It is a very different way of looking at the raising of our children, and what our job really is. It’s not about what we want for them, it’s about going to prayer everyday to find out what God wants for them! It was a relief to hear this for me, because now the pressure was off for me to figure anything out, the Lord was going to help me! Ahhhhhhh, Thank you Lord!
With that comes who are you answering to? Are you answering to the government? The school system? Or are you answering to our Creator? So many of us get caught up with grade level, math, history and english, or thoughts like “are they keeping up with their peers.” I think we totally miss the point if this is what we are measuring our home education by. The way Chris put it is “Are you doing what others are telling you to do? Or are you doing what The Lord is telling you to do?” Wow, what a concept, and a great question to continue to ask ourselves as we travel through this journey.
There are many moms I talk to who have asked something along the lines of “what can I do to get my child to not resist me teaching them?” According to Chris there are 2 types of resistence
phisiological: i.e. physical problem like bad eye sight or
natural resistance: i.e. If you were your child you’d be resisting as well, ouch!
I have seen this with my own son, as soon as he thinks I am teaching him something, his fingers go in his ears and he chants out loud, okay maybe it’s not that obvious, but you get what I’m saying. And if I just give him opportunities to learn the things he wants, when he wants to, on his own, it’s a completely different (better, calmer, relaxed) experience. Readiness is more important than anything else when learning. When I was in school I couldn’t do a story problem to save my life. For years I struggled, and could NEVER do them. It was such a source of frustration and bitterness and I felt so stupid. Something Chris said resonated with me about this “if you don’t put it in context, it doesn’t mean anything”, I’m going to say that again, “if you don’t put it in context it doesn’t mean anything.” I didn’t care about 2 trains on a piece of paper, that’s why I couldn’t do them. But when I got my sales job, my life was about story problems, so I HAD TO do them, it was put into “useful context” so they came easy to me that way. Wow what an aha moment!
I encourage you to ask God “who is this child?” God will reveal that to you if you ask. We must as parents value what is working in our children’s hearts, because God put it there, and if God put it there in the end, or even on the journey He will get the Glory! And isn’t that what our life here is about?
Truth & Wellness with Andria 
Great advice….I have been experiencing the resistance a bit lately. I think perhaps I ought to change my approach. This is our first year so I have my own experience in public schools to draw upon. I would like for our school time to be a little more fun and a little less like “school” in order to foster that childhood creativity in my kiddos…just not too sure how to go about doing that all the time while still making sure the 3 Rs are taken care of.
In my experience, as long as I am fostering learning aka providing resources, the 3 R’s are taking care of themselves. We learn math through cooking, sewing and going to the grocery store, reading and vocabulary we learn everywhere through everything, and writing by writing about our dreams or stories. So if you put your faith in God as our creator, and Him putting in us the ability to learn, I believe our kids will want and “naturally” learn just through living. Just my thoughts, I’m sure there will be more to come, thanks for reading and commenting!