Goodbye, Mr. Potato Head

Mr. Potato Head is losing his gender, at least on the box he comes in. Moving forward, he will be known only as Potato Head.

It's a little confusing, so let me explain: he's still a Mister in the box but not on the box.

Apparently there were a lot of articles that emerged Friday morning spreading fast the news that the toy company, Hasbro, who created the character of Mr. Potato Head in the 1950s, was going gender-neutral.

But then, the news article I was reading, by CNN, was updated later when Hasbro tweeted that the brand name had changed but not the characters.

I was relieved to learn that. 

When I was young, we had a funny sitcom about a talking horse called Mister Ed. After reading the Potato Head article, I was trying to imagine what would happen if Mister Ed became just Ed, but then that's a man's name.

And that got me thinking, exactly how would the TV producers handle Mister Ed today? Would they have to change his name? And what would they change it to since names from the beginning of time have always been based on gender? 

And what about adults? When I was young, children still addressed grown-ups with titles such as, Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith. Since we were not allowed to call an adult by their first name, what would we have done if the gender issue had existed then?

Would we have had to drop the Mr. and Mrs. when we spoke to an adult? As calling an adult by their last name was rude, dropping the titles would have put us in another bind.

My daughter told me at gender-neutral Berkeley, on the first day of her classes, the professors ask each student to state their pronoun preference. Some classes have as many as 300-400 students.

This perplexed me because I wondered how the teacher would then keep all of that straight? If the professor has to know what the pronoun preference for each student is, does that mean that every time they need to use someone's pronoun they have to look at their roster, find the person's name, see their pronoun preference, and then speak? 

As I considered this, I couldn't help but think about the cost of tuition and how much class time this must take up?

Anyhow, I continued reading the article and found that Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, also wanted to introduce "a multi-dimensional view of beauty and fashion." To accomplish this, they introduced new dolls with disabilities, hair loss, and “vitigilio.”

I'm not sure what vitigilio is but I know that vitiligo is related to a disease affecting the skin pigmentation. 

Either way, it reminded me of a time when I was waiting to get my primary health care license in Chinese medicine. I worked for a company that sold a product for treating hair loss based on Chinese herbs. One day I was in a salon talking about the product to the owner when one of her customers came in. 

The customer, an attractive young woman, was invited into the back room by the owner.  While I didn't understand why she had been invited to join our conversation, she understood. She asked me if she could show me something. I said that she could.

She pulled her hair off and was completely bald. To clarify, her hair was a wig; she had no hair. She suffered from a disease called alopecia which causes all of a person's hair to fall out.

It was a shock to witness this, and I'm sorry, Mattel, but it was not at all beautiful. So when Mattel says they want to promote “beauty and fashion” by making a doll with thinning hair, again, I'm confused. Women and men spend billions of dollars each year to not have thinning and balding hair. 

Does Mattel not know this?

Potato Head aside, what all this confusion indicates to me is that we are beginning to lose a grip on a reality that we have agreed upon since the beginning of time. 

We are not thinking rationally and logically because we have been dumbed down by an educational system being manipulated by the corporate world since the mid-1800's and which now includes tycoons like Bill Gates. 

Gates has far more global power today than any one man should ever have. Where are the checks and balances for such unrestrained greed and lust for power?

And is it a coincidence that he largely funded the development of a national curriculum, and that most schoolchildren are now at home learning online?

It's pretty amazing if it is. 

If I were a young parent today, I would reflect on your child's exposure to the gender conversation very seriously, and I would do several things to protect them from it and anything related to it. 

Understand that this nefarious social conditioning taking place in school and the media is inevitably destined to alter their understanding of what is beautiful, good, and true.  

I want to share my 8 Steps to Protect Your Child's Heart and Mind with you, but before I do I need to make a request. Please resist the inclination to ignore them because you think they are too extreme.

It is precisely extreme measures we must take to win this battle because we are too far out in left field now. 

Personally, I don't care what people do behind closed doors, and I believe that each human being possesses an inherent dignity that is worthy of respect, but I have to draw a line when aggressive marketing campaigns are launched to literally alter our perception of reality in order to satisfy a very small group of people.

If you want to protect your children and are ready to be proactive, here is a downloadable list of 8 things you can do to make sure what's beautiful, good, and true in life remains beautiful, good, and true in your children's eyes too.

Beauty. Goodness. Truth. Now those are ideals worth pondering; those are ideals worth striving for.

On a final note, you can save your money because Potato Head is a toy not worth buying. He occupies your children's time for about five minutes and then they get bored. My kids played far longer with two sticks that cost me nothing than they ever did with Mr. Potato Head.

Still, I don't like to see the Mr. of Potato Head removed from the box.

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

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, is where you want to start.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

5 Reasons Why You May Feel Overwhelmed and 30 Ways to Fix It

As mothers, we tend to run ourselves ragged.

We forget that when we are exhausted and overwhelmed, we are less able to be present and in a good state of mind for those we love and who depend on us.

The truth is that we can only do so much as mothers; therefore, we do not want our children's memories of us to be that of a worn-out, exhausted parent because we are trying to do too much. To avoid this from happening, we need to organize our lives to eliminate the things that drain us unnecessarily and do more of the things that replenish us.

If you feel overwhelmed and worn out, it's a prudent time to take stock of your life and determine what is draining your energy.

Begin by asking yourself these five questions:

1. Have you taken on too much?

2. Are your extended family or friends draining your energy?

3. Are you and your husband at odd about things?

4. Are your children unruly?

5. Are you not taking the time to pursue your pre-motherhood interests?

What is it that is weighing you down? Sometimes it's a combination of things, but whatever is going on, you want to face it so you can determine how to break the cycle you're in and reclaim your life, restore your energy, and be present for your loved ones. 

While you are raising your family, and even beyond, you want to focus first on your marriage and make sure that it is solid.

Then look to relationships beyond your family and determine which ones require too much of your time and energy. you have difficult or extremely needy people in your life, you will need to reduce or even eliminate the time you spend with these people.

And then look at your children and make sure you have not gotten into negative patterns with them because it can be exhausting to have disobedient and disrespectful children to deal with every day. 

Remember the things you used to love to do before you had children. Maybe you loved to ride bikes or ride horses; maybe you had friends you went out to lunch with regularly; maybe you played a lot of tennis or went to music concerts; maybe you spent time reading or knitting. Whatever it is that you used to love doing, make the intention to bring some of it back into your world.

Just because you have children now doesn't mean your life has to be 100% devoted to them, 100% of the time.

The younger they are, the more they will need you, but as they get older you should be able to weave into your day more and more of the time you need to stay fresh and upbeat.

Also, you don't want your children to see you as someone who has no other interests besides them. Be someone who is interesting to them, so they are interested in you.

Find things to do that replenish energy and good spirit, and you will find you have more of yourself to give. 

Children pick up on our moods, and even though they can't intellectualize them, they do feel them. Engaging yourself in other pursuits a few times a week does not make them feel less loved.

If your child had a choice, he would tell you to go out and do something you enjoy if that means you will be more present and happier when you are together.

As we want our children to be of good cheer, they want the same of us. Our children want to feel secure in knowing that we are happy to be their parent.

For 30 ways to fix your overwhelm, download a free copy of 30 Things a Mother Can Do To Feel Cheerful.

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

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, is where you want to start.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

One Method to Raise Courageous Children and Catapult Their Careers

Courage is a great virtue and one every successful person embodies. But it’s an often misunderstood virtue.

Many people think courage is a lack of fear, but courageous people experience fear. The difference is that courageous people will act despite their fear whereas cowards will succumb to their fear and be unable to act. 

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”

— Mark Twain

Life, to be lived to its fullest, has challenges and obstacles that we must all face and learn to overcome. If we let our fear conquer our minds, we will struggle to live purposeful lives because cowardice is paralyzing.

It will stop us from making decisions or acting in ways that will propel us forward in our life's true purpose.

If you want your child to embrace his life, to live life to its fullest, to realize his life's work and purpose, then you have to allow him to take risks in childhood and learn to overcome the obstacles and challenges that he'll face. There are physical challenges he must overcome as well as challenges of the mind. 

The mental challenges are the more difficult to overcome because man is a master at self-delusion. But we can help our children learn to face them with courage when they are young, to overcome them when they are older.

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

— William Faulkner

The greatest fear of the mind is the fear of performance, otherwise known as the fear of looking stupid. There are ways your child can confront this fear in youth so it does not immobilize him when he is older.

Give your child a head start developing the confidence to perform by having him perform for audiences during his childhood. There are various situations you can put your child into to give him the practice he needs to overcome this fear. If you can do this for him, he'll be at a great advantage in his life.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

— E.E. Cummings

Here are three situations to consider for your child to help him discover the stuff he is made of, his "mettle," as Homer would say.

Music

The first is by having him learn a musical instrument and performing in music recitals. Find a music teacher who provides recitals for the children at least twice a year. If you find a teacher you like, but the teacher does not provide recitals, suggest he or she does and offer to help organize the recitals. If this fails, then continue looking until you find a competent teacher who does provide recitals. 

Music recitals are extremely important for children because they develop the confidence they need to walk out onto a stage and perform under pressure. In the beginning, it will be difficult for them but, when they are very young, they have the advantage of being less self-conscious.

Children also tend to have less of an opinion about things when they are younger, so they'll be more willing to perform when they understand that it's expected of them. 

 As they grow older, with enough practice, they'll get used to performing for others and be able to bring joy to people through their music. While they may feel nervous before they start to play, they will understand that their fear is not a reason to cower down; they will learn to act despite it. 

Poetry

As part of your child's education, have him memorize poetry. Once a month, get together with other families whose children are also engaged in memory work and do a joint recital. Let each child have a turn coming to the stage and reciting by heart the poem he learned.

Afterward, have tea and cookies and let the children enjoy their accomplishments together. The goal is to let it be an event they can look back on with fondness while they are developing confidence in learning to perform. 

Projects

Have a quarterly or bi-annual project night where children speak on some aspect of history or science through a project they made. This is not only a good opportunity for them to learn to ignore their fear and learn to perform well, but it is a great academic learning and teaching opportunity too. 

There are other things you can do to help your child gain confidence in performing when he is young; still, these suggestions are a place for you to begin thinking about the kind of opportunities that will help your child gain confidence in his ability to perform well. 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

— Winston S. Churchill

If you can do this for him, you will have helped him learn that fear is not a reason for inaction; we act despite our fear when there is something worth doing. The more we act, the more courageous we become.

When your child is young, let me offer you a word of caution: do not let him get into the habit of always being the center of attention. Teaching your child to perform and indulging a child in excessive attention are two very different things.

One leads to courage, and the other leads to self-centeredness. 

