Top Tip For End-of-Year Homeschool Success→

You may be feeling pressured because you haven't taught your children some things you wanted them to know by now, and the end of the homeschool year is beginning to appear on the horizon. 

Maybe they are a little behind according to your language arts schedule, or you haven't yet gotten to some math concepts. If this is you, then I understand. It happened to me, too. 

My Maxim

One maxim I kept in mind while homeschooling is that knowledge is seemingly infinite, and no one person will ever be able to know everything under the sun. 

Plus, as more and more decades and centuries pass, the more discoveries, innovations, and original contributions there are for the current occupants of planet earth to learn.

So where does this leave us as homeschoolers? Well, we can breathe a sigh of relief because as long as our children are learning at full capacity, i.e., we are doing our job as homeschoolers, then they should be developing the skills and knowledge they'll need to function well in life. 

Which is why homeschooling your child is so amazing. When done right, we can help our children to reach their full potential physically, emotionally, neurologically, and intellectually.

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

— Plato

We can raise "whole" children instead of children being "educated" from the fragmented pedagogy of the public schools.

By "fragmented" I mean that the needs of the whole child are not taken into consideration, and most schooled children never come close to reaching their full potential and becoming their very best.

I know I didn't, which is why I felt so strongly about homeschooling my children and helping other parents to homeschool their children too. You may have similar feelings about your own educational experience.

For example, in terms of academic learning, proficiency rates in literacy alone for public school eighth graders are 30%, and for math they are 28%. How sad to send children away for 12 years to spend 8 hours a day, five days a week in a system designed to dumb them down when they could do and become so much more.

And let’s not forget the collective cost of creativity and innovation and the many things that will never come into existence because so many children never had a chance to fulfill their potentials in life.

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”

— Walter Cronkite

But let's not breathe too great a sigh of relief yet because surely any homeschooler can beat these statistics with a little effort. But if you are reading this, then, like me, you probably want much more for your children than just trying to match or improve a little upon what children are getting in the public schools. 

We want to educate them to the best of their ability while preserving their uniqueness. 

Maybe, like my daughter, one of your children will become fascinated with the relationships between the European monarchs prior to WW1 and take a deep dive into their lives. Or, like my son, you have a child who is taken by the nobility and courage of the Native American tribes and takes a deep dive into their stories. 

Your children's education will be tailored to their interests, so the development of their minds is unique to that which inspires, motivates, and supports them in living more fulfilling lives because now they can live lives that are in alignment with who they are in their being.

Which follows that what they "know" or don't know then becomes particular to their individual interests, desires, and aptitudes.

While this is true, many homeschooling parents still fall into the trap of comparing their children to schooled children or even to other homeschooled children. 

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

— Mark Twain

That's why, given the vast amount of knowledge that exists, it helps to remember that what children learn in school is to some degree arbitrary. 

There are basic skills all schoolchildren are taught, such as reading, writing, and computing. But what episodes or figures in history a child studies, or what literature and art they are exposed to, or what concepts in science they learn is decided upon by the individual school boards. 

As long as you have a solid plan for your children and you are staying on schedule, give or take a few revisions or bumps in the road, then it will only cause you unnecessary stress to worry about whether or not your children know the same things as their peers, either homeschooled or schooled. 

Because your children's peers and schooled peers  will never know the same things your children know either.

As my son said to me the other day, no two people ever read the exact same books, which means that we all have different libraries floating around inside of our heads that impact us, inspire us, and guide us on our journey through life. 

Your Best End-of-Year Position

The best stance you can take as the end of the year draws nearer is to remember that whatever your children know is what they know, and that's enough for now. 

If you do feel a little more work is needed during the summer, then why not? There are no hard and fast rules with homeschooling other than to understand the educational journey we aspire towards and to become the best homeschooling parent you can be.

It's pretty simple when you think about it!

A funny memory of mine took place when my daughter's friend (of the same age) asked her what grade she would be in the following year. My daughter said that she would be in seventh grade. 

But her friend, whose mother was an engineer and loved teaching math (I didn't love it!), knew that my daughter had not learned a certain concept in math, and so her friend stated that she didn't think my daughter was ready for the seventh grade.

My daughter, being highly offended, said to her friend very firmly, "I know what I know, and I'm going into the seventh grade!" 

A True Homeschooler

I'll leave you with that note, because this is exactly how homeschooled children think. You can even make it your end-of-the-year mantra: they know what they know!

It's a statement that holds true for each of us. We know what we know, and no two people will ever know exactly the same combination of things in life.

That's some of what makes us unique and what we get to celebrate in our children because we homeschool them. 

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

About Elizabeth Y. Hanson

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Are We Focusing on the Wrong Goals for Children?→

A primary concern parents often share with me is whether or not they will fail their children by homeschooling them. But there's a more tangible concern lurking here, and that concern is whether or not their children will be able to get into a good college. 

First, is it possible we are failing to ask two critical questions that affect whether or not our children get into a top 20 college?

The initial question to ask is, what do the top colleges look for when choosing their students? Once we know this answer, then we can ask the next question: how do we educate our children to meet this criteria?

What John Taylor Gatto Had to Share

To answer the former question, I'm going to repeat what John Taylor Gatto once shared at an education conference I hosted for him.

He said that he once asked a Harvard admissions officer what they looked for when deciding who to accept into their college. The officer replied that they looked for two things:

1. Applicants that they believed would become rich

2. Applicants they believed would become famous

Their reasoning was that these students—once they become rich and famous—would donate generously to the college because private colleges rely largely on endowments to survive.

For example, as of 2024, Harvard has an endowment of 53 billion. 

The Next Question?

So the next question to ask is what qualities would these applicants need to achieve future financial success or fame? 

To answer this question, I looked at the traits of the rich and the famous to see which traits were in both groups. Here's what I discovered: in both groups, being a visionary and non-conformist as well as having courage, resilience, and perseverance were present. 

(It is a given that these people would also have a higher than average intelligence and be on the higher end of the creativity spectrum.) 

And this poses a third question: if these qualities are what the top colleges look for, then how do I raise my children to have these qualities? 

#1 Key

Expand the Mind

Raise your children to love reading and to read difficult literature. We gain a lot of understanding, knowledge, and insight from reading.

The more your children can expand their minds, the more they have to draw from so they can connect unrelated things to birth new ideas. Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates—innovators of the postmodern world—were readers. 

Ask yourself this, can a child who doesn’t enjoy reading, and therefore doesn’t read, become well-educated?

We underestimate the value of reading in a good education when we fail to give it its fair due.

#2 Key

Critical Habits of Mind

Train your children in the habits of perseverance and resilience. Perseverance means that we learn to continue the course of something until we complete it.

Resilience means that we spring back in the face of failures, mistakes, or disappointments. The easiest way is to refrain from coddling your children. 

Exercise tough love with your kids and have high expectations of them because they are capable of great things. I don't mean that you should be harsh with your children, but when you see them struggling with something they are trying to do, resist the urge to save them.

The struggle is part of the learning process that will allow them to reach their goal. Your children need to learn that struggling while they are trying to reach a goal is normal. If they don't learn to accept the struggle and inevitable failures, they will learn to be quitters. 

#3 Key

Embracing the Original

We learn how to disregard our common sense and gut feelings, and instead, we learn how to conform in the school system. We are not born this way. 

Each child is a unique individual; they stand alone as a pure original, like a Monet painting or a work of Mozart. But the system is not designed to address a child's uniqueness. It is designed to raise conformists who are easy to manage and control. 

This idea of controlling the masses goes back to Ancient Greece; it is nothing new, and you shouldn't be surprised by it. Given the history of the world, it appears to be a fact of life.

Raising Non-Conformists

To raise non-conformists, be respectful of your children's ideas, thoughts, and concerns so they gain self-confidence in their unique way of thinking. Support them in believing in themselves because non-conformists are not necessarily rebellious people, but they are people who see things differently and trust what they see.

They are not afraid to act on their visions either; they are people of courage. 

Therefore, raise your children outside of the system, if possible. Homeschooling is your best option because you can tailor your children's education to meet their unique needs and interests and more easily help them to develop these aforementioned traits.

What You Mustn’t Ignore

Lastly, keep your children away from devices with screens. Screen use will interfere with all of the above and undermine your efforts to raise exceptional children. 

If you can succeed in raising non-conformists, children who love reading, who are persistent and resilient,—and I believe that with the right tools you can—then enrollment in a good college will become a natural consequence.

A New Perspective

Rather than worry about failing your children, why not put your focus on discovering how to raise and educate a child with the qualities the top colleges look for, because these are the qualities that will lead them to experience more fulfilling and productive lives. 

My Story

I'll leave you with a brief story about my children. When my children were accepted into colleges that impressed my friends and family, I began to receive congratulations for my homeschooling success. 

