When you’re considering homeschooling your children, it can either bring about feelings of excitement or overwhelm, based on your experience with it. I was not homeschooled. My parents were not homeschooled. All I’ve ever known is traditional, institutional schooling. But when we had children of our own we began to ask the questions; what would God have us do with these children? And; does the Bible have anything to say about how our children will be educated? Turns out, God is a big fan of children and therefore has a bit to say about how we raise them up.
Deuteronomy 6 tells us ‘These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. You are to teach them diligently to your children [impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths] and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.’ It seems to show a picture of a child alongside their parent, for the majority (if not all) of their day, and learning the things of the Lord from their parent as they live life together.
Psalm 127 says ‘Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.’ This passage has SO much to say about children. Heritage, reward, and blessing are all words used to describe children. I think it’s important to examine our hearts when it comes to how we view our children. Are we viewing them as the Lord says that they are and cherishing the gift from the Lord that they are to us or are we seeing them as a burden that we must ship off to a government institution each day so that we can have our own time?
While I’m praying my words don’t come across as hard or condemning, I truly believe that if more parents caught a glimpse of the Lord’s heart towards their children that they would see the high and holy calling that they have as parents to disciple these young image bearers.
For us, homeschooling seemed to be most aligned with God’s heart. So with zero experience but a conviction in our hearts, we set out to begin homeschooling our children. We’ve read many books over the years to learn as much as we can about how best to steward these little hearts of our children, from how their brain develops, how they attach to others, how to best use the younger years and so much more. Each book gave us a new perspective and new tools. And we’ve found as we help others navigate the idea of homeschooling, reading can help them make an educated and confident decision.
Here are 5 books to read if you’re considering homeschooling your children.
Hold On To Your Kids
This is not only a great homeschooling book, but it’s also probably one of my all-time favorite parenting books. A note-worthy quote: ‘By forgetting that growth, development, and maturation are natural processes, we lose perspective. We become afraid our children will get stuck and never grow up. Perhaps we think that if we don’t push a little, they will never leave the nest. Human beings are not like birds in this respect. The more children are pushed, the tighter they cling- or, failing that, they nest with someone else.’
Home Education
Charlotte Mason is a matriarch in the home education world and her philosophies around educating children are practiced worldwide. This book is rich with so much wisdom.
A noteworthy quote: ‘The parents’ chief care is, that that which that supply shall be wholesome and nourishing, whether in the way of picture-books, lessons, playmates, bread and milk, or mother’s love.’
The Unhurried Homeschooler
This is a short read and one of the first homeschool-specific books I read. It was a breath of fresh air and gave me a different perspective on education.
A noteworthy quote: ‘Children are born with a natural love of learning. All children are curious and instinctively want to explore on their own the things they are interested in. When we allow them that natural investigation, their love for learning grows and their desire to take in information is ignited…. Learning is snuffed out quickly under pressure. Too much too soon is stressful for children.’
Honey For A Childs Heart
A gift from a sweet friend when our second was born and our first was 2 years old, this book opened my eyes to the importance of good literature in a child’s education and in our families time of togetherness.
A noteworthy quote: ‘The problem with television, movies, and video is that they kill personal creativity… Good literature teaches more than we know. Example always speaks louder than precept, and books can do more to inspire honor and tenacity of purpose than all the chiding and exhortations in the world. The teaching is accumulative, too. One day our high schooler was discussing the whirlwind of destruction left behind by a couple of children visiting us. He said, ‘I got to thinking about how I would teach my children not to pull up wildflowers by the roots and destroy things and then I wondered how I had learned myself. I decided I had learned from books to respect the world. In C.S. Lewis’s books the animals and trees have personality; in pioneer stories, Indians tried to walk through the forest without breaking a twig, and settlers respected the land; in Tolkien’s books, the orcs are the bad guys who leave a path of careless destruction.’ He shrugged his shoulders as he concluded, ‘You put a whole childhood of reading together, and you don’t have to take a conservation course.’
Dumbing Us Down
This book is super eye-opening. Written by a public school teacher with thirty years of teaching, he shares his sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills that we’re born with, replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment.
A noteworthy quote: By isolating young and old from the working life of places and by isolating the working population from the lives of young and old, institutions and networks have brought about a fundamental disconnection of the generations. The griefs that arise from this have no synthetic remedy; no vibrant, satisfying communities can come into being where young and old are locked away… Chirldren learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important; force them to plead for the natural right to the toilet and they will become liars and toadies; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.
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