Your goal is to raise him to be courageous and to be able to rise to the occasion when life demands it of him. This is the beginning of the journey to living a life of purpose.

The great sage Rumi said that every person was born with a desire for some work in his heart. Raise your child to be courageous so he can discover that work. 

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

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

Free Download: How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a reading guide and book list with 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Your Children Must Learn to Write Verse!*

According to Mr. Gwynne (of GwynneTeaching.com and the author of Gwynne’s Grammar), all schoolchildren in England, century after century, used to be taught how to write verse. Back then, writing verse was considered an elemental component of an elementary education

How many adults do you know today who can write verse? Allow me to answer that question for you. Most likely, none.  At least, not classical verse, which is the topic under discussion in what follows.

Fundamental opening question: what exactly is real verse, classical verse?

Let us begin by looking at what of modern verse, more commonly known as "free verse," consists of, and, after that, do the same for traditional verse. 

Free verse is when someone takes a thought and writes it in a style that may or may not offer a vague hint of traditional poetry, but pays no attention to the rules of traditional poetry, and in consequence is not, technically speaking, poetry at all.

Let's look at an example of free verse: this, from T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

 We are the hollow men

 We are the stuffed men

 Leaning together

 Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

 Our dried voices, when

 We whisper together

 Are quiet and meaningless

 As wind in dry grass

 Or rats' feet over broken glass

 In our dry cellar

“Free verse proliferated in the twentieth century because it was “modernistic”, secular and easier to write; but it moved poetry closer and closer to prose until it reached the point when it was no longer possible to tell the difference when read aloud.”

— Geoff Ward, Academic

Now, let me give you an example of traditional verse, in the first stanza of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are, 

I think I know,

His house is in 

The village though

He will not see 

Me sitting here, 

To watch his woods

Fill up with snow.

Please read it two or three times out loud to get a sense of the feel of the poem. That done, now read a later "stanza" of T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer-

Please read that "poem" out loud two or three times too. 

Notice that, in the genuine poem by Frost, there is an exactness in the number of units that each line is divided into. In consequence, the poem has a rhythm. By contrast, in Eliot's "poem" nothing is measured at all; there is no rhythm of any kind. It could perhaps be not unfairly described as a free-flowing regurgitation of thought. 

 In Eliot's "poem" each line simply has as many feet (units) as Eliot happened to feel like giving it. Far from there being any coherent structure to the “poem”, each "stanza" has an indeterminate number of lines broken up into lines at random – which, by any traditional definition or practice, simply is not poetry.

“Led mainly by Ezra Pound in the United States, and quickly followed by T. S. Eliot in England with “The Waste Land,” both meter and and rhyming were abandoned, first by very few and then by more and more until where we are today, when they are scarcely to be seen today in published poetry.”

— Mr. N. M. Gwynne

In summary of the essential difference between classical poetry and modern poetry-so-called that we have arrived at: what is referred to as free verse is -- by contrast with traditional, true poetry -- in reality no different from prose. In no way, shape or form does modern so-called poetry bear any real resemblance to poetry as traditionally recognized over the past several thousand years dating back to Homer and before. 

Please think about this, good readers. For centuries—no, for millennia—the term “poetry” was given to a particular type of writing that met certain exacting criteria; whereas, by contrast, as with so many things in our “brave new world,” we have kept the name, but completely lost its meaning. 

Might you perhaps be wondering if I am exaggerating? Well, consider the modern Orwellian tendency of so many people in today’s world to adjust the meaning of terms to suit our version of reality.  

Homeschooling no longer means schooling at home outside schooling institutions. Now included as constituents of homeschooling are charter schools and online virtual public schools. Parents who want to be called "homeschoolers" no longer need to do their own teaching of their children, and to do it at home, as traditional homeschoolers have always done in the past, but can now enroll their children in a school and still call themselves "homeschoolers."

A mother is now called a "primary care giver." Anyone who cares for the same child while the mother works is also called a primary care giver, even though he or she is not the mother. (The implication here is that anyone can fulfill a child's need for his mother, which is not true.) 

Homosexuality, originally called “one of the four sins crying out to Heaven for vengeance” in traditional catechisms, more recently rated as “a carnal sin,” and then, more recently still, defined as a mental illness, is now considered to be nothing more than a lifestyle choice. Fundamentally  it is not a choice of lifestyle, however. At root, it is a choice of sexual activity, full stop.

Words frame our realities, something it would behove us not to forget. We need to work diligently to preserve our language and thereby, ultimately, to preserve our reality, and poetry is one of the means by which we can do this. The words that make up a poem, however, must be more than free-flowing. They must be used with precision, in accordance with the rules governing poetry.

While it is true that words can change their meanings over time, nevertheless, if we are to preserve our perennial understanding of reality, a tree  should always remain a tree and a rose should always remain a rose. When we state that a tree is no longer a tree and a rose no longer a rose, we have, whether intentionally or otherwise, altered our reality.

And when reality is altered in a way that decreases our intellectual powers and our heart-felt sensibilities, as the meaning of the word “poetry” has been altered in recent times, should we not oppose, even fight, the change?

Mr. Gwynne thinks that we should. According to Mr. Gwynne (in the U.S. edition of his book Gwynne’s Grammar):

In order to be categorized as verse,

(1) the verse has to be made up of lines, and each line has to have a fixed number of accents or stresses, and each accent has to have a fixed number of unstressed syllables, one or two, attached to it, and

(2) each line has to be divided into feet and each foot has to have a specific combination of accented – stressed -- syllables and unaccented syllables.

If it has a regular meter and regularly rhymes at various intervals, it is called "rhyming verse." If it has a regular meter but does not rhyme, it is called "blank verse." Verse of either kind is what verse has always been in the past and what it must always remain in future in order to be justifiably referred to as “verse.”

To determine if a piece of writing is truly a poem, rather than prose posing as a poem, the reader must be able to "scan" the poem. That is to say, the reader must be able to determine how many feet (see above) per line the poem has and where the accents/stresses in each foot are placed. There are various forms of meter, but, to write poetry, you must use with precision whatever meters you decide to use. 

Composing a true poem demands that you choose words for each line (1) that fit your meter and (2) the stresses of which (in each word) fall on the correct syllable of whatever word is used in any particular place, and never on the wrong syllable. To do this successfully is genuinely demanding for the brain. 

Robert Frost had to think hard and carefully about each line in the poem that he was composing; T. S. Eliot minimally so by comparison. 

Adequately skilled poets know that they cannot just pick any word and put it anywhere in the sentence that seems fitting at first sight. Such poets know that each word must have a precise position in the sentence that “works” if the sentence is to succeed with its readers. They need to give careful thought to finding the exact word for in the line of the poem that it is needed for, and then to fit it in exactly the right place there.

Let us now have another look at that opening of the first stanza of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…”: 

Whose woods these are, 

I think I know,

His house is in 

The village though…

Can you “hear” that each line has four units, and that the accent is on the second and the fourth syllable in each line, creating a rhythm and natural flow to the line; so that it rolls comfortably off your tongue as you read it?

That of course is not mere accident, but exactly what Frost intended. The poem is regarded as a classic and has stood the test of time partly because it is a poem that follows traditional rules for verse. Following traditional rules of verse is an essential part of poetry that is genuinely glorious, as well as of poetry that is “merely” good poetry! 

Now let us return to that first stanza of Eliot’s:

 We are the hollow men

 We are the stuffed men

 Leaning together

 Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

 Our dried voices, when

 We whisper together

 Are quiet and meaningless

 As wind in dry grass

 Or rats' feet over broken glass

 In our dry cellar

Line one has three feet; line two has three feet with a different rhythm; line three has two feet; line four has four feet; line five has three feet; line six has two and a half feet; line seven has three feet; line eight has three feet of a different form from those of line seven; line nine has four feet;  line ten has two and a half feet.

If you were to look, stanza by stanza, through the whole "poem" (most of which I have not quoted), you would also find that each "stanza" has a different number of lines.  

There is no flow or rhythm to Eliot’s words. There are some clever phrases, such as "We are the hollow men, We are the stuffed men,” but a clever phrase here and there is not sufficient to make genuine poetry. 

Also, the stresses are out of joint and, as one reads through the “poem,” the sounds feel jerky to the ear. It may be considered good writing, though even that is arguable, but it is not poetry.

Poetry is a science as much as it is an art. There is both a mathematical and a grammatical element to it,  and if either of those two elements is neglected, let alone if both of them are, a poem cannot be competent, let alone great. Meaningful, it might possibly be, but it cannot belong to the category of poem!

Let us look at two more stanza's, each by a different poet. Make your judgement as to which of them needed the greater intelligence and skill and intellectual prowess for its composition, and then move on to where I tell you who wrote them:

There is a change—and I am poor;

Your love hath been, nor long ago,

A fountain at my fond heart's door,

Whose only business was to flow;

And flow it did; not taking heed

Of its own bounty, or my need.

*     *     *

“I have a lover with hair that falls

like autumn leaves on my skin.

Water that rolls in smooth and cool

as anesthesia. Birds that carry

all my bullets into the barrel of the sun.”

If you said the last poem, well, perhaps. It  was written by the upcoming, contemporary "poet," Brian Turner. Turner actually won some literary recognition for his poetry. 

Now, may the real poet, out of the two of them, stand up. William Wordsworth: the first of the two verses above is from his poem “The Complaint.”

I rest my case. 

Your children should learn to write verse for several reasons.

1. Learning to write good verse produces good writers.

2. It expands your vocabulary and your understanding of the precise meaning of words.

3. It helps to preserve the English language, the language of great writers such as George Gascoigne, William Shakespeare  and John Milton. 

4. Learning to write good verse compels the writer to learn how to turn a phrase well; a skill without which, if you do not master it, you can never be a great writer, and with which, if you do master it, could bring you into the catalogue of the most remembered writers of all time. 

To turn a clever phrase -- to say things with an eloquence, a profundity and a beauty in a way no one has ever achieved with them before -- will improve even your prose one-hundred fold.  Examples of such achievements:

"They were the best of times, they were the worse of times." -- Charles Dickens

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” – William Shakespeare

“Solitude sometimes is best society.”  -- John Milton

*This blog post is a combined effort of both myself (Elizabeth) and Mr. Gwynne. While I wrote the article, Mr. Gwynne kindly edited it and thereby improved upon it significantly, to which I owe him many thanks.

Do Not Teach Your Children the Correct Anatomical Names for their Private Parts

After reading the blog post, What Has Sex Education Got to Do with It?, I received one of two responses: either people were in total agreement or agreed but had one objection.

The objection was that children needed to know the correct anatomical names for their private parts to protect them from child abuse. 