I felt guilty because I had nothing to do with the college acceptance process, literally. I didn't homeschool my children with college in mind! I just did the best job I could do given my circumstances, which weren't always easy. So when I received congratulations for their success in getting into good colleges, it felt undeserving. 

But my friends and family insisted on congratulating me, and that's when I realized that congratulations were due, at least in part.

I had raised and educated children who had the vision, the confidence, and the determination to get into a good college. I could take credit for this, but the rest of the credit went to my children.

Alleviating the Pressure

Whether you have dreams of your children going to a particular college, the truth is that the quality of your children's character—the aforementioned traits we discussed—will determine more about their future happiness and success than what college they go to. 

And once you really get this, it will take a lot of pressure off of you because you will never have to worry about "failing" your children, only about raising and educating them in the best way possible.

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

About Elizabeth Y. Hanson

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Ace Homeschooling with One Simple Tactic

Are you having a good time homeschooling your children? If not, you may be missing the main ingredient, which will make you a better teacher, your children will learn more, and everyone will have a lot more fun.

Learning with Your Children

The key to successful homeschooling is that we moms need to be learning too!

If you are under the impression that you can plop your children in front of a computer without creating an atmosphere that imbibes the joy of learning, then you've been terribly misled.

The greatest teachers love learning, and they impart this love to their students. From what I've seen over the years, the moms who enjoy homeschooling the most are learning alongside their children, and their children are curious and enjoy learning too. 

Children who experience the joy of learning are going to learn more, and therefore, they'll become better educated. 

With all due respect to the hard-working homeschooling moms, many moms are not giving their children the kind of education that nurtures the child's love of learning. 

THE PROBLEM

Some moms are doing public school at home or putting their kids into virtual schools using public school funding. These programs are substandard—as studies show— and lack the joy that comes from learning with quality books coupled with real-life experiences. 

Nor do these methods leave much room for you to get into the exciting trenches of learning with your children. 

Something to consider is why we would enroll our kids in a government-funded program when the government failed to give us an adequate education. That would be like hiring a person who's just filed for bankruptcy to give us financial advice. 

“Although teachers to care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic — it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.”

— John Taylor Gatto

If our government failed us—gauging by our declining literacy rates—they'll fail our children too.

Rather than use government-funded "homeschooling" programs, you can homeschool independently and have great fun teaching your children from quality books, and you can learn beside them.

That's where one of the great perks of homeschooling lies; in giving ourselves the education our government failed to give us.

Just Say No!

But just how easy is it to turn down the government funds you receive for enrolling your children into its programs? First, let me ask you this: If something were that good, would an organization have to pay people to take it?

Without getting into corporate politics, let's just say that whoever or whatever benefits from your children's enrollment knows that it is worth the cost of paying you to join these programs. 

Because whatever they pay you, the "gainers" are scoring a lot more than what they give. As the saying goes, "Follow the money." 

I knew someone with five children who received 10K per year to homeschool! Now that is difficult to turn down, but not when you understand the hidden costs.

Hidden Cost #1

Let's keep our vision in sight. I'm going to presume that at least one of your goals in homeschooling your children is to give them a better education.

Two very different methods of homeschooling, such as public school curriculum and virtual schools versus real-book learning with hands-on experiences, cannot produce the same results.

“Children 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 or worth finishing; 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.”

— John Taylor Gatto

One MUST be better than the other. 

We know that the public schools are not producing graduates who can read, write, and compute well, and we know that schoolchildren are still behind in math and language arts after the online learning madness of Covid.

We know that there is enough research now to show just how ineffective online learning programs really are. Here's an excerpt from a study conducted about online learning during Covid, which is not unusual in its findings:

“Remote learning has also negatively affected children’s cognitive and academic performance throughout all age groups (Colvin et al., 2022). Standardized assessments during and after obligatory confinement have revealed students’ difficulties meeting grade expectations, particularly in schools with less in-person class time (Colvin et al., 2022).

Specific academic difficulties have been reported in mathematics, language, and reading skills. More than 1.5 million students from across the United States exhibited worse performance in mathematics and reading scores compared with the previous academic year (Colvin et al., 2022).”

— Colvin et al., 2022

Hidden Cost #2

You may believe that you need the government to monitor your homeschooling progress and therefore give you a sense of security; I would encourage you to reconsider this belief.

The homeschooling movement took root because parents were homeschooling independently of the government and doing a better job than the government schools were doing. There is no reason that you can't be one of these parents too.

The government standards for our children are so low that you couldn't possibly do a worse job unless you tried to. And homeschooling independently is less stressful than having a government employee check up on you once a month to "evaluate" your children's progress. 

Children should not be subject to "evaluations." If you are teaching your children consistently using a sound curriculum, your children will learn the things they need to learn. You may have to adjust your curriculum a little so your children meet state or country requirements, but that's easy enough to do. 

I would encourage you to muster up a little confidence to homeschool independently for the sake of your children. So many homeschoolers have come before you and homeschooled successfully without the government's intrusion into their family's life.

It was these pioneer families that set the educational standards for homeschoolers that we should work to uphold, not turn our backs on.

Hidden Cost #3

Excessive screen use, as is the case with virtual schools, is likely to do damage to your child's development, according to many studies. Damage may include a sedentary lifestyle, which results in health issues, such as obesity leading to early heart disease or myopia leading to early eye diseases.

It may also cause the inability to regulate the emotions leading to behavioral issues, or the inability to develop good social skills leading to relationship issues and difficulty making friends.

There are also the cognitive issues to consider, such as falling behind their peers and losing the love of learning and curiosity. 

As time goes on, more and more studies will come out with the same disturbing results. It seems prudent of us to protect our children now rather than wait for the evidence to get so bad that it can no longer be ignored. Frankly, looking at the state of young adults today, we are there.

To quote a young person I spoke to recently:

“People my age live in a virtual world. They don’t listen to live music, watch plays, go to the opera, or read literature—they live in front of their screens.”

If you don't want your child to fit the above description, you have to be proactive and begin to do things differently—these are choices we make now that will have a lasting impact upon the quality of our children's lives. 

While this next subject is not a hidden cost, it is worth discussing. 

THE REAL COST OF HOMESCHOOLING

Many parents with whom I've spoken to over the years have told me that they joined the government programs to get the payout offered, and they use this money to purchase curricula and extracurricular activities for their children.

As far as curricula are concerned, homeschooling does not have to be expensive. All you have to do is buy one curriculum per year, and then you will pass the books on to your younger children. You may have to replace a few workbooks each year, but that's it.

If you are on a very tight budget, you can buy second-hand books too. There are plenty of resources for good curricula books if you conduct a search online, network with your local homeschooling group, or patronize used bookstores.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR VS. FREE TIME

Regarding extra-curricular activities, your children don't need a lot of them. Children will benefit more from free time during their day than they will from attending several extra-curricular classes.

And you certainly don't need to be driving all over town playing chauffeur because it will take time and energy, and you will feel overwhelmed. Once overwhelm sets in, it's easy to experience homeschooling burnout, which will have a negative impact on you and your children. 

While a class in the arts, sports, or a foreign language is encouraged, if money is an issue, then bartering with other homeschooling parents is a way you can avoid paying course fees.

Another way is to teach a group of children something you are good at and to get paid for it. With the money you earn, you can afford to enroll your children in additional classes.

In my 24 years of experience, homeschooling with real books and keeping yourself independent from any government programs is less stressful, more rewarding, and a lot more fun for you and your children.

Real-life skills and books aplenty! 🎈

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your children by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

About Elizabeth Y. Hanson

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Unleash Your Child's Potential Through Creativity→

Did you know that 98% of children have imaginations in the realm of genius? By the time they reach adulthood, however, that number drops to 2%—why?

At the risk of sounding redundant, school is the culprit. 

NASA funded a study to discover the most creative people in their organization so they could give them the biggest problems to solve. The researchers themselves got interested in the idea of creativity, and they wondered where it came from.

These researchers had the brilliant idea to give the adult creativity test they had devised for the NASA employees to young children, and the above numbers are what they discovered.

School knocks the creativity right out of our children—their innate genius, usually gone forever. 

The late Sir Ken Robinson built a career on the subject of creativity and how we could foster it, not only in schools but also in the workplace. He said, “Sometimes getting away from school is the best thing that can happen to a great mind.”

Leonardo da Vinci had a great mind. He has been known mostly for his artwork, but he also dreamed up many inventions; such as the flying machine, weapons of war, work tools, and water systems. Clearly, da Vinci was a man with an unusually creative mind, a genius. 

In 2024, 70% of employers said that creativity is the most in-demand skill. We have a dearth of creativity in our adult population because most children no longer experience wholesome childhoods, and then—to add insult to injury—we enroll them in preschools and schools at too early of an age.

Rather than nurture our children's creativity, we are being advised to put them into environments that inadvertently squash it.

“In some urban centers, the competition is so intense for places in the “right” kindergartens that children are being interviewed—for kindergarten. What are the interviewers looking for, evidence of infancy?”

— Sir Ken Robinson

Is anyone to blame for this apparent lunacy? Who knows, nor does it matter. What does matter is that we understand what is happening to our children so that we can raise them to embrace their creativity and thrive because of it. 

Most parents are concerned about raising their children to get into good colleges and become successful in their careers. What we fail to understand is that creativity is a key factor, not only in their career success but also in the quality of the lives they will lead. 

The irony is that when we focus on raising and educating our children well rather than preparing them for acceptance into a good college, getting into a good college will naturally follow. 

“We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it’s an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.”

— Sir Ken Robinson

If you want to raise your children to get ahead, creativity is where you want to put your focus. Any obstacle, struggle, or challenge in life requires creative thinking.

People who rise to the top are creative people. They are the visionaries, the thinkers, the leaders. They are not the people who need to be told what to do because they lack ideas, the sheep, so to speak.

The first seven years of a child's life are critical years of development, years where—in the right sort of environment—a child's imagination will bloom.

Preschools and kindergarten programs, even first grade, will most likely interrupt this process, which is why you may want to consider keeping your children out of schools and early education programs. You may want to keep them out of school altogether, if possible. 

If you are homeschooling your children, you have the advantage, as your children will have more free time to pursue the wandering of their minds—that is, if you are homeschooling them according to the sound principles of education. 

Warning: Virtual schools are not an educational option that's conducive towards nurturing a child's creativity. 

If you can protect your child's natural genius—the genius that he was born with—he'll be way ahead of the curve where creativity and innovation are concerned and of more value to himself, his family, his friends, and his employers.

He may even become his own boss someday.

A few things you can do to help your child's creativity flourish include some of the following:

• Teach your children a lot of general knowledge (during the educative years) 

• Give them plenty of free time to let their mind roam

• Ask your children open-ended questions

• Encourage them to be in the habit of exploring different possibilities

• Support them in seeing themselves as creative people

• Help them make connections between different ways of seeing things

• Encourage them to explore their ideas so they develop confidence in their ideas

• Help them to learn resilience around ideas that don't go as hoped or planned

• Guide them towards their creative abilities, whether it be in music, math, drawing, etc.

• Always express respect and interest when your children share an idea with you

• Let your children take risks (within reason!)

• Encourage them to trust their own judgment

• Keep your children off of devices!

• Teach your children the skill of listening; they'll learn a lot more

These are just a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing so that your children can excel in the ways which will make their lives fuller, richer, and more meaningful.

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

About Elizabeth Y. Hanson

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Can Your Child Find His True Calling?→

“What do you do for a living?” Sir Ken Robinson asked a man who attended his event.

"I'm a fireman," the man said.

Sir Ken then asked the man when he decided to become a fireman. The man shared that as a child he had always wanted to be a fireman, and that desire had never left him.

When he was a senior in high school, his teacher asked the class what their plans were for after they graduated. Everyone was going to college except for our fireman. 

“I am going to join the fire service,” he said.

His teacher tried to persuade him that it would be a mistake because he was a good student, and he would be wasting his bright future in the fire service, but the young man went on to join the fire service anyway. 

THE WISDOM WITHIN THE IRONY

And six months before speaking with Sir Ken, our fireman had saved that same teacher's life!

His teacher and his wife had been in a serious car accident, and our fireman pulled them both out of the car, administering CPR to his teacher. 

If the fireman’s teacher had known that his student would one day save his life, would he have advised him to go to college instead of joining the fire service?

Probably not, but in this story lies the key to the kind of direction we want to give our children, so that they can find their true calling.

“The meaning in life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

— Pablo Picasso

What the teacher failed to recognize, and what the late Sir Ken imparted over the course of his profession, is that we all have a grand purpose in life.

YOUR CHILD’S PARTICULAR WORK

As Rumi, the sage and poet, said, "Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” 

Our fireman's grand purpose was to become a fireman, which would eventually include saving his teacher's life; the desire for that work had been put in his heart. 

Most of us don't know what desire was put into our hearts because we were divorced from our natural inclinations in the school system, never having had the time or direction to follow our interests and see where they led us. 

Consequently, most of us are not living our best lives, lives that are in alignment with our hearts' desire.

A CHANCE TO DO IT DIFFERENTLY

As stay-at-home moms and as homeschoolers, we can offer our children a different experience. We can introduce our children to a myriad of activities and new skills as they are growing up, and we will notice what it is that they are inclined towards and what it is that lights them up.

As they get older, we can steer them in those directions until eventually one of their interests will stand out above the others. 

We want to allow for the interests of our children to emerge without imposing our own desires onto them. In other words, if we expect our child to grow up and become a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer, then we've missed the point. 

For our children to live meaningful lives and to reach their potential, they need the freedom and opportunity to discover what it is that they were born to do.

It doesn't have to be one thing that they do throughout their entire lives, but they need to be able to choose what they do, even if it sounds crazy to us. 

Because only they are intimately in touch with the unfolding of their lives, and we have to trust that whatever they choose to do in the present is leading them towards the fulfillment of their purpose. 

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. ”

— Fydor Dostoevsky

Sometimes after one career, a person has developed a combination of skills that allow them to become excellent at a new profession, such as lawyers who become great writers or athletes who become brilliant physical therapists or gardeners who become superb chefs. 

As a parent, it behooves us to remind ourselves that we do not know what our child's journey will include, and it isn't our job to decide this for our child. 

Our greatest role as a parent will always be that of a guide. We want to guide our children into adulthood in ways that are in alignment with their uniqueness so that they can become their very best at whatever they choose to do. 

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

About Elizabeth Y. Hanson

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

What Are We Doing to Our Children

In lieu of writing something myself, I’m posting this link to a 19 minute and 40 second video that you will not want to miss.

What Are We Doing to Our Children, by Sophie Winkleman.

When Is Homeschooling a Bad Idea?→

Maybe, like me, you’ll also be surprised to learn that "Why homeschooling is a bad idea" is a commonly searched question on the internet.

Which got me thinking about the reasons for why some people believe this and when homeschooling might truly be a bad idea for some families.

As it may be of interest to you, I've put together 8 reasons for why homeschooling might be considered a bad idea. 

With 23 years of experience behind me, I'll share with you what I've seen work and not work when it comes to homeschooling, and I'll share some common misunderstandings that mislead parents about homeschooling. 

Why Some People Believe that Homeschooling is Bad

1. A Misunderstanding of What Children Need in Childhood

Our job as parents is to raise our children to be civilized, independent, and the best of who they can be. To do this, children need to be with people who model civlized behavior, they need the freedom to decide how to use their own time, and they need to develop well physically, emotionally, and neurologically. 

Once the children have a solid foundation in place, with the proper guidance, they will be able to grow into civilized, independent adults who operate from a place of integrity. However, when we put children into school too early, we interrupt this process. 

“Childish people, for all the noise they make, are nearly helpless. They always fall back into line because they have no other choice, they lack the inner resources to be self-sustaining. ”

— John Taylor Gatto

Contrary to tons of research, many parents still believe that putting their children into early education programs is what's best for their children, and, by default, homeschooling becomes a bad idea.

2. Ignorance About What a Quality Education Looks Like

Few of us stop to consider what a quality education should look like, and how providing one for our kids will have a positive effect on their entire lives.

If parents have been deceived into misunderstanding what their children are capable of, and they don't know how far below their children's capability levels the public schools hover, then they won't see the point of homeschooling their kids, and again, homeschooling becomes a bad idea. After all, why would you bother?

3. Parents Think Their Kids Need School to Develop Social Skills

Children need people in their lives to model good social skills for them. This is one of the ways they learn social skills. What they don't need is school. No child is going to learn good social skills from other children, and especially not from a school system where their teachers are not allowed to discipline and correct their behavior. 

“Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.”

— Marian Wright Edelman

Social skills amongst homeschooled children have been studied, and the homeschooled come out ahead for obvious reasons. There's no rocket science here. So, even for improving one’s social skills, homeschooling is not a bad idea.

4. Parents Know "Homeschooled" Kids and Are Not Impressed. 

This last one is a growing problem because the kids these parents know aren't really being homeschooled; they're in virtual schools. If all a parent knows are kids who are being "educated" through virtual schools, then they don't know anything about homeschooled kids.

These virtual schoolers sit in front of computers for too many hours a day; they don't socialize, and they don't learn much. They are even registered through the state as a public school student. 