That children should learn the names of their private parts, for this reason, seemed like a fair enough statement, but something didn't sit right with me.

So I started to dig around a little. 

My digging confirmed that teaching children this vocabulary to protect them from sexual abuse is unsubstantiated. 

It has never been researched. At least I could find no evidence for such a study, and what I did find indicated there never had been such a study. (If you know of one, please send me the link.)

If you have ever studied statistics, you know that to conduct a reliable study, you need a group of children who have been taught the Latin terms for their private parts and a group of children who have not been taught the Latin terms.

Then you need the perpetrator. You need to put children into a situation where someone approaches them sexually, and you need to record their response.

“Alfred Kinsey in the Kinsey Reports (1948 and 1953) included research on the physical sexual response of children, including pre-pubescent children (though the main focus of the reports was adults).

While there were initially concerns that some of the data in his reports could not have been obtained without observation of or participation in child sexual abuse,[2] the data was revealed much later in the 1990s to have been gathered from the diary of a single pedophile who had been molesting children since 1917.[3][4].

 This effectively rendered the data-set nearly worthless, not only because it relied entirely on a single source, but the data was hearsay reported by a highly unreliable observer. In 2000, Swedish researcher Ing-Beth Larsson noted, “It is quite common for references still to cite Alfred Kinsey”, due to the scarcity of subsequent large-scale studies of child sexual behavior. ”

— Wikipedia

Can you see now why the study has never been conducted? 

The claim that sex education is vital to a child's safety and that they must be taught the Latin terms for their private parts in school (or home) seems to have suddenly become popular in recent years.

Furthermore, the articles I read in favor of such an education relied on the sole expertise of a sex educator.

Which begs the question, who are these sex educators, and how do you become one? Here is an excerpt from an article I found on how to become a sex educator:

"Many Planned Parenthoods have libraries packed with great information on sexuality, trainings on sexuality-related topics, and opportunities to volunteer. For example, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts offers a three-day training called the Sexuality Education Cornerstone Seminar. Other agencies that might have opportunities for training and volunteering are HIV/AIDS service organizations; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender groups; and agencies that work with youth."

If you follow the Planned Parenthood link, you will find that they affiliate their training with the endorsement of social workers, nurses, and other trained "professionals", but the actual people being trained are schoolteachers. 

The schoolteacher turned sex educator has a whopping three days of total training to become a sex-education expert.

Also, note that in addition to Planned Parenthood, you can get trained from LGBTQ organizations.

These are your trustworthy resources. 

I dissected a Huffington Post article's claim about the importance of teaching children the proper names of their private parts and found it contained zero scientific research. The lack of substantiated proof to this claim was a pattern I found in similar articles, too. 

Here are some of the Post article's salient points with my comments to give you an idea of how misleading the article, Why You Should Teach Your Kids the Real Words for Their Private Parts, is.

My comments are in italics. 

To inform these early discussions, HuffPost spoke to Carnagey [a sex educator] and sex educator Lydia M. Bowers about the best ways to explore the topic of private parts and bodily autonomy with young kids.

"Body parts are body parts are body parts," Bowers said, emphasizing that "penis," "testicles," "vulva" and "vagina" are not bad words. Parents should become comfortable using these terms or the corresponding words if they speak a language other than English at home.

In other words, if you don't speak English, don't worry about learning how to ask directions or buy food, but make sure you learn how to say "penis," "testicles," "vulva" and "vagina." 

Furthermore, no one ever said they were bad words.

"Often without hesitation, caregivers will use accurate terms for body parts like elbow, knee and nose, so parts like the penis, vulva, vagina and anus should be no different," said Carnagey.

There is a huge difference! Private parts are private because it is socially unacceptable to expose them, and it used to be socially unacceptable to discuss them, especially with children.

Adults do not have conversations with one another using anatomically correct names for the private parts—unless there is a medical concern—so why are we suddenly expected to use this language with children?

"When we avoid saying words, we instill a sense of shame, of something to be avoided or hidden."

The assumption here is that shame is a bad thing. The traditional understanding of shame, which has since been perverted by modern psychology, is what we feel when our honor or self-respect is jeopardized by something we have done or something that has been done to us.

We should feel shame when matters that are inappropriate to discuss are mentioned in front of us. We should teach our children to have modesty about these matters, so they don't grow up to be people who lack shame, and consequently, lack a sense of honor and self-respect.

Experiencing shame around certain matters or behaviors is fundamental to a civilized society. Shame prevents us from behaving in morally reprehensible ways, such as having sex in public or walking down the street naked or talking about our genitalia unless it is medically warranted.

"Using accurate terms also better prepares them to talk confidently about changes they may experience to their body as they grow, especially to medical providers or in settings where they may be learning about their health," Carnagey added.

The assumption here is that children should speak to strangers. As children, we were always taught NOT to speak to strangers, but suddenly we need sex educators to teach our children to speak to strangers about their bodies with confidence?!

"If we're using cutesy names because we're embarrassed or ashamed to say the actual terms, we're perpetuating the idea that some body parts are dirty, bad or shameful."

No, we're instilling modesty and common decency in our children because it’s the right thing to do.

Psychology Today had a similar article to this, as do many websites. On Psychology Today's website, Dona Matthews, PhD. is quoted as saying:

"In the absence of statistical validation, however, there is a general consensus among clinical experts that children who know the anatomically correct names for their genitals are better able to avoid abuse, or to talk about it if it happens."

Note, in the absence of "statistical validation." 

Three paragraphs earlier, in the same article, she states: "Recent research shows that knowing the correct anatomical terms enhances kids' body image, self-confidence, and openness"!

Seriously? Who believes this stuff?!

These kinds of articles are all over the internet, and they all make the same claim: teaching children the proper names of their genitalia protects them from child abuse. 

It teaches them the names of their genitalia and turns teachers into sex educators who have inappropriate conversations with young children. 

Imagine if you caught your neighbor’s son having such a conversation with your preschool daughter; wouldn’t your first thought be something along the lines of child abuse?

Why then is it okay for schoolteachers to have these conversations with our children?

Don’t believe such lies for a minute!

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

Any competent parent knows that the more you make a big deal out of something, the more attention a child will give to it. 

As I read these misleading articles, I found myself reflecting on how I handled the matter of private parts with my children.

I didn't make a big deal out of it; that's how I handled it. I simply taught them to cover their private parts— private being the key word—and that was that. 

"Private" implies everything a child needs to understand while keeping their innocence and modesty intact. 

And protecting a child’s innocence and sense of modesty is our responsibility.

Not the child’s!

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

What Has Sex Education Got to Do with It?

A Fact

Did you know that sex education has been taught in the classroom since the 1960s? Prior to this period, it was a subject left for parents to tackle when they thought the time was right.

But that was then. Now we have sex-education classes for children starting as early as preschool. 

Are four-year-old children developmentally ready to learn about sex? Are children of any age ready for this kind of education?

Of course not! 

Teaching children about sex forces them to think about adult behaviors that they would prefer not to think about. After all, they are children, for God’s sake.

Ironically, we teach children to believe in Santa Claus, but, in the same vein, we have sex education classes for preschoolers. Freud would have fun untangling this web of inconsistencies. 

A Not-So-Good Idea, Possibly?

According to Dr. Melvin Anchell, who wrote the book What's Wrong With Sex Education, teaching sex education in the classroom has led to significant increases in teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, teenage abortions, and, not surprisingly, depression and suicide. 

While the reasons for this are more than we can tackle here, let's look at a few of them to get a sense of what is taking place in the classroom.

For starters, when we introduce children to the concept of sex at an early age and do it in mixed classrooms, we remove that natural barrier of modesty which children have, especially the modesty between girls and boys. 

We then reduce sex education to the mechanics of a physical act and ignore its purpose, which is procreation and the physical expression of romantic love. 

The earlier children begin to think about the mechanics of sex; however, the more desensitized they become to a physical act that was once held sacred.

When we shove the subject of mechanical sex into their young faces, having removed the barrier of modesty, the more curious they become about experiencing sex and the less forbidden it seems to them.

Dr. Anchell's findings make perfect sense in a world where elementary sex education has been normalized for the masses of schoolchildren who attend classes five days a week.

The New “Lifestyle Choice”

If things weren't bad enough, in the 21st century, we have begun to teach children that sex between two women and two men is a "lifestyle" choice. 

A lifestyle choice according to whom?

The idea of teaching four-year-olds that two fathers make a family and two mothers make a family is bizarre. Children do not think in these constructs until they are older.

Children do not objectively weigh the various types of "families" in the world. Children take life as it comes without judgment. Whatever world they grow up in will seem normal to them until they are old enough to recognize it for what it is.

Furthermore, what happened to schools teaching subjects such as grammar, Latin, poetry, and Ancient history? Why do we no longer teach these subjects, subjects that children do need to learn if we want them to become educated people? 

After all, isn't that why they are in school?

Benefit vs. Harm?

And, if teaching sex education to children leads to significant increases in teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, teenage abortions, depression, and suicide, as Dr. Anchell reports, then doesn't this tell us that sex education in the classroom is potentially harmful to our children?

If this is true, it would be prudent to understand what your children are being taught in the name of education.

“If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality.”

— C.S. Lewis

Planned Parenthood has many videos on Youtube produced for children ranging from learning to name their genitalia to knowing about gender identity. As you watch the videos, pay close attention to the language that is being used and the assumptions being made.

This is the same language and the same assumptions your children are being exposed to in public school.

The videos would be laughable if they weren’t so disturbing.

The Sex Education Standards

You can easily check out the National Sexuality Education Standards to learn about the K-12 sexual education objectives as taught in public school today. The information is online and available to anyone who chooses to investigate the matter further.  

To give you an idea of what you'll find in the Standards, for example, kindergartners are now taught anatomy. There is nothing wrong with teaching anatomy, but, curiously, no other body parts are mentioned except for the proper names of the male and female genitalia.

A Novel Idea

Have you ever heard a child refer to their private parts by their proper names? On the contrary, as already stated, children have a natural modesty about these things. Why take that away from them?

Furthermore, most adults cannot identify the location of their liver or pancreas, but somehow, a kindergartner should know the proper names of their genitalia?

It would be more fitting to teach students where their organs were located, but maybe not when they are five-years-old.

Feeling Feelings

How about this one: "Identify healthy ways for friends to express feelings to each other." Take note that this need to "express feelings to each" is a part of sex-education courses, not a course in communication.

Healthy ways that young children express their feelings to one another? Can you imagine an eight-year-old boy going up to his eight-year-old friend, also a boy, and saying, "I'd like to express my feelings to you by telling you that I really like you." 

This is not the kind of conversation boys and girls engage in. Maybe they will say something such as, "I like you" or "let's be best friends," as I remember saying to my childhood best friend, but that is the extent of it. 