Since Covid there has been a mass movement towards online education, and the most recent national study shows that schoolkids are still way behind academically.

Go figure. 

We need to keep our kids out of these fraudulent, dumbed-down programs! Our children are smart, and they deserve an education. 

An Unfortunate Scenario That May Not Work

1. One Spouse Wants to Homeschool, the Other Doesn't

All relatively sane parents want what is best for their children. Yet, when it comes to education, some parents believe that what is best is public school, and some parents believe that what is best is homeschooling. 

When two parents disagree on which kind of education is best for their children, homeschooling may not be the best option, however, it depends upon the level of respect between the parents. 

What I have seen over the years is that the parent against homeschooling, which is usually the father, may agree to the children being homeschooled for a year, but it is on a "trial" basis.

 If the father is respectful and truly supportive of his wife's efforts, and if the wife knows what she's doing, then homeschooling will usually prove itself, and he then becomes convinced that homeschooling trumps school. 

But if the father is disrespectful towards the mother, especially in front of the children, and he undermines her efforts to give her children a better education, then the children tend to eventually side with the father, and the mother will have little choice but to give up her dreams of homeschooling her precious ones. 

“A father’s contribution to his children is primarily a measure of how much he adores their mother.”

— John Rosemond, Psychologist

Sometimes you see the situation reversed, but it is less common because the mother typically does the teaching. If she doesn't want to homeschool, she is not going to "try it out."

Final Thoughts

Overall, homeschooling is the better option if you want to raise children to be brighter, happier, and better socialized. How we raise and educate our children will largely determine the quality of the life they live.

It's a few years of work for us but a lifetime for them. 

Register for Liz’s FREE masterlclass, Homeschooling for Success: 3 Critical Questions Each New Homeschooler Must Ask.

Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Boost Focus in Children For Better Study Success→

Children are losing the ability to focus because we are not raising them in environments that demand they focus, and then when they get easily distracted, we are too quick to cry "ADHD!" 

When you observe infants, you will note how extremely focused they become when something catches their interest. If you've given your children a wholesome childhood, they too should be able to focus well, and they certainly should from ADHD. 

Prior to the 1970s, only 1-3% of children were diagnosed with any problems of this sort. If only 1 - 3% of children had any learning or behavioral problems, should we ask what’s going on?

What's going on is that the way children are experiencing their childhood today is very different from how they experienced it 50 years ago, and with the "different" came a whole host of problems. 

One of which is a country of overmedicated children. Regardless of whether nor not your child has received an ADHD label, there are many things you can do to help your child learn how to focus better. 

The ability to focus equates to more efficient studying and quicker comprehension, which means that your children will learn more, and, therefore, do better academically over the course of their educative years. 

Focus Tip #1

Help your child develop the extremely important skill of listening. We overlook this skill today, but it is a skill that's vital to communication, comprehension, courtesy, and intelligence. 

“Being relevant simply consists in paying close attention to the point that is being talked about and saying nothing that is not significantly related to it.”

— Mortimer J. Adler, How to Speak How to Listen

There are 3 things you start doing today, that will help your child tremendously:

1. Teach him not to interrupt you or anyone else when he is being spoken to

2. Take him into nature and let him sit quietly while paying attention to every single sound he can hear. Ask him to write down the sounds or, if he is too young to write, you can write them for him. If you have multiple children, you can let them play a game of who can hear the most sounds. 

We are losing the ability to hear more subtle sounds because of all the noise pollution, so taking your children into nature and helping them to develop more acute hearing will serve them well. 

3. Read outloud to your children every day. If you can read to them in the afternoon and before bed, that would be ideal. 

Mortimer Adler said that the ability to listen is not a natural gift, but it's a skill that we must work to acquire. He also pointed out that nobody teaches it, though it should be taught. 

Focus Tip #2

Encourage your children to engage in activities that help develop their focus muscle. 

1. Provide your children with puzzles from an early age. As they get older, get them more difficult puzzles. Puzzles requires children to focus acutely as they think about where each piece goes.

2. Give your young children colored pencils and blank paper and let them draw for as long as they like. For older children, teach them the rudiments of drawing because it not only develops the skill of observation (critical to reading people), but it also requires that they focus intently on their subject. 

3. Raise your children to play sports that require intense focus; such as ice skating, handball, or ping pong. 

Focus Tip #3

Choose entertainment for your children wisely. 

1. Raise your kids to love reading quality books. A good story will keep their focus for a long time. 

2. Have your children study a musical instrument and take them to classical music concerts. 

3. Well, the last one you know. Keep your kids away from screens. This is a no-brainer as any screen use will interfere with their brain development, their social skills, and their engagement in activities that will help them develop the ability to focus well. 

And, while we're helping our kids improve their focus, we can strengthen our own focus muscles too. We live in a highly distractable time, and everyone I know seems to complain about the need to improve their focus. 

For that, it's a simple formula: a little less Netflix, a little less internet scrolling,  and a little more meditation every day will work wonders. 

Register for Liz’s FREE masterlclass, Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for success!

Don’t miss your free download, 31 Screen-Free Activities to Support Your Child's Developing brain.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

What's Stopping Kids From Reading…→

My son and I were on a train through the south of Germany when I looked to my left and saw a child reading. And then I saw another child reading. And then another child.

I said to my son, "Look, there's actually children reading on this train; how exciting!" 

"What a sorry day it is when you get excited about a child reading," he replied. 

"I know, tell me about it." 

But non-reading kids are the reality today. Kids are staring at screens instead of absorbing what's going on around them, learning from great books, engaging in life, or socializing with real people. 

No, they are living “virtual lives,” as my son put it. 

My eyes kept glancing over at these children, and then I noticed their parents were speaking English. At some point, I couldn't hold back any longer, so I went up to the parents and told them it was a joy to see that they were raising kids who actually liked to read. 

And they pointed down the train to another family of kids who were reading. I can't tell you what a delight it was to see kids with books in their hands and no screens. 

One Family's Success

We talked about the loss of reading in our culture, and they expressed their contentment in having kids who enjoyed a good book. I could see they were really pleased with their success in raising kids who read. 

The youngest child, a boy, was playing hangman with his dad. His father said to me, "He is supposed to be reading too!"

Okay, the "supposed to" jarred me a tad. I didn't say anything, but hangman over a screen is still a huge success in today's climate of raising kids. And a 7-year-old boy can't be forced to read, only encouraged from an environment of readers, in his case, his older sisters and parents. 

These kids were all screen-free. No whining. No complaining. The children were happily occupied on a long train ride through Germany with their noses in books (minus one). 

Took me back to my own kids and how they used to do the same. Or they’d gaze out the window and take in the sights or we’d chat about something they found interesting—as I’m sure the children on the train did too.

Amongst many other non-tech activities, screen-free kids will read books, and that's why "reading" kids are so uncommon now. Because kids have their noses stuck in screens, kids everywhere are staring at screens, kids are living in a virtual world. 

They are growing up in an alternative reality.

How to Raise Screen-Free Kids

However, luckily for us, it's not difficult to raise children who prefer a book to a screen, either. You just have to do two things. 

1. Keep screens out of sight, and chances are that your kids will never ask for one.

2. Keep an endless supply of good books in your home.

In my experience, it's much easier to raise kids without screens than with "one hour after dinner" or "two hours on the weekend." 

When you raise kids without screens, they learn how to occupy themselves, otherwise known as being resourceful. They won't whine and complain that they are bored, and they won't argue with you over screen time.

Honestly, keeping your kids screen-free will alleviate a lot of the tension in the home too.

And, if you have books in the house, they'll grow up reading too. My son told me, while on this train through southern Germany, that he read so much as a child because books were all there were in the house.

Exactly. He still reads. 

What triggers me a bit is this movement to end the use of smartphones in schools. Don't get me wrong; it's a long overdue movement, and I'm truly grateful it's begun, thanks to Jonathon Haidt and his new book, The Anxious Generation, which I recommend you read.

But why do so many parents wait until they are given permission to do what they know is best for their kids? 

When it comes to our kids, we can't give up our mama bear roles; we have to defend our kids from the harmful elements of society, and smartphones are a very toxic and damaging element.

We have countless studies to prove it. We also have our common sense.

“In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They sit and stare and stare and sit...
Until they’re hpynotized by it,
But did you ever stop to think,
(What) This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
...
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CANNOT THINK HE ONLY SEES!”

— ROALD DAHL

The No-Tech Kids Movement

Today we have a generation of children who grew up with technology, and who are active in this movement to remove smartphones from schools. 

They know the harm it causes their generation, and they want it to stop. We are hearing this from the children! 

They want it to stop.

One parent told me that her older kids told her not to let the younger children near technology. They recognized the damage it had done in their lives, and they wanted their mother to understand this and to protect their younger siblings. 

The Forbidden Apple Syndrome

There is one caveat with the "no screen" policy, and that is that when you are raising children, you need to find like-minded families to raise your kids with. Your kids can't be the only "screen-free" kids if you are raising them amongst technophiles. 

It becomes the "forbidden apple" syndrome. They'll want what their friends have but they can't have. Eventually, they'll grow up and head straight for the technology.

In this case, two hours on the weekend is a good compromise. But if you have like-minded friends who keep their kids off of tech, that's ideal.

The general rule of thumb is that if your kids want a phone, wait until they are at least 16 and let them get a job to pay for it. Also, no smartphones. Flip phones only for as long as they live with you. I got this bit of advice from my mentor and parenting guru John Rosemond, and it is sound advice. 

What Can You Do About the Problem of Technology and Your Kids?

Read a book about the dangers of technology on a child's developing brain, socio-emotional skills, and physical health. For this, I would recommend Glow Kids by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras.

Invite some friends to read the book with you and discuss ways you can agree to keep your kids away from screen use. 

Become a support group for one another in raising tech-free children. 

Given the studies about the harm technology causes to a child's grown brain, it seems a no-brainer that kids growing up without technology would be more intelligent, more socially adept, more emotionally balanced, and have better physical health. 

Say no to your kids now, and later they will be grateful to you for protecting them against the ills of screen use in childhood. As more and more studies come out, more and more people are becoming aware of how utterly damaging screen use is to children. 

By the time your kids are grown, even more research will have been published. If you let them use screens now, they may grow up to ask you, "Why?" 

Many children are asking this question today. Don't let yours be the next.

Register for Liz’s FREE masterlclass, Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for success!

Don’t miss your free download, 31 Screen-Free Activities to Support Your Child's Developing brain.

Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

A Special New Year's Activity for Your Children They Won't Forget→

Around the world, when the New Year chimes in, there is hope. Hope for a year of prosperity, abundance, and goodwill. 

It's universal.

There’s one tradition that I love, and I wanted to share it with you because your children can join in too.

In many parts of the world, there is a New Year's tradition of reflecting on the things that didn't go well during the past year and making the intention to leave them behind. 

The Practice

The tradition some people practice is to write down all of the things they want to leave behind on pieces of paper and before the clock strikes midnight, they throw the paper into the fire. 

Now they are ready to move into the New Year without taking the unwanted baggage with them. What's appealing about this tradition is that it's not only based on hope, but there is a clear intention behind it. 

It's a reminder that we have the power to make significant changes to our lives, whether it’s to work out regularly, eat better, or spend more time with loved ones; we have the possibility for improving ourselves.

We make the intention, create the space for it, and get to work. 

Easier said than done, I know. 

Include the Children

However, it's never too early to teach our children the importance of clear intentions and the power of vision and change.

If your children are old enough to write, they can join you by writing down anything they want to leave behind, and they can make the intention to do something differently for the New Year.

If they are too young to write, then you may have to do the writing for them. It would be fun to keep copies of what they want to leave behind to look back on years later.

Another thing that’s valuable about traditions, is that the tradition you can bring into your children's lives, the more things they have to look forward to during the year.

Traditions around holidays are landmarks that define certain times of the year. They are also times for shared memories and building family bonds. 

On a larger scale, traditions are the means by which we pass on our culture and customs to the next generation. 

“Tradition: how the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present. ”

— T. S. Eliot

Some Traditions

My grandfather was from a family of Greek immigrants, so we grew up with a very big Greek family. For the New Year's, there was a special cake that we baked with a 25-cent piece hidden somewhere inside the cake. 

As children, there was always a lot of suspense to see who would get the quarter, because whoever got it was guaranteed good luck for the next year. 

And my grandmother was from Georgia. The southern tradition is to bake black-eyed peas for dinner as good luck. Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is considered good luck because after the  Civil War, that's all there was to eat.

It was actually the food for horses that kept the Southerners alive after the war.  Growing up, we celebrated this tradition, too, with the typical southern accompaniments of collard greens, cornbread, and honey butter.

Honestly, the more traditions you have, the merrier.

Happy New Year! 

May it be a good year full of hope, prosperity, and abundance.

Register for Liz’s FREE masterlclass, Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for success!

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

LEARN MORE

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

LEARN MORE

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

10 Gifts for Your Child that Won’t Disappoint!→

When we buy a gift for our child, we want it to light up his face.

At the same time, we don't want to overindulge our children with toys that clutter up their rooms and spoil their characters.

To find a happy medium, I’ve created a list of ten gifts that will make your child happy and benefit his brain.

1. The Proverbial Book

Most young children enjoy receiving a book as a gift. You can buy a beautiful edition of a particular book with leather binding or a fancy edition of the book that includes a slipcase.

If your child is younger, choose a cleverly illustrated book like Mother Goose by Silvia Long or Aesop’s Fables by Chronicle Books. For a gift, I would stick to the classics.

Classics have stood the test of time, and your children will cherish them for many years to come, even unto adulthood.

2. Brain Cells at Work

No child ever tires of putting together a puzzle, and how wonderful it is for the budding brain cells. Your child will develop his reasoning and problem-solving skills, he exercises his hand-eye coordination, he builds his sensory/motor skills (lots of pinching, picking, and putting tasks involved), and he feels happy when he accomplishes his mammoth feat.

The latter also helps to build his confidence. Who would have thought your child could gain so much from a puzzle!

The wooden puzzle sets by Melissa and Doug are all-time favorites for younger children. 

For older children, you can try something like a colorful map of Europe.

3. Rainy Day Activities

Rainy days and long summer nights are perfect times for playing board games. Depending upon your child's age, you can buy him games that he'll enjoy playing with friends and family.

Think of games such as Chutes and Ladders, Checkers, and even chess. Board games are perfect for building social skills, especially the art of losing well.

4. Discovering Where Timbuktu Is

Children love playing cards. If you'd like to contribute to your child's education, buying a card game that teaches the countries of the world or the fifty states and capitals is perfect.

Sadly, most children don't learn much geography anymore. But with a good game of cards, your child won’t be one of them.

5. Playing Queen for the Day

A “make-your-own-jewelry” set is better suited for girls because girls love their jewelry! Making jewelry is a lot of fun, it's creative, and the jewelry can be given away as gifts. Children, therefore, will also learn the much-appreciated virtue of generosity. This kit is complete, and the price is reasonable too.

Girls Jewelry Making Kit. 

6. Rocket Man

And boys love rockets! Actually, all the children will have fun making this rocket from a soda bottle and baking soda. The kit comes with instructions, all the supplies you need, and it's easy to do.

The Water Bottle Model Rocket is suitable for children six through the early teens. The water rocket is another activity that is fun to do with other children and encourages cooperation.

7. More Than Just Another Puzzle

Children love brain games. Rubric cubes are a lot of fun, but the wooden brain puzzles are even better. Your child will spend hours trying to figure out the problem, and a child who stays at it long enough is bound to eventually figure it out.

Patience is the name of the game with this kind of puzzle, and patience is a virtue. A brain puzzle is a perfect way to learn a little patience.

Warning: only buy one puzzle. The kits with multiple puzzles will dilute your child’s attention, and he’ll be less likely to solve the mystery. 

8. Stencil Kit

A stencil kit is probably not the first gift that pops into your mind when thinking of a gift for your child, but the truth is that children love to stencil. It's another activity that your child can do with friends, alone, or even while traveling; and it'll keep him occupied for hours.

Children will naturally compliment each other’s work, too, which is another opportunity to learn generosity and kindness towards others.

9. A Musical Adventure

Many children miss the story of Peter and the Wolf, composed by Sergie Prokofiev. Peter and the Wolf is a classical composition that introduces the musical instruments of a symphony through a story about Peter and the Wolf.

Children love to listen to this piece, and they may even show an interest in a particular instrument, which is a great way to get them into the world of classical music.

Musical training will teach your child many virtues, including discipline and perseverance. It also gives him an interest that will elevate his character rather than then let society drag it down.

Peter and the Wolf is the perfect place to start and the ideal gift for your child.

10. The Gift of Andrew Jackson

When all else fails, there's always the 20 dollar bill. Children love to receive money, so don't feel bad if for some reason you can’t buy something. The 20 dollar bill could turn out to be his favorite gift!

It's also an excellent way to introduce your child to the value of a dollar and how to spend it wisely on something worth buying.

The best way to deliver this gift is to buy a money card from your local gift shop and then get a crisp twenty-dollar bill from the bank.