Children are not thinking about their "feelings" for one another because they don't understand the abstract concept of "feelings."

Attempting to teach children about their feelings within the context of sex education, and then teaching them sexual practices, some of which have always been considered deviant, will naturally get them wondering, which may explain why another sexual practice is also on the rise…

Yes, these are things our children are thinking about today whether we like it or not.

“How can one be well...when one suffers morally”

— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Won’t Boys Be Boys?

Here's another of the Standard's objectives: "Provide examples of how friends, family, media, society and culture influence ways in which boys and girls think they should act."

Shouldn't a healthy society teach girls to behave like girls and boys to behave like boys? Evidently not. Instead, we teach them that they can choose their pronouns as easily as they can choose the color of their water bottle. 

Which begs only one question, have we gone totally insane?

In public school, children are expected to ponder the societal influences on their behavior, based on their gender type, yet, Western psychology understands that children are too young to ruminate over these concepts. So...who is fooling whom?

“The goal of a boy should be to become a man, and that of a girl to become a woman.”

— Dr. Melvin Anchell

Gender type, that's another good one.

Between the third and the fifth grade, a child should: "Define sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender." 

No comment.

Between sixth and eighth grades, your child should be able to: "Differentiate between gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation."

No comment.

There are many reasons to keep your children out of public school, but protecting them from inappropriate exposure to sexual material and subsequent non-sensical value judgments should be at the top of any diligent parent's list.

The environment your children grow up in will help to shape who they become. Research shows that 75% of children will adopt the beliefs they are taught in school.

Childhoods for Children

Children cannot have a wholesome childhood without keeping their innocence intact. Part of their "coming of age" includes being introduced to matters reserved for the adult world when it is appropriate to be introduced to them. 

WHEN IT IS APPROPRIATE TO BE INTRODUCED TO THEM.

The Perpetrator

There are developmental stages in which this happens. But when the stages are interrupted and sped up to meet a perverse agenda largely pushed by taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, one has to wonder what is going on?

Did you know that between 2013 and 2015, taxpayers funded Planned Parenthood to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars? This is an organization that earns a lot of money itself, not only by performing abortions but by selling the aborted fetal cells and body parts to research companies including the vaccine industry which uses fetal cells to grow its viruses.

“Planned Parenthood lied to the public and to Congress, but now there is no longer any reasonable doubt that Planned Parenthood sold fetal body parts, commodifying living children in the womb and treating pregnant women like a cash crop. The U.S. Department of Justice must escalate the enforcement of laws against fetal trafficking to the highest level of priority.”

— David Daleiden, CMP

Thanks to Planned Parenthood, since the 1960s, we have children who are being deprived of a normal childhood in the name of "social change" and the sundry societal ramifications that come with it. 

Parents as Protectors

Therefore, each parent should do everything in their power to oppose Planned Parenthood’s influence on our children by providing a wholesome childhood for the precious being they brought into this world.

Protecting your children has to begin with keeping them out of any school, public or private, that does not protect their innocence. 

Sex education is something children should learn about in the home, from their parents (In modest cultures, it isn’t even a topic that’s discussed between parent and child). It is a parent's right to decide if and when to approach the subject; it should never be a decision for public or private schools to make.

As we raise our children, we must remember that we are our children's guardians, and we must guard our children well.

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education. Using her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

10 Valuable Lessons Owning a Pet Can Teach Your Child

Children are fascinated by animals, and they love pets. Every child, when he or she reaches a certain age, will want to own a pet.

Unless you have always been a pet lover and owned a pet before your kids came along, you may be thinking something like what I thought when my children first asked me if they could have a pet, "Not over my dead body!" 

As if I didn't have enough to do already.

And then they grew a little older, and they persuaded me to buy them one rabbit each, and they promised me until they were blue in the face that they would take care of their pets. 

So I relented.

The surprise was on me: my children learned several meaningful life lessons and skills from owning and caring for their rabbits, and I became convinced that no child should experience childhood without owning a pet, too. 

“Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lesson One

The first lesson they learned was responsibility. I made it clear from day one that I would, under no circumstances, care for the rabbits, and I put the onus entirely upon them to ensure the rabbits were fed and had their cage cleaned out once a week.

I don't remember my children ever failing to meet this responsibility, nor do I remember the rabbits ever going without food. 

Lesson Two

I instructed them to sort out who did what and when they did it, which meant they had to practice the skill of negotiation, which they did brilliantly.

They set up a schedule where my son, who was a morning person, fed the rabbits in the morning. My daughter, who has always been a night owl, fed them in the evening. They took turns cleaning the cage out too; one cleaned it out one week, and the other, the next.

Lesson Three

They also had to pay for their rabbit's food out of their weekly allowance. To do this, they learned how to budget their money to keep their rabbits fed.

Lesson Four

Because I worked and homeschooled, my schedule was tight. The pet feed store was about a half an hour away. My children had to remind me in advance when they would need a ride to the pet feed store to buy more rabbit pellets and hay, so I could schedule it into my week. 

I think this would fall under "planning," no?

Needless to say, they fell in love with their rabbits. Stella and Alfie were a source of childhood joy for them; they adored these little creatures.

Lesson Five

They learned how babies were born, too, and witnessed the maternal instinct in action. One day, Stella, the black bunny, started doing funny things in the cage. She was moving the hay around and making a pile of it inside the little house the rabbits had for shelter in their cage. 

A few hours later, we discovered her giving birth to six little bunnies. My daughter had kept saying that she thought she was pregnant, but I kept thinking that was impossible. 

Wishful thinking would be more like it.

Lesson Six

As the bunnies grew, my children gave them each a name based on their particular personalities or physical characteristics. There was one bunny that was the runt of the group, and they named her Shadow.

I loved the sense of poetry in her name; two little kids naming the runt of the litter Shadow. I put this lesson under “observation,” a vital skill in life if you are to understand, not who people pretend to be, but who they really are.

Lesson Seven

They learned about death, too. We went overseas one year for three months and left our bunnies under the care of some friends. About halfway through our trip we received a phone call that the little Shadow had died. 

Grief-stricken, my children discovered that death follows life and that their bunny was now in bunny Heaven. I explained to them that we are given gifts in our lives, and sometimes those gifts are taken away, and we need to learn to deal with the loss and trust that everything is as it should be. 

And I convinced them that Shadow was happy where ever she was, and they accepted her death gracefully.

Lesson Eight, Part One

When we returned home, we found that the white Rabbit, Alfie, had funny bumps in his ears. Off to the vet we went with poor little Alfie shaking uncontrollably in his rabbit carrier The vet announced that he had ear mites and gave us some liquid medicine that needed to be administered two times every day. 

My daughter, a natural caregiver, took it upon herself to give Alfie his daily and nightly doses. We read about ear mites and how much discomfort Alfie was in, and we all felt pain for him. 

We bemoaned the fact that it took us several weeks before we realized he had even been in extreme discomfort, which made us feel even worse.

Children nurture their natural compassion and empathy by caring for a pet. Little Alfie was prone to a disorder that cost us $1000 at the vet the first time he succumbed to it. After that, I did a little research and learned that we could treat him naturally at home. 

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened”

— Anatole France

I cannot count how many nights, over the years, we had to take turns keeping a watch on Alfie and giving him natural medicine until his system kicked back in. Sometimes we would even watch the sunrise together, and the immense relief and elation we felt when he bounced back was indescribable. 

Lesson Eight, Part Two

My kids even wrote a story about Alfie and Stella from a rabbit's perspective.

The rabbits were the civilized animals who were constantly being interrupted by these strange looking creatures who wanted to pick them up and hold them every day and who tried to put funny restraints on them and make them walk in the backyard (bunny harnesses; we never could get them to move) when they would rather eat and lie in the sun. 

From Alfie and Stella's eyes, we learned about the daily habits and peculiarities of my children's lives. 

Lesson Nine

And then we moved. We drove cross-country to Pennsylvania; me, two teenagers, and two rabbits.

It was a long haul for the rabbits, and I wasn't even sure they'd survive the trip, but I took the chance anyway. I knew my children would grow homesick, and their rabbits would make it less so, which both proved true.

What I didn't anticipate was having to make the move all over again, but we did. Only this time, my children and the rabbits were older, and we realized that the rabbits would probably not survive the journey back to California.

So we found a farm with a kind woman who loved caring for animals, and my kids put the rabbits in their new cage. Feeling that they were under good care, we turned around and headed back to the West Coast.

And that was that. A heavy-hearted but brief parting of ways.

Lesson Ten

There was one thing I didn't mention. The rabbits saved me from something I remember my parents having to do that was very awkward. 

Thanks to a book on rabbit care, my children learned about the birds and the bees. They put two and two together, and voila.

One day the lightbulb went off, and they came running to me and said, "Mom, we just figured something out...!"

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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 21+ years of experience working in education.

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

Elizabeth 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

Cultivating an Independent Mind Begins with a Glass of Water

There is nothing worse than a child clinging to your side while whining for this or that, right? We've all been there. 

We forget that children are capable little beings, and if they want something, they'll get it. When did your three-year-old need help getting the chocolate bar off the kitchen counter or getting a cookie out of the cookie jar?! 

Curiously, children never ask us to help them get things they know we don't want them to have; instead, they get it for themselves because they know that we will not. 

Yet when it comes to something as simple as a glass of water, suddenly, they are helpless as a newborn babe in a mother's arms. 

Being busy and preoccupied, we seldom stop to think about whether or not our child is capable of getting his own glass of water; we automatically get it for him. 

And herein lies the problem: the more we do for our children, the less they do for themselves. Isn't this true in life for adults too?

If someone offers to cook us dinner, we aren't going to refuse, are we? But if they didn't offer, we'd get up and cook it ourselves.

If someone suggested we go out for the day while they come over and clean our entire house, we aren't going to complain, are we?

But if no one cleans our house, unless we have a housecleaner, we will clean it ourselves, won't we? 

Why do we think children will act differently when we offer to assist them or comply to their demands just because they asked?

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

— Dr. Seuss

Children are people in little bodies, as Dr. Seuss liked to remind us.  Do more for them, and they'll do less for themselves, that's why you want to teach them as early as possible to get their own glass of water.

And while you're at it, teach them to make their bed, put their clothes away, and get their own snacks too! 

They are perfectly capable of doing these things as long as things are within their reach, and then you show them exactly how to do it.

Raise them to understand that you expect them to attend to their own needs as much as they are able.

Don't entertain the idea that they are not capable or that you are a bad parent by not excessively catering to your children’s whims.