The Don’ts of Buying Children’s Gifts

If you are buying a gift for someone else’s child, you want to be sure to follow these guidelines:

1. Do not buy any toys that make noise (the parents will never forgive you).

2. Do not buy anything electronic (parents are struggling enough with their children and technology).

3. Do not buy candy (many parents do not appreciate this).

That said, if you follow the suggestions above, you will not only make yours or someone else’s child very happy, but you’ll help them become better people too. 

Join the FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss your free download, 31 Screen-Free Activities to Support Your Child's Developing brain.

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Is homeschooling Better for Your Child's Mental Health? →

Tears of Trauma

A kindergarten teacher once told me that the first two weeks of school she spends consoling the tearful children.

Look at it from a child's perspective: parents are a child’s rock and then the parents leave the child in a strange place, with strange people. The child feels abandoned by his parents. You can imagine the anxiety it might provoke.  

As you know, children's needs are very simple. They need to feel safe. They need to feel loved. They need to feel protected. 

However, when a child’s emotional needs are not met from situations like going to school at early ages,  it can interfere with the development of the nervous system.

We also know that children as young as five years of age now suffer from problems, such as anxiety and depression, which are ailments of the nervous system.

America is also struggling with an overgrowth of narcissistic people, which can stem from emotional trauma during childhood; such as emotional or physical abuse, as well as excessive praise and unrealistic expectations. 

On top of that, children are not wired to sit at desks at early ages. This is a bigger problem for boys than girls because boys have more restless energy than girls, which is why the ADHD epidemic has affected more boys than it has girls. 

The Rush to Label Children

When I look at the symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity, lack of focus with boring activities,  a struggle to listen, and saying inappropriate things, it sounds to me like the typical behavior of a young child.

When I look at the suggestions for non-medical treatment, it includes, lo and behold, exercise! In other words, movement, which is exactly what young children need.

We are too quick to label our young ones rather than face the obvious: our societal expectations of children are unrealistic. 

Another non-medical treatment is behavior therapy! I know from my work as a parenting coach that most parents are failing to teach their children how to listen when they are spoken to. Listening is a skill, but it is also common courtesy. 

One symptom that I find utterly ridiculous, and I'm sure you will, too,  is the inability to maintain focus when a child is not interested in the task in hand. Well, who doesn't have trouble focusing when they are not interested in something?

The Problem of Focus

Have you ever tuned out at a boring lecture or a repetitive task? I know I have! I'll be washing dishes and my mind has taken me to the Piazzo Della Signoria and has me sipping on a hot cappuccino on a cold winter day. 

If I can't stay focused on a boring lecture or mindless household tasks, what hope is there for a little child when he's bored by what he's been told to do?

What little boy wants to compute a row of additional problems when he could be outside fighting dragons? Or remember his spelling list correctly when he could be searching for a lost treasure?

Or try to decode some letters on a page when he could be fighting a villain with a magic sword?

The life of a little boy is so much more exciting that the dictates of a schoolteacher. Rather than acknowledge and accommodate the needs of our children, we drug them to fit our school agendas. 

Children are not wired to begin academic learning at early ages. They need to reach a certain level of development neurologically, emotionally, and physically to be ready to sit at a desk and study academic subjects; such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

— A.A. Milne

When we deprive our children of the joy of fighting dragons, searching for lost treasures, and magic sword fights, we do it at the expense of their development. 

We have been putting our kids into early learning programs since the 1970s, and it is no accident that the mental health issues amongst children has been rising since then, as well. 

Homeschooling Breeds Happier Kids

But mental and emotional well-being scores differently for homeschooled kids. The studies have shown that homeschooled kids are emotionally stronger than schooled kids, at least I can speak for kids who are homeschooled without government help because these are the kids the researchers have studied. 

(If your children are in virtual schools, the virtual schools might be contributing to emotional problems, such as anti-social behavior and a loss of interest in normal childhood activities.)

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Raymond Moore studied the research on early education and his conclusion was that "...warm and consistent proximity to one's parents until age 8 appeared to be a greater predictor of eventual stability and cognitive maturity than any special effort toward cognitive development."

When you homeschool your children, they do not experience the stress to their developing nervous systems that schooled kids might experience. Nor do they have to begin academic studies before they are developmentally ready. 

On the contrary, you get to decide when your child is ready to sit down and apply his mind to academic subjects. 

We have plenty of studies now that show children are better at home; free from the company of strangers, free from the confines of a school desk, and free from the demands of unrealistic academic expectations. 

Homeschooled kids continue to feel safe, loved, and protected long after the academic years of learning begin. They are also free to roam for as long as they need to, so they can reap all of the developmental benefits that come with a "free-range" childhood. 

And this is why it makes sense that homeschooling is better for a child's emotional health. 

Join the FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss your free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Guess Which Celebrities Are Homeschooling?→

With the homeschooling trend picking up speed each New Year, you might be surprised at the number of celebrities who homeschool. Here’s a few to start with, including some of their reasons for homeschooling. 

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is homeschooling her six children. Now, I'm not sure if this means that she has hired a governess to teach them, but what's important is that she's decided her kids will do better learning at home because of their diverse backgrounds. 

Which makes sense because a public school would be short-pressed to meet their needs. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that  you can custom tailor your curriculum to meet the needs and interests of your children. 

In school, there is no room for a child's own interests; he has to learn what the teacher decides he should learn. But in a homeschool, your kids can dive into subjects that interest them and that would be meaningful for them. 

I would guess that this would be important for Angelina's children too. 

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gusele Bundchen

Supermodel Gusele Bundchen and her NFL husband Tom Brady decided to stick with homeschooling after the Covid pandemic because they wanted to provide more stability for their children. 

Regardless of what is happening in the world, an uninterrupted education for your children makes sense. Consistency is vital to developing certain skills, and stability is so critical to a child's sense of well-being. Maintaining a stable learning environment is essential during the educative years. 

Homeschooling will help with a child's emotional state too. At home, or even in homeschooling playgroups, children are not separated from their parents at early ages, so anxiety or depression that might result from these early separations is avoided. 

On top of that, as you know, separation anxiety is real in children. It always baffles me that we treat it as insignificant in America. Children need to feel loved, protected, and safe for their nervous systems to develop well, so they are not at risk for developing emotional issues later. 

If the world were to stand still again, as it did during Covid, one group that won't be affected is the homeschoolers, because it'll be homeschooling as usual. 

Mayim Bialik

Mayim Bialik, the Big Bang Theory actress, decided to homeschool. She believes that allowing her children to learn at their own pace, rather than be shuffled along with 30 other kids, will have a huge impact on how well they do academically. 

“Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”

— George Carlin

And she's right. But not just academically. I would add that homeschooling has the enormous benefit of building self-confidence too.

Children who learn at their own pace don't adopt a "group think" mindset. The problem with the "group think" mindset is that it leads to a dependence upon what the group thinks, instead of having the confidence to hold and express a differing view. 

Homeschooled kids grow up in environments where they are encouraged to speak their minds, so this is what's normal for them. The idea of being inauthentic isn't something a homeschooled kid would be inclined towards.

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise homeschooled their children as did John Travolta and Kelly Preston, amongst so many others. The list goes on…

And who are the famous homeschoolers that came before us? This list is long, too, but to name a few…

Thomas Edison. He wasn't doing well in school, so his mother pulled him out and taught him herself. 

Theodore Roosevelt was homeschooled due to health reasons. 

Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle, as has been the custom of the ruling families (they need to raise leaders!)

Alexander Hamilton was largely self-taught until college. 

President Andrew Johnson was self-taught as an adult, having never attended school.

And the list goes on…

When you think about it, hiring a tutor to teach your children is a homeschool education. So if it is good enough for the ruling class—and preferred by the ruling class—why shouldn't our kids have a "leader's" education too? 

Join the FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss your free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

New Research on Raising Grateful Children!→

We had a step-grandmother who used to lecture us about gratitude. The more she lectured, the less we listened. Because she had it all wrong. 

As you and I both know, kids don't learn gratitude from lectures. Nor do they learn gratitude from reading books about how important it is to be grateful. 

The good news is that the gratitude guru, Robert Emmons, who has a new book called Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity, has cracked the code to reaping the benefits of gratitude.

New research shows that the less we focus on the generals of gratitude, and the more we hone in on the particulars of gratitude, the greater the positive effects become. 

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I excerpted the following list from an article he wrote on the benefits of gratitude because there are so many that anyone would be a fool NOT to practice gratitude daily, no matter how tough life became. 

And, speaking of tough times, if you are experiencing one now, Emmons points out that even in the worst of times when we feel less than grateful for our circumstances, practicing gratitude will help us through the difficult periods. 