Here's a novel idea for you instead: you don't meet their demands all day long, but you have them meet yours. Teach your children to get you a glass of water and a snack when you are busy! 

It might sound like child labor to some, but the truth is, it's the best thing for the child's character. The more they learn to serve and take care of others, the more polished their characters will become. 

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

— Helen Keller

This isn't to suggest that you treat your child like a servant, not at all. But if you're lying down reading a book, and your child is playing quietly beside you, you could say something like, "Sweetie, please get me a glass of water." 

When he or she brings you the glass of water, look them in the eyes, smile, and with a real sense of appreciation, say "thank you. How sweet of you to get a glass of water for Mommy (or Daddy)."

And watch your child's face light up. 

You aren't a brute, you are letting your child help relieve your thirst, and we all feel better when we help others. Children love to help, and they take pride in being able to do grown-up things "all by myself." 

Your child just learned that it feels good to do a kind thing for another person, and children who do kind things for other people grow up to be kind adults. That's how character development works.

So why not let them? Why coddle children when it only leads to a sense of entitlement and bad character? 

“He that cockers his child provides for his enemy.”

— English Proverb, c. 1640

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5 Toys that Will Stimulate Your Preschooler's Imagination

A strong imagination is something to be treasured.

Without one, would Franklin have discovered electricity, Gutenberg the printing press, or the Wright brothers how to fly?

Rather than focus on the ABC's of learning during the preschool years, if you want to maximize your child's intellectual potential, focus on creating an environment where his or her imagination can grow, and the ABC's of learning will naturally follow.

There is a window in childhood when the brain is ripe for sprouting the seeds to imaginative growth, and that window is wide open during the first seven years of the child's life.

It is a window you don’t want your child to miss. Choosing useful toys for your child is one way you can help him or her to develop a strong imagination. With the deluge of unnatural toys produced to bring in larger and larger earnings, it's not always easy to know what to buy.

The truth is that children need very few toys. Two to three toys would be plenty, ten would be more than enough. 

Either way, here are 5 toys that will encourage a preschool child to use his or her imagination. No batteries needed.

NB Make sure to take note of the age recommendations for each toy before purchasing.

1. Wooden Blocks

An all-time favorite, a childhood isn't a childhood without building blocks. Playing with blocks leads a child into using his imagination in various ways. As he begins to play he wonders what will happen if he puts two blocks together to make a big block, or one block on top of another block, and he begins to build.

Maybe he piles his blocks too high, and they all tumble down. Now he's now got to figure out how to build them up without the blocks falling down again. Maybe he lays too many blocks horizontally and now he's run out of blocks to build up with. His mind is constantly working and growing, and the blocks will also keep him occupied for a good amount of time.

NB: Wooden blocks are preferred over plastic blocks.

Contemporary Style Blocks

This set includes 100 durable wooden blocks in 4 different colors and 9 shapes

Classic Style Blocks

This set is comprised of 60 natural-finished, smooth-sanded, solid hardwood blocks

Use the link to find other versions that you might prefer.

4. Matchbox Cars

I might not have thought to include Matchbox cars except that my son played with them for hours, and he has a great imagination. I would watch him from the kitchen window, as I was doing dishes, completely engrossed in these great car races and adventures.

2. A Doll

My apologies, but I was so horrified by the choice of dolls today that I decided it was better to suggest you make your own. Even the “American Girl” doll company, which I considered as a last desperate attempt to find you something (I love the originals, but they’re pricey), had sold out to commercialism.

I don’t care for the faceless dolls (they seem a bit creepy to me), but there is the Waldorf doll (also pricey) though, personally, I still prefer the handmade version below.

This pattern looked more like what I had in mind. I had one doll as a very young child, and except for her wooden face, she was very much like one of the dolls in the pattern.

Waldorf Doll

5. A Doll House

Every girls dream. Little brothers have fun playing with them too. This Fold & Go Mini Dollhouse is a portable wooden dollhouse that features working doors and includes 11 pieces of wooden furniture and two flexible wooden play figures.

A high-end version which is probably overkill but I thought I’d include it anyway. It’s a spacious, sturdy and versatile wooden three-level, five-room dollhouse with 19 pieces of wooden doll furniture.

6. Tinker Toys 

There is a tidbit of history behind the Tinker Toys. I included the Wikipedia link, so you can read about it. Note what inspired Charles H. Pajeau to design the Tinker Toys! Back then, the majority of children’s toys were what they could find around the house or yard to play with, and that included just about anything!

NB: There are diagrams in the box for building things. You can save these until the children are old enough to read the instructions themselves, and make the creations without driving you crazy!

What children did in the olden days is preferred for stimulating the imagination, but a few good toys are a lot of fun, too.

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

Join Elizabeth’s signature parenting course: Raise Your Child Well to Live A Triumphant Life. Enrollment is open through midnight, October 9, 2020.

Get your free copy of How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader? It comes with an 80+ book list of carefully chosen books to support your child’s intellectual development.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach, with 17 years experience working in children’s education, and a complimentary background in holistic medicine.

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5 Reasons Why You Will Love Homeschooling and Never Look Back

Fear is the #1 reason that stops most parents from homeschooling.

Once you move beyond the fear, though, and decide to homeschool anyway because public school or online schools are no longer options for you, a whole new world emerges.

Most homeschooling parents then wonder why they waited so long to embrace the teaching of their own.

Here are four homeschooling perks that will make you fall in love with your new homeschooling lifestyle.

You Own Your Time

1. While the fear is that you'll lose your free time, what you don't realize is that you gain control over your time, you don't lose it. School no longer dictates what nights the kids need to be in bed early or when you can take your vacation or when your day ends and when it begins. These decisions are now yours to make.

If you have a family party to attend on a Sunday, you can stay as late as you like, maybe treat Monday like a Sunday and begin this particular week on a Tuesday instead. If you want to travel overseas for a vacation, but not pay prime rates for high season and deal with a deluge of other tourists, you can visit off-season and adjust your homeschool schedule to fit into your vacation time. 

Compound Perks

2. The compound perks that vacations offer is that you can turn any vacation into a homeschooling day of study. Think history, art, literature, and language arts. You are no longer restricted to the classroom for study, but travel can also become a hand's on way of learning.

If vacations are more than your budget can afford, weekly outings can fill the same role. 

As for your own free time, if you learn to manage your time and manage your children well, you should be able to replenish your energy reserves weekly. If you are going to homeschool, this is essential as the state of burn-out is real.

You avoid this by planning ahead and making sure you have enough time  to fill your reserves as needed. 

Many parents today are more overwhelmed because their children run them ragged with their constant demands on their time. Parents no longer know how to establish clear boundaries with their children.

To homeschool successfully, you have to get the management of your family under control first.

Homeschooling is a job, but it isn't one that should leave you feeling exhausted. On the contrary, it should feel rewarding and fulfilling to you. If it doesn't, then something needs tweaking. 

3. Another significant stress in life that the act of homeschooling eliminates immediately is the battle parents and children endure every day regarding getting to public school, readjusting to coming home from public school, and the homework fiasco. 

All the stress these demands bring into your life melt away just like that.

Gone. 

Regarding homework, parents who help with homework are homeschooling, so why not just homeschool without all the extra pressure that comes with having your children in school?

4. Your children do not get graded and slotted into arbitrary categories of excellent, above average, average, and below average. They don't get ranked with their peers and made to feel better than they are or worse because there is no average with homeschooling. 

They don't develop false limitations about their academic ability, but they learn to do well and to excel in their studies. If they don't, you don't move them on until they do. You are a private tutor to your child when you homeschool, so you know when he knows the material and when he doesn't know it.

It's that simple.

You might do reviews with him, but you never need to test or grade him. He is competing with himself, and he naturally learns to do his best work. Sometimes, this may require a discipline tactic or two, but he is being trained in your home school to be his very best, including the work he produces.

Grading, on the other hand, is for the classroom when a teacher has no idea where each of her 30 students is concerning what she has taught them. How can she be expected to know this without testing them?

And then come the grades with the boxes children get squeezed into that help to form their perception of who they are rather than who they can become. 

5. While your children may easily find friends in public school, you may not always approve of their friends, and you seldom know the family of their friends. If your child gets in with the wrong crowd, and there is no guarantee that he or she will not, you will watch your child be brought down by bad company, and there will be little you can do to stop it. 

With homeschooling, a prudent parent will choose good friends for their children, because the children are too young to know a good influence from a bad influence. When they get older, they'll have more discernment and be able to choose wisely for themselves.

As a homeschooling family, you'll make friends with other homeschooling families. You plan social events as a family, not as individuals.

Socializing as a family is the norm in so many other parts of the world, but in the West we've lost this habit that’s so vital to our family’s well-being. 

Homeschooling is a lifestyle that puts the family back at the center again and allows us the time to build stable families with members who enjoy each other's company and are loyal to one another. 

Many homeschooling parents have told me that they felt a distance grown between them and their children once the children entered school.

Have you noticed this too?

My own mother said this about all of her children, and she had seven. It's par for the course, this social distancing, and it's impossible to avoid when children spend eight hours in school and then two to four hours doing homework in the evenings.

Your children are not with you for a large part of the day, and you don't share a social circle. When families were tighter, there was less segregation by age and more intermixing of entire families.

This mixing brings shared experiences and fond memories, which are the stuff bonds are made of.

After having gone through the public school system myself, and after homeschooling my now-grown children, I can honestly say that putting my children into public school for their elementary or middle-school years was never a serious consideration, ever. 

The homeschooling lifestyle was too good.

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

Increase your child’s intelligence by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy summer program to learn how to give your child an excellent education at home.

Join our waiting list for Elizabeth’s online course: Raise Your Child Well to Live a Life He Loves.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Why Are Children Struggling to Grow Up?

The other day I flew to Istanbul, and I had my eyes shut on the plane so I could rest a little. A child kept crying at the top of his lungs. Thinking he must be young, I wondered why his mother had left him alone like that.

But when I opened my eyes, I found he wasn't young at all. He looked like he was about nine-or-ten-years-old.

I often see older children behaving like two-or-three-year-olds and wonder how the parents can tolerate such difficult behavior. 

Why don't we teach our children to grow up? Is it because the messages parents receive today are not in the best interest of raising a child to become a mature, responsible adult?

Parents are told things like, "he'll grow out of his tantrums, just be patient," or "don't squash his spirit," or "that's so wonderful that you let him express his feelings." 

But are these the right messages? Do they pan out in real life?

No, they don't.

Bad Behavior

It's a myth that children grow out of bad behavior, but they do grow spoiled, ill-mannered, and impossible when they are not taught to behave correctly. 

Squash a Spirit

Yes, you can indeed squash a child's spirit if you aren't careful, but you don't squash a child's spirit by teaching him good manners. On the contrary, you'll give his spirit the freedom to soar because it won't be hindered with discontents that arise from expecting to get his way all the time.

Express One’s Feelings

Expressing one's feelings is a modern attitude that hasn't served us well either. Yes, one has feelings, and many emotions will be felt like love and joy and grief and sorrow. But a preoccupation with how we feel over the consideration of others will not support harmonious relationships. 

We are so concerned with our own feelings that we forget to concern ourselves with how our spouses might feel, how our children might feel, or how the person we just cut off on the freeway might feel.

I'm not suggesting that we should deny our feelings, but only that maybe we've gone a little too far in our preoccupation with teaching a child to "express" his feelings. 

The Buzz Word

We speak a lot about good character; it's become a sort of buzz word. We presume that teaching our children to understand their feelings will build their characters, but this is incorrect.

Children think very concretely, so trying to teach a four-year-old about his feelings is like teaching a horse to bark. Children can't understand abstract concepts like their "feelings."

Nor can we teach a child to have good character. We can raise a child to choose to behave well, but we can't make a child do anything. 

Ironically, the key to developing good character is to learn self-control. Without self-control, we are at the mercy of our passions. 

One approach to teaching a child a child self-control is to say no to your child more than you say yes. This approach has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with reigning in one’s passions.

Ironically, children are happier when you say no to them more than you say yes. 

Consider this: to appreciate something truly, we have to get it in less frequent doses. When we have something all the time, we lose the ability to enjoy it as fully and deeply because we've forgotten what life was like without it.

It's one of the ironies in life, not being able to appreciate what we have with all of our heart until we no longer have it, especially when it comes to those we love.

A husband never appreciates his wife more than he does when she goes away for a weekend and leaves him with the children. A wife never appreciates her husband more than when he's away on a business trip, and she has no support at home.

And a child never appreciates an ice cream cone more than when he hasn't had one in a long time. 

“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.”

— William Shakespeare

It's not always convenient to say no to a child. You may have to deal with a tantrum, rude behavior in a public place, or something else which is why our default is usually a “yes”. 

But is it helpful in the long run? Not really. The extra time you take to say no and teach your child self-control will save you both a lot of grief later. You child may moan and groan, but over time he'll be a more content child because of it because he’ll have learned some self-control. 

Therefore, one of the ways to raise a happier child is to learn to say no to your child more than you say yes. Teach him to accept things as they come, even when they are the opposite of what he expects them to be.

And teach him to appreciate what he has by giving him less of it.

Adopt this simple parenting habit, and you will help your child grow into a mature adult and live a more content life. 

Children are too indulged today, which is why they are struggling to grow up. 

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

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy summer program to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

Join our waiting list for Elizabeth’s online course: Raise Your Child Well to Live a Life He Loves.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Successful Homeschooling Begins with This One Tactic

Each child has only one chance to develop his mind when he is young.

There are no second chances with childhood, just as there are none with life. As parents, we need to guide our children to use their time wisely, especially regarding their education. 

Establishing goals for our children and making sure they reach them is a part of everyone successful homeschooler’s plan. Whatever educational goals you have for your child, it is vital that you become crystal clear about these goals and how your child will reach them.

Is there a subject or skill you want your child to master as part of his education? Maybe it's a foreign language, a study of the Roman Empire, or a musical instrument?

There will be some subjects which will be mandatory because your child needs to learn them, such as grammar and Latin, but others will be dependent upon your child's level of interest, such as studying art, music or sports. 

Whatever it is that you decide upon, you have to be intentional in making this endeavor a priority in your child's life.

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

— Pablo Picasso

State the goal, you want your child to reach, decide what steps your child needs to take to achieve it, and then build a plan to help him reach the finish line.  

When you set the goal (s), make sure it meets these five criteria: the goal is specific, the goal is measurable, the goal is actionable, the goal is relevant, and the goal is timely.

Be intention and make your goal a priority in the sense that regardless of how busy you are, you will take the time to ensure that your child will study daily this one subject or skill as often as it needs to be studied.

You must be intentional and committed to seeing your children reach the goals you set for them or the goals they set for themselves.

Because without a clear plan in place that includes stated goals and objectives, your chances for your child being successful in reaching them will be less. Our chance for success is always less when we are less intentional about it. 

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

— Zig Ziglar

One could even say that, apart from the factor of luck and fate, the degree to which we succeed is proportional to our level of intention. 

When you look at people who master a subject or skill, you will find they are intentional about their study. Maybe they don't start this way, but at some point during the process, they decide they want to become better than average, and they make a commitment to themselves to reach this goal. They become committed and unstoppable.

Because they were unstoppable, they moved beyond average into an outstanding level of proficiency. 

Juxtapose this to the person who says they want to be great at something, but never make a firm intention to become great. They become like a ship at sea with no rudder, and they never move beyond the mediocre.

“In all things that you do, consider the end.”

— Solon, Athenian Statesman

Your child is capable of reaching great heights. Don't settle for mediocrity. Let him reach a level of proficiency in at least one skill; this will raise his standard for everything he attempts to learn well in life. 

He will aim high because he knows how high he can reach.

Becoming intentional with your goals for your child is key to your homeschooling success.

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

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy summer program to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

Join our waiting list for Elizabeth’s online course: Raise Your Child Well to Live a Life He Loves.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

In a Throw-Away Society, Are Mother's Dispensable Too?

Western culture promotes the idea that mothers can leave their young children to a full-time babysitter with zero impact on the child's well-being.

Creating concepts like "Primary caregiver" somehow makes the idea more palatable. But can we replace a mother’s care like we would replace a paper cup?

Babies would beg to differ.

Even though our common sense tells us our children need us, and our hearts tell us our children need us, many of us ignore this and accept the cultural untruth we hear every day that children do fine in daycare.

Still, many more of us have no choice but to work when our children are young because our country doesn't value motherhood. 

The fact is this: a baby comes into the world completely dependent upon the care of others for its survival, without which it will die. The baby's very life depends upon someone assuming 24/7 responsibility for his needs, both emotional and physical.

If we put ourselves in our baby's booties, we would see a very different perspective regarding the “primary caregiver” euphemism. 

Your Baby's Perspective

He lives in your body for nine months and has grown accustomed to the rhythm of your heartbeat. He knows the sound of your voice. He feels the pulse of your moods. And then, suddenly, one day, he experiences a traumatic event. When it is over, he finds his familiar surroundings gone. Instead, he is in an unknown place, full of lights and strange voices, and he screams. 

It's instinctual.

He screams for the one thing he comes into this world knowing; the comfort of his mother's heart. Not just her physical heart, but her metaphysical heart, too: her being. 

If she's a kind, loving, and caring mother who remains with him, he flourishes.

But if she has to go back to work two weeks after he is born, as many mothers are obligated to do today, and some even choose to do, he is placed in daycare with strangers. The stranger is contracted to play "mother" while his real mother is absent for eight or nine hours a day. 

Wouldn't it be stressful for you if you were suddenly picked up and transplanted into a world of strangers, who spoke a language you didn't understand, and you had no idea what had happened?

For a moment, just imagine what this would feel like!

The quality of the care the child gets matters very much.

A baby who receives the minimal supervision of being fed and kept clean is at risk of mental retardation and even death, as we've seen from the orphanages in Romania.

There are degrees of emotional connection we have with one another. On one end of the spectrum, a child can have an uncaring caregiver like the children in Romania, which, again, caused the deaths of many orphans. At the other end of the spectrum, a child can experience the loving care of a mother who nourishes her child and whose child thrives.

What Science Has to Say About It

Science tells us that children in daycare do not always blossom as children at home with their mothers do. Daycare children have weaker immune systems, more frequent colds and more ear infections. We know that stress suppresses our immune systems, so these findings should not surprise us. 

Science also tells us that children develop signs of mental instability as early as five years of age now. We have childhood problems such as anxiety and depression on the rise. These kinds of mental afflictions are an unprecedented modern phenomenon that correlates with the shift from full-time mother to full-time working mother.

Questionably, the conclusion to studies like these is never that babies and young children need their mothers at home instead of the office.

And what about the mother? When the working mother is home, she is fraught with the burden of domestic duties with little left for the emotional nurturing of her family. 

Stress affects our body, and it affects our mind, too; it alters our outlook on life. It's not only the baby that suffers. We can tell ourselves that everything will be all right, but unless we get our stress levels under control, we can't stop the stress from taking its toll on our well-being too.

The Broken Heart Syndrome

There was a man I once knew who was suffering from exhaustion and weight loss. At the time, he suspected he might have a chronic illness, so he went to his doctor and was put through a battery of tests, all negative. 

The doctor began to ask him about his life to see if an event could have triggered his symptoms. My friend admitted that he had been recovering from a break-up with a woman he had intended to marry. Even though a year had passed, he was still struggling with his loss.

The doctor's diagnosis: a broken heart.

We know adults die from broken hearts; why do we expect babies to be more resilient than adults?

It's not surprising that the increase in child mortality rates also corresponds with the rise in mothers going back to work, and that significantly more SID cases happen in daycare.

Natures Infinite Protection

What about the maternal instinct that prompts us to check on our baby just in the nick of time? If you are a mother with older children, then you know it's a miracle your child survived his childhood. 

No matter how diligent we are, children will have plenty of close calls with danger; it is unavoidable. The child doesn’t fall over the precipice, though, because we get that nudge in our hearts to make sure everything is all right; but sometimes it isn't all right, and we arrive just in the nick of time to save him from a perilous situation. 

Unless she's a highly intuitive person, a daycare worker will not have this life-saving maternal instinct for the babies under her care. It's something the mother has, which is why we call it "maternal" instinct. 

One in four mothers has to return to work just weeks after her baby is born, so it should not bewilder us that America has the highest infant mortality rate of industrialized nations. Seventy-five percent of mothers work today. Three-quarters of the homes in our country are bereft of a mother during her child's prime waking hours.

The Beatles Nailed It

“Money can't buy me love,” the Beatles sang back in the 60s. No caregiver, primary or not, can match the care of a mother for her young.

If we want to build healthy, happy families, we can't leave the responsibility of raising our children to a paid employee. The well-being of your child, and the strength of your bond with your child, depends upon your being present in your child's life.

Because you, dear mother, are indispensable. 

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy summer program to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

Join our waiting list for Elizabeth’s online course: Raise Your Child Well to Live a Life He Loves.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Dare to Homeschool! Overcoming the Fear that You Are Not Good Enough

As women, we tend to think we are not enough as we are. Add homeschooling into the mix and our list of not enoughs now includes neither smart, nor patient, nor educated enough to homeschool.

The thought of homeschooling conjures up fears that we may fail; we may disappoint our families, we may hinder our children's chances of success.

We look at brave homeschooling moms and think they are smarter, better educated, and have it more together than we do.

The truth is that even if all of these beliefs were true, which is unlikely, you could still succeed at homeschooling if you put your mind to it.

You can overcome the unwelcome thoughts in your head that say you are less than every other mother trying to give her child a better education at home. 

I'm Not Smart Enough or Educated Enough

To this, I would ask, who is? My father was in the category of truly learned men of the 20th century, and he never considered himself educated. My father's position used to baffle me until one day I understood that the more you know, the more you can comprehend how little you know.

We still can’t answer fundamental questions with 100% certainty, such as, Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my life?

“It’s an irony of life that the most simple questions contain the greatest mysteries.”

While it is true that most of us are far less intelligent than we would have been had we been properly educated during our prime learning years, but we can always choose to correct the problem.

It’s never too late to work at developing our intellects.

We used to think the brain became fixed at a certain age and didn’t change after that, other than to decline as you aged, but neuroscientists have shown that this isn't true. The brain continues to wire itself, which is why learning unto the grave prevents ailments like dementia and Alzheimers. 

The good news is that when you homeschool, you will develop your mind alongside your children. Becoming smarter and improving your brain's capacity is a byproduct of homeschooling.

Talk to homeschooling moms you know to see how this works. You'll find that homeschooling moms always have a lot of general knowledge. The more children they have, and therefore teach, the more general knowledge they gain. They can't help it. 

Even with no college education, you will still do a better job homeschooling your children than the public school system. 

Do not let a feeling of intellectual inferiority stop you. You will rise to the occasion and become a better person yourself by having done so. 

I'm too Impatient; I could Never homeschool

You may be impatient, but you can correct this. Impatience stems from three causes: 1) a physical imbalance or 2) an emotional imbalance, 3) bad habits.

Physical Imbalance

When people are irritable and impatient, in Chinese medicine, we diagnose them with having internal heat of either an excess or deficient nature. You can correct this by dietary changes, herbs, alternative healing therapies, and lifestyle changes. 

If you feel run down and exhausted, you may be suffering from what we diagnose as deficient Qi. Exhaustion will make you feel impatient and irritable too. You'll yell at your children more, and you'll also have less time for your spouse. The latter can lead to a negative feedback loop. 

The less time you have with your spouse, the less support you feel, and the more exacerbated your symptoms become. Instead of being a respite for one another during the years when your young children are more demanding, you grow apart.

Emotional Imbalance

If you find yourself feeling resentful and unhappy with your life, it may be because you aren’t doing anything to replenish yourself. Mothers get into this state when they eliminate all the things they enjoyed doing before having children.

We get too busy, and it’s easy to stop going for bike rides or having lunches with girlfriends, or going to a movie with your spouse, Life suddenly becomes all work and no play.

Play is important for children, but it’s also important for us. Play is what rejuvenates us and keeps us going. Figure out what it is that you love doing most and build some of it back into your life.

“When enough people raise play to the status it deserves in our lives, we will find the world a better place.”

— Dr. Stuart Brown

Take care of yourself so you can take better care of those who depend on you without feeling resentful.

Bad Habits

You may have a bad habit of getting upset too quickly. In this case, you want to pay close attention to when this happens so you can start to correct your behavior. Easier said than done, I know, but you can do it.

If you get your irritability and patience level under control, homeschooling will be just one more thing you do during the day. 

You May Surprise Yourself

The other consideration is that you may believe you will be an impatient homeschooler, but once you start, you find you have more patience than you realized. 

You may enjoy the homeschooling lifestyle so much that you wonder why you didn't start sooner. 

But you won't know that until you give it a try. It takes courage, and courage comes from acting despite your fear. We all experience fear, but mothers who homeschool don't let it get in their way.

The cost is too high, and they understand this. 

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy summer program to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

Focus on Becoming a Better Person and Being a Better Parent Will Naturally Follow

Children see, children do.

There’s a painful component to raising children that we tend to overlook: they turn out just like us. About the time our children hit the teens, for better or for worse, we find ourselves staring at ourselves.

Sure, there’ll be some variations on the theme, but our strengths and our weaknesses, they will inherit. Some of our children will get more of our bad qualities, some more of our good ones, sometimes it’s a mix; but pass them on, we do.

Which is why, if we are to be the best parent we can be, we need to begin by improving our characters.

Character Improvement

To improve our characters, we need to begin by determining our strengths and weaknesses. Then we can begin to tackle our weaknesses. Determining our character flaws requires honesty and self-reflection, which can be difficult for many of us.

Not everyone is willing to take a hard, honest look at themselves. And even when we do, sometimes we think we see what isn’t there. It can be tricky.

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. –Mark Twain

Rather than try to analyze your character and risk the chance of deluding yourself, take a hard look at your behavior instead.

How Do You Behave?

If you’re someone who tends to threaten other drivers on the road, stop; chances are you may raise a raging maniac.

If you’re someone who likes to gossip, stop; chances are you’ll raise a trivial person who creates discord between others.

If you’re someone who likes to sit around watching television and playing on the computer, stop; chances are you’ll raise an unmotivated kid who doesn’t accomplish much.

If you’re someone who tells lies, stop; chances are you’ll raise a liar.

If you’re someone who thinks you’re better than everyone else, stop; chances are you’ll raise a narcissistic tyrant.

The world works better when its citizens are humble, patient, kind, and generous.

To borrow Kennedy’s magnificent line:

Ask not what others can do for you — ask what you can do for others.

Asking what you can do for others is at the heart of good character and at the heart of raising good children.

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

If you are "Homeschooling," You May as Well Homeschool

Here are some points to consider now that your children are home, and you are expected to homeschool them.

Even if you were already homeschooling, these points will serve as a good reminder of the advantages to homeschooling.

A Real Homeschooler

A "real" homeschooler does not enroll their child into a state-funded program because you understand that it's an oxymoron. You cannot homeschool and have your child enrolled in public school at the same time. They are two different approaches to a child’s education.

In other words, your are either homeschooling your child or you are not homeschooling him. And the reality is that if he is in an online program, you are not homeschooling.

He's public-schooled at home and classified as such by the state. 

Furthermore, enrolling your child in a public-schooled at home program defies the benefits to a homeschool, which are many.  It’s crucial that you understand these differences so you can make an informed decision for your family that will serve your family in the highest way.

Freedom of Choice

For starters, you want to exercise your freedom of choice regarding your child's education. You want to be free to choose when you teach, where you teach, what you teach, and how you teach and for how long you teach. 

You also want the freedom to take vacations when you want to take vacations. Vacations are very important when you are homeschooling!

When You Teach

Not all children are ready to learn all things at the same time. One of the benefits of homeschooling is to start your child when he is mature enough for formal training, and you want to let him go at his own pace.

Allowing your children to go at their own pace, teach them to compete against themselves, which fosters an independent and self-motivated spirit. It also allows them to soar ahead when the material grabs their attention or just because they can. 

It's common for homeschooled children to be above their grade level in subjects for this very reason. The system is not tethering them to mediocrity. 

What You Teach

Educate your child with books, not on a computer. Raise them to treasure the feel of a book, the smell of a book, the content of a book.

Make reading their habit, not staring at a computer screen, which is both bad for the brain and bad for the eyesight, not to mention one's overall health (think childhood obesity). 

Expand their minds with the original writing of great men and women who have made major contributions to Western civilization instead of watching sound bites by people who regurgitate what has already been regurgitated many times before. 

Educate your child to know that they can learn anything they put their mind to learning. There are few limitations to discovering the universe of the mind for a child who is raised to understand that he is capable of so much more. 

How You Teach

When you homeschool your children, they are not stuck in a regime of boring classes that consume the better part of their day.

A real homeschooling day is much, much shorter than this leaving the child time for leisure activities to help him discover who he is and what motivates him in life; to contribute towards making him a person who is interesting to others rather than a good imitator of the latest ill-mannered sitcom character. 

Where You Teach

When you are homeschooling, you can teach your child anywhere because the world is his classroom. Establish a homeschool room in your house with a desk where he can write. Let him read in the living room, let him do science and art outdoors.

Take him on road trips to learn history, travel the world with him. There is no limitation to where you can teach a homeschooled child. You can teach him anywhere, no computer needed.

These are just a few of the characteristics of a real homeschooled education. If you choose to use an online program, understand that for all intent and purposes, your are not homeschooling your child.

Despite the fancy rhetoric, he gets classified as a public schooled student by the government, with all due respect, like all the other bricks in the wall as Pink Floyd so fittingly put it. 

If you haven't seen it already, do not miss this video clip!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjrfuDAEl10.

In a nutshell, bring your children offline and into the real world of learning. Resist the pull to depend upon the state for support by assuming responsibility for your child's education, and lastly, enjoy it.

Homeschooling is a marvelous lifestyle!

Homeschool the smart way by joining the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader—a free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education.

Using her unusual skill set, she has developed a comprehensive and unique understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to help parents get it right.

Disclaimer: This is not a politically correct blog.

Is Online Learning Really as Good as They Say?

The number of public school students who learn online has grown exponentially during the past decade. Private businesses like K-12 have been contracted by the government to provide an education for these virtual students.

Now with the Corona Virus in full bloom, the virtual world is bustling with young children sitting in front of computers, instead of classrooms. Bill Gates must be pleased. So must Mike Milken.

It's a major coup on the American people who are pumping their tax dollars into the hands of these large "educational" conglomerates, but that's another story. 

The Question

The question to ask now is, is virtual learning the right way to go in light of this crisis, and if not, what is an alternative that's within your average parent's reach?

 While holding that thought, it's always wise to remember that just because everyone is doing something doesn't make it right. There is ample evidence now that virtual schools provide a sub-par education.

Ineffective Way to Learn

One need not look very far to find the evidence. Consider this: 50.1% of virtual high school students graduate within four years compared with 84% of high school students nationally, according to the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Putting aside the low educational standards and the bleeding of the taxpayer's money, let's look at the other disadvantages to the virtual schools that too many parents fail to take into consideration.

Social Development

1) A lack of proper social development is a matter that should concern parents tremendously. To develop excellent social skills, one must socialize. To put your child in front of a computer all day, and expect that he'll grow up to be a socially adept person is wishful thinking. 

He won't. It's like confining a child to a playpen and expecting him to learn how to run.

Daniel Goleman first pointed out in the 1990s that emotional intelligence, which includes good social skills, is vitally important to a person's ability to do well in life. There have been many, many studies since which have confirmed his findings. 

Even if we had no studies, common sense would tell us this is true. 

Screen Addiction

2) Another oversight by parents is the idea that a child can study at a computer all day and not develop the habit of using the computer. What we do every day becomes our habits and forms who we are.

Children who spend time in front of computers for any purpose, even education, are at a far higher risk for developing video games and social media addictions later. 

If a child has a video game problem or a social media problem, do you think he or she will be out playing sports or engaged in social activities or reading books? 

What consequences will this have on his or her life? They'll have more health problems from a lack of physical activity, and they'll do less well in life from a lack of well-developed social skills. 

The Virtual Teacher

3) What about the role the teacher plays in the child's learning process? A teacher inspires a student to love what he or she is teaching; a good teacher motivates a child to work harder; a good teacher builds a relationship with a child that influences the child to become better at what he does.

A computer screen with a teacher staring at your from the other end of nowhere is simply no replacement for the real thing any more than the image of you looking back in the mirror is you. Both have a real person behind them, but there is only one real person in the room. 

Will the child be inspired to emulate his virtual teacher in the way he does his real-life teacher?

Health Problems

4) Sitting in front of a computer all day causes health problems. Adults suffer all sorts of ailments from sitting in front of a computer and not getting enough exercise such as musculoskeletal injuries, headaches, poor vision, inability to focus, obesity, cardiovascular illnesses, waning memories, and so forth.

Why do we think there are no health risks for our children when they are still developing their minds and bodies and in even more need of physical activity than we are?

Myopia

Children who use the computer are at higher risk for developing myopia (nearsightedness), according to researchers. In the past few decades, as computer use has become more and more common for children, so has the necessity for reading glasses. (Too early reading will cause this too.)

Effects on Posture

Posture is also a problem because sitting at the computer causes us to slouch forward and tilt our heads back, which can lead to bad posture, headaches, and muscle strain.

Obesity

Obesity amongst children has become a significant concern amongst pediatricians because of the physical and psychological health problems that accompany it like heart disease, musculoskeletal issues, and a lack of self-esteem, to name a few. 

The Alternative

Rather than using the virtual schools, riddled with so many unwanted side-effects, why don't you homeschool your children with real books instead? 

You may have the belief that you aren't qualified to teach your child, so take a moment to reflect on the fact that you were the first teacher to your child, and you were successful. You taught him how to walk, talk, get dressed, tie his shoe, and so forth. 

When you are a homeschooling parent, instead of tying shoes, he is learning math. It's that simple. There is no magic to it. We have this idea that only "accredited" teachers can teach, but there isn't a proposition more ludicrous than this. Anyone can teach. You are always teaching your children whether you're aware of it or not. 

It's a mindset, that's all it is. Homeschooling parents have confidence in their ability to teach their children. 

You will need a curriculum, you will need to understand what to do, you will need to schedule your day, but the actual teaching is not rocket science. Anyone can teach a first grader to read. 

If you're wondering what you'll do with your child all day, remember this: his childhood will be over before you know it. Instead of panicking about what to do, enjoy this time. Read to him, take him to the park, help him with his schoolwork, bake with him, do art projects with him.

The world has never been short of lovely things to do.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child the best of an elite education at home.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader, free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.

Homeschooling with a Toddler Tugging at Your Skirt

Some parents are afraid to homeschool when they have a newborn or toddler, and other parents homeschool without thinking twice about it. 

Life is messy, but it's okay, is a helpful mindset to have when you have young children under the age of two. 

While it may be challenging to imagine homeschooling with a toddler if you've never homeschooled before, the reality is that it's manageable.

Before a child reaches age two, you'll probably work at a slower pace with your homeschooled children than you did previously unless you've trained your children to work well independently, or you can hire help.

Homeschoolers should be adept at self-study and able to work on their own; this is a large part of the homeschooling education. 

As your youngest child grows older and becomes more independent, make sure that he (she) doesn't get into the habit of expecting you by his side night and day. If you can foster his independence, you should be fine. 

It's when parents don't wean their child off of thinking the parent is there to serve them that the parent's then feel overwhelmed. They get less done because they are still at the 'beck and call' of the youngest child who will naturally become very demanding.

Assuming you’re not daunted by the idea of homeschooling with a toddler tugging at your skirt, here are a few strategies you can use to keep him occupied and lessen the chance of being interrupted while you're teaching your older children.

1) Have a special box with toys that only come out during lesson time. This box is his (her) special box that he looks forward to playing with. It should keep him occupied for a long time.

2) Make sure you give him one-on-one time before you begin teaching the others and give him some attention on the breaks.

3) After the age of three, teach him not to interrupt you. When he does, just put him back and remind him that you're teaching. 

As a general rule of thumb, a child past the age of three should be able to entertain himself for about an hour. I can attest to this first-hand because my children played for hours when they were young without interruption.

4) If necessary, hang a sign up that lets him know he cannot interrupt you until you take it down. You can hang a red sheet of construction paper on the door for "don't interrupt" and a green sheet that tells him you're available. 

If worse comes to worst, set a timer and put him in his room for a minute or two while you stand by. The point is to train him not to interrupt you as early as possible.

If the time-out sounds severe, consider this: how much more troubling will it be for him to see you annoyed and irritated every time he interrupts you? 

He's too young to understand why you're annoyed, but he's not too young to know that you're unhappy with him.

Why get into the habit with him when it is so easy to avoid? 

5) The most crucial key is to keep technology out of sight. There is no greater de-motivator of exploration and wonder than the television or smartphone.

Your children will not learn how to entertain themselves in you allow them to engage in screen use, and you will find yourself in a constant battle with them over it, which only gets worse as they grow older.

Spare yourself and your child from going down this fast road to misery. 

The facts are that many homeschoolers have large families with infants and toddlers, but that doesn't deter them from homeschooling. If anything, the more, the merrier.

You can do it if you develop the mindset that it's all right if every day doesn't go as planned, and that some chaos is par for the course when you have a child under the age of two.

Try to embrace these years with open arms instead of resistance and resentment, because they'll be over before you know it, and you'll wish you could have them back.

Are you thinking of homeschooling, but don't think you can do it with a toddler in tow?

Muster up your courage, get a plan in place, and homeschool as if you have no alternative because your child will get a better education at home.

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader, free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.

Why You Should Say No to Extra-Curricular Activities

Do you like having too much to do; running here and there with no time to catch your breath?

I don't either, yet, isn't this what we do to our children? We over-schedule them.

We run Tommy to soccer practice, Anna to ballet, Joseph to swimming lessons, and then Tommy to his reading tutor, Anna to her riding lessons, and Joseph to his playgroup.

All this after everything the kids have to do, including chores and school / homeschool work. 

It becomes a full day for everyone; you're exhausted, your kids are tired, and yet the extra-curricular activities continue because that's what everyone does today.

We over schedule our children and fail to recognize the implications of making extra-curricular activities a priority in our family's life.

Let's look at the consequences of hyper-scheduling our kids.

• Stress levels increase for everyone

• No one has leisure time to pursue the simple pleasures in life

• Family time is compromised

• Skipped Family Meals 

• The energy expenditure leaves everyone exhausted

It's stressful to always be on the go. Our minds and our bodies crave and need downtime when we can relax and experience life at a slower pace. Children's needs aren't any different.

Why Leisure Time Matters More

Hobbies

Children need leisure time to use their creative minds to learn how to entertain themselves with hobbies like needlepoint, knitting, collecting stamps, or building model airplanes. 

Social Skills

Leisure time also allows children to go outdoors and play with the neighborhood kids or visit a friend, both of which are crucial to developing excellent social skills. 

And sometimes, like us, a child just wants to lie down and read a book. 

Read a Book

There are a lot of reasons why children don't read today, but is one of them because they haven't had enough leisure time to develop the habit of reading?

Family Time

When each child has different extra-curricular activities, there's little time for shared activities as a family. 

If you're rushing to get Anna to ballet, you have no time for an afternoon reading with your children or taking them to the park in the afternoon. 

Your family life begins to take place around extra-curricular activities; in other words, family life is not a priority for your family; extra-curricular activities are.

Lack of Energy

Some children need more downtime than others. The over-scheduling of their day can result in fatigue and a loss of enthusiasm. 

Skipped Family Meals

Often the extra-curricular activities take place in the evenings leaving no one home to cook or serve a family meal. Consequently, the family eats with dad while you rush Tommy to soccer practice. 

Putting It into Perspective

What's more important at the end of the day?

When your children are grown and gone, will it be that Tommy was a good soccer player or that your child was a responsible and active member of your family and that your family shared a close bond?

The latter is vital to everyone's well-being especially your children. Instead of over-scheduling them, let them each take one class, don't let it interfere with meal times or weekend activities, and make sure your children have enough leisure time to figure out what they enjoy doing, what they're good at, and ultimately, who they are. 

Let them unwind, gather their thoughts, settle their minds, and have enough time to replenish their energy and be ready to get up the next day and do it again.

With enthusiasm, not dread. 

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader, free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.

Who Are the Parents That Are Changing the World?

The answer is homeschooling parents.

If you're homeschooling, pat yourself on the back because you're making a huge contribution to society, and possibly to the world. 

Let's look at the facts: 

Public-Schooled Children

1) Schooled children are more likely to grow up to be poor readers in the sense that they don’t have the skill to read the kind of literature that many first-hand sources demand of us.

When many homeschoolers educate their children using primary sources such as The Federalist Papers or the Declaration of Independence and public-schools teach their students using tertiary sources in the form of textbooks, well, the facts speak for themselves.

There's no way around this. Not being able to read primary sources will make you dependent on tertiary sources for your information. How can you think for yourself when you're dependent on other people’s interpretation of the material? 

Won't this also add to a decline of knowledge and wisdom, and therefore, to a less intelligent society?

2) Public-school children are more likely to grow up with a habit of lying and cheating. In the film, Race to Nowhere, it was revealed that 97% of public-school students lie because the testing demands are so unrealistic that the only way to pass from one grade to the next is by being dishonest. 

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Dishonesty breeds distrust, and no relationship can survive distrust.

It's a collective dishonesty too. When it's only one or two children that lie, it's seen as poor character, but when everyone lies, it becomes a cultural norm. The proof is all around us.

Fifty years ago, it was unusual for a person in good standing in society to lie. When in doubt, it was assumed that the person was telling the truth.

This isn't true anymore. When a person's integrity is questioned, it's assumed now that he or she is lying.

We've become a country where lying is no longer seen as shocking; instead, it's the cultural norm.

3) School children are more likely to have lower moral standards in part because their peers have more influence over them than their parents, and schools no longer encourage moral behavior.

4) School children are less likely to share strong bonds with their family or to uphold the same family values when they are grown. This lack of shared values undermines the family unit.

Isn't the family unit the cornerstone of a society?

How can there be a healthy society without healthy families? Any