Here's Emmon's list of the many benefits of practicing daily gratitude:

Physical

• Stronger immune systems

• Less bothered by aches and pains

• Lower blood pressure

• Exercise more and take better care of their health

• Sleep longer and feel more refreshed upon waking

Psychological

• Higher levels of positive emotions

• More alert, alive, and awake

• More joy and pleasure

• More optimism and happiness

Social

• More helpful, generous, and compassionate

• More forgiving

• More outgoing

• Feel less lonely and isolated.

Making general statements about being grateful for one's family, spouse, or friends is helpful but, as Emmons discovered, focusing on the particulars is an even better way to increase the benefits of gratitude 10x over.

You increase the benefits of gratitude by taking one thing you appreciate in your life and then name 5 things about it that make you feel grateful. So instead of focusing on the generals, you are focusing on the particulars of the gratitude. 

For example, I could say that I feel grateful for my work in education, which I do, but that's a very general statement. What I want to reflect on instead is what about the work makes me feel grateful.

So now I'll show you how this works by sharing my 5 particular reasons for why I feel grateful:

1. I feel grateful that I can guide parents to help their children realize their intellectual potential, rather than wasting 12 of a child's best learning years in a dumbed-down school system or even government-funded homeschooling programs. 

2. I feel grateful to be able to contribute to making the world a better place by helping so many families to homeschool their children, so we raise critical thinkers and ethical leaders.

3. I feel grateful that my work has a built-in need for me to read and learn new things because I love to do both.

4. I feel grateful for the creative side of my work which challenges me to come up with new ideas regularly and keeps my brain churning.

5. I feel grateful when a parent tells me how things I taught them had a huge, positive effect on their family because it reminds me that my work is having an impact, rather than effort spent in vain.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

— Marcel Proust

You can see how it works, right? Hone in on the particulars of one thing you feel grateful for, and your list of the objects of your gratitude will not only multiply ten-fold but so will the benefits you reap.

And, in becoming more grateful yourself, your kids will naturally feel grateful,  because you are their role model, and they'll adopt your attitude. 

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”

— Kahill Gibran, The Prophet

One thing you can do is to go through the practice with them every day as part of your homeschool morning routine, so they learn how to focus on all of the good in their lives because no matter how bad things can seem, there is always much to be grateful for. 

I remember this time with my kids when we were driving down the road and I asked them to tell me some things they were grateful for, and do you know what? I had to stop them because we reached our destination before they had exhausted their list! 

The beauty of children. 

Another thing I've noticed throughout my life, and I bet you have to, is that when I am in the company of people who complain a lot, I tend to complain more. It's a reminder for us to be vigilant about the company we keep because people's states do rub off on us. 

And, we naturally want to gear our kids towards keeping good company, which we can do as homeschoolers. In school, not a chance. It's the luck of the draw as to who our kids become friends with on the playground. 

As an example, my childhood best friend of 8 years had a brother who was killed in the Vietnam War just as we were entering adolescence.  I'm not going to go into any details, but suffice it to say that this beautiful Irish, Catholic family lost their faith. 

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

My best friend turned into bad company for me as a result of her brother's death, and she influenced me in extremely negative ways during my teenage years, because peer pressure is real. 

As homeschoolers, if another child becomes a bad influence on our kids, we will catch on to it in time to do something before it's too late. We can steer our kids towards better company without them realizing what we are doing, and before you know it, the bad company is forgotten. 

So, I’m sure you can agree on the importance of keeping our kids in the company of people who bring them up in life, not down.

And if we raise them with the attitude of gratitude, they will reap all of the benefits that Emmons has shared with us. 

And, you can pick up a copy of his book in preparation for the New Year to get started with your gratitude practice today, Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity.

I just ordered one myself!

Join our FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss our free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

6 Homeschool Lessons Out of One Unfortunate Event→

Educational experiences and events in real life are how you turn the world into your classroom. It also makes getting an education fun and engaging for your children. Most importantly, the lessons they learn in the real world, they never forget.

The unfortunate event was that my son did not dry the iron skillet and in the morning I found it completely rusted out.

But as a homeschooling mother, I was delighted. A discovery like this becomes a learning opportunity. The kids pile into the kitchen and a discussion of what’s happened to the pan becomes a day of homeschooling, with all subjects covered.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Upon finding the rusty skillet, your conversation might go something like this:

"Hey, kids, come here! I want you to see something interesting."

"What happened to the pan?" they ask.

"Exactly! Does anyone know what this is?" I point to the rust.

"It looks like rust," they reply.

"It is rust, but do you know why the pan is rusty?

"No, how did it get like that?" They are wondering if the pan is now ruined, and one child looks a little guilty.

The Science Lesson

I then send them off to get their science encyclopedias and they look up how rust is formed. They learn that when impure iron (cast iron) meets water and oxygen, the iron gives some of its electrons to the oxygen and the oxidation process begins.

As rust is formed it eats away at the pan, and, if left for a long period of time, will eventually corrode it, which is exactly why we never leave a wet iron skillet to dry by itself. 

And the Learning Continues

We could go on to teach them about the parts of an atom and how molecules are formed and so on.

We could then explain that the study of chemistry is partly about how matter is made up of different atoms and molecular structures and how they react to one another and how they behave in the physical world.

From the rust on the iron skillet, a host of questions will arise and we will go as deep as the children want in helping them to discover the answer to their questions, plus all the additional things they will learn along the way.

“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”

— E.M. Forster

This is the kind of learning that engages children, fosters their interest in the world, and keeps them wanting to know more.

The Writing Lesson

The children can write a few lines or a paragraph, depending upon their age, about their understanding of how rust forms and anything else they learned around this discovery. We could also take them to the library to find books that elaborate more about some of the things they are questioning. 

The History Lesson

We could then move on to history and teach them about the Iron Age. We could also give them a little history about how iron skillets and griddles were the mainstay in a woman's kitchen prior to the 20th century, later to be replaced by non-stick pans with plastic coating.

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates

The Philosophy Lesson

We could venture even further and discuss man’s tendency to NOT leave well enough alone and create problems where there were none before. Instead of a little scrubbing, we now cook with plastic-coated pans that produce off-gassing toxic enough to kill a small bird. Who knows what it will do to our health over the time? And so we ask, was the invention of the plastic-coated pan really such an improvement?

The Theology Lesson

This conversation could lead into a conversation about living more in-tune with God’s creation, rather than polluting it with man-made goods, especially when those man-made goods stem from greed.

The Moral Lesson

But the biggest lesson to be learned is the lesson of doing things right, which brings us back to why there was rust in the skillet in the first place. When you find your children doing a substandard job, here is a poem they can recite to etch the reminder to “do their best” into their conscience.

Work while you work,

Play while you play,

This is the way, 

To be happy each day.

All that you do,

Do with your might,

Things done by halves

Are never done right.

Anon.

Now you can see how a little rust in a skillet becomes fodder for science, writing, history, and even a philosophy lesson. You could go on to include more subjects but this is just a sample of how to approach the art of homeschooling.

Don’t miss our free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Is Thanksgiving a Celebration of Massacre?→

When it comes to the holiday of "Thanks" giving, I hear people spouting rhetoric about how we are celebrating a massacre of innocent people; and I can't help but think we have fallen deeper into the rhetoric of divisiveness generated by political motives that are not in our best interest.

I have celebrated the holiday of "Thanks" giving my entire life, but I have never celebrated the killing of innocent people. 

It was president Lincoln who declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, not to celebrate a massacre but to celebrate a day of gratitude. 

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, …to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving...

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him …,

they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. ”

— President Lincoln

The divisive rhetoric today pitting this group against the other group is an age-old device going back to Julius Caesar's, "Divide and Conquer."

Division is the tactic. Conquer is the goal.

We have fallen into the trap where we point our fingers at one another, while our civil liberties are being eroded and our tax dollars are funding wars of brutality.

Yet, as the saying goes, there are two sides to every coin. Most of life does not take place in the zones of black and white.

Most of it takes place in the grey zone;  the zone that's up for interpretation. And not one of us has absolute knowledge about everything.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

— Chief Seattle, Duwamish

History is rife with people overcoming one another in the most heinous of ways. "White" is only one of the many colors of men who have committed brutalities throughout history and who continue to commit them today. 

As I write, I'm sitting at my desk on the soil where the Persians conquered the kingdoms of the Medes and Lydians. 

I'm sitting at my desk on the soil where the Turks massacred the Greeks, Armenians, and the Kurds. 

And I'm sitting at my desk on the continent where Pol Pot committed genocide against the people of Cambodia. 

“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.”

— Dakota Tribe

To the North of me, the Russians and the Ukrainians are fighting; to the south of me, the Arabs and the Israelis wage war against one another.

This is man's nature - no skin color has a monopoly on brutality. Nonsense!

All men share the same human nature; we are all made up of the same parts, including arrogance and greed. We also share qualities of mercy and generosity.

We are complex beings and life is full of complexities.

So instead of attacking the character of the "white" man on this day, spend it as President Lincoln intended it to be spent, by giving thanks to the Divine for all that we have. 

No matter what difficulties befall us, as long as we are breathing we have something to be grateful for. And as long as we remember this, we'll raise kids who do the same. 

Along with thanks to the Divine, let's celebrate the Native Americans and their beautiful legacy of wisdom on how to live with reverence and respect for all living things. It's a philosophy that we could all reflect on more. 

“Honor the sacred. Honor the Earth, our Mother. Honor the Elders. Honor all with whom we share the Earth:-Four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones, Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people. Walk in balance and beauty.”

— Native American Elder

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Thoughts on Gratitude to Brighten Your Day.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

6 Ways Public Schools Cause More Harm Than Good→

Public school is toxic for a child’s heart and mind. When we understand the agenda behind it, we’ll do everything in our power to protect our kids, just like we do when we put medicine out of their reach.

Below is an excerpt from an essay by John Taylor Gatto which explains why public schools are such unhealthy places for our kids. It’s an essay no parent will want to miss.

The Short, Angry History of Compulsory  Schooling

Theorists from Plato to Rousseau knew well, and explicitly taught, that if children could be kept childish beyond the natural term, if they could be cloistered in a society of children, if they could be stripped of responsibility, if their inner lives could be starved by removing the insights of historians, philosophers, economists, novelists, and religious figures, if the inevitability of suffering and death could be removed from daily consciousness and replaced with the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear then young people would grow older but they would never grow up.

In this way a great enduring problem of supervision would be decisively minimized, for who can argue against the truth that childish and childlike people are far easier to manage than accomplished critical thinkers.

With this thought in mind, you're ready to hear the six purposes of modern schooling I found in Dr. Inglis' book. The principles are his, just as he stated them nearly 100 years ago, some of the interpretive material is my own.

1st Function

The first function of schooling is adjustive. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority.

Fixed habits.

Of course this precludes critical judgement completely. If you were to devise a reliable test of whether someone had achieved fixed habits of reaction to authority, notice that requiring obedience to stupid orders would measure this better than requiring obedience to sensible orders ever could.

You can't know whether someone is reflexively obedient until you can make them do foolish things.

2nd  Function

Second is the diagnostic function. School is to determine each student's proper social role, logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records.

3rd Function

Third is the sorting function. Schools sort children by training individuals only so far as their likely destination in the social machine and not one step further. So much for making boys and girls their personal best.

4th Function

The fourth function is conformity. As much as possible, kids are to be made alike. As egalitarian as this sounds, its purpose is to assist market and government research, people who conform are predictable.

5th Function

The fifth function Inglis calls "the hygienic function”. It has nothing to do with bodily health. It concerns what Darwin, Galton, Inglis, and many important names from the past and present would call, "the health of the race."

Hygiene is a polite way of saying that school is expected to accelerate natural selection by tagging the unfit so clearly they will drop from the reproduction sweepstakes.

That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward, and all the posted lists of ranked grades are really about. The unfit will either drop out from anger, despair, or because their likely mates will accept the school's judgement of their inferiority.

6th Function

And last is the propaedeutic function. A fancy Greek term meaning that a small fraction of kids will quietly be taught how to take over management of this continuing project, made guardians of a population deliberately dumbed down and rendered childish in order that government and economic life can be managed with a minimum of hassle.”

What Will You Do?

And there you have it, in a nutshell, so how will you educate your children?

There was a time when the government schooling agenda was obscure  but that time has passed.

From the incompetency in key subjects to our severely low literacy rates, we have to face the truth.

Our tumbling literacy rates reflect the dumbed-down minds of our people.

If we want to raise children who are not dumbed-down, children who are not lacking in common decency, then we need to do something about it.

And that something is not school.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

4 Reasons Your Kids Should Skip Trick-or-Treating→

I took my kids trick-or-treating on a few occasions, but the more I thought about the messages we were communicating to our kids, the more I began to think trick-or-treating might not be such a great idea.

Ironically, while growing up, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. What kid doesn't like candy? Having a free-for-all candy night with no adult supervision was the equivalent of kid Heaven.

But that was then when Halloween was a lot more innocent. Between the food waste and the front lawn horror shows, I now stand on the side of those who think we should skip trick-or- treating.

Here are 4 good reasons for you to ponder:

#1 Health & Mixed Messages

Letting our children trick-or-treat contradicts our position that sugar is bad for their teeth and bad for them. We limit the sugar our children eat all year, but one day a year we give them a free rein to eat as much sugar as they want.

Here’s a shocking fact to put things in perspective: the average child consumes three cups of sugar on Halloween!

Eating Halloween candy is not limited to one night, either. For however long it takes them to get through their bag of candy, that's how many days they are filling their bodies with harmful amounts of sugar.

Allowing our children to trick or treat on Halloween and eat so much candy is not practicing what we preach, nor is it responsible parenting. I'm guilty too, but when the facts are on the table— wow.

One Dentist’s Strategy

I read that one dentist pays children $2.00 for every pound of Halloween candy they give him. While I can appreciate his intention, we have to consider the message gestures like these send our children.

We buy the candy, the kids knock on our doors, we give them the candy, and then the kids sell it to the dentist.

How can turning our kids into candy peddlers be a solution?

#2 Manners & Strangers

We teach our kids not to talk to strangers, and we teach them that it isn't polite to ask people for things, yet, one night a year we let our kids knock on the doors of strangers and ask them for candy.

As a mother reflecting on the idea of trick or treating, it strikes me as being a contradiction of everything we’ve taught our children thus far.

My Shameful Story

I had just turned twelve, and my best friend Bridget and I were famished after a long day of sitting in classrooms. At about 3:20 in the afternoon, as we were walking home with pangs of hunger, we had this bright idea.

It was Halloween which meant that we could quell our hunger pangs by trick-or-treating!

We knocked on the door of an apartment near our school, and an elderly woman opened the door. Very surprised to see us, she asked, "Isn't it a little early, girls?"

She gave us some candy anyway.

We teach our children that it's not polite to ask for things, yet, once a year we permit it. We teach our kids not to speak to strangers, yet, once a year we permit it. We teach our kids NEVER to take candy from a stranger, yet, once a year we permit it.

Of course, there are always exceptions to rules, but these are a lot of exceptions and all in one night.

#3 Corporate Horror Show

Halloween has become a creepy holiday. The decorations have become gothic and violent since the corporate world has recognized the money to be made on Halloween.

When we were little, we had innocent little costumes: princess and cowboy outfits. Sometimes we threw a sheet over our heads and went out as ghosts. There was nothing more than a pumpkin with a candle burning inside on the doorstep of each home.

Forty years later, my neighbor would put gravestones on his front lawn and skeletons that moved to look like they were coming out of graves. When we drove up the hill at night, the scene looked so real that my kids used to get scared.

So did I!

And that was a mild scene. My friend's neighbor would spend a fortune decorating his lawn until it looked like the scene out of a horror film. I used to wonder what on earth that man was thinking.

Halloween is supposed to be for kids, not psychopaths.

#4 Waste & Starvation

I like the idea of carving pumpkins, but should we be wasting food like that? With so much starvation and deprivation in the world, it seems insensitive to waste pumpkins for a night of amusement.

For Halloween, about 22.2 million pumpkins go to waste! At your average price of $5.00 per pumpkin, that's 111,000,000 dollars of food that we waste.

The average cost to feed one person per day in the US is supposed to be about $11.00 (seems very low); divided by 111, 000,000, we could feed 10 million people, roughly. (2022 stats)

My god, that's a shameful waste of pumpkins.

What Can Kids Do Instead of Trick-or-Treating?

1. Have a costume party

2. Start a local fund and ask people to donate $5.00—instead of buying a pumpkin—and then use the money to donate food to a local charity.

3. Study the history of Halloween, the practice of Halloween, and the contradictions of Halloween, and ask your children to take a position for or against it. Then let them have a debate with the opposing party or write an age-appropriate essay arguing their side of the argument.

What You Should Not Do

Don’t take a stance of moral superiority if you decide to skip Halloween.

I had a friend whose children would stay home on Halloween. When the neighborhood kids knocked on their door, they would offer candy and then explain why they didn’t celebrate Halloween.

The unspoken was that the family was morally superior to those who knocked on their door. I’m pretty sure that no one accepted candy from said family without feeling “less than.”

Instead, use it as an opportunity to teach your children that everyone is entitled to their beliefs and to their opinions, just as you and your children are entitled to their own.

While we may not always agree with other people, we need to respect other people’s ways because each person is born with an inherent dignity that is worthy of respect.

What do you think? Let me know in the comment section.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.

"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”

—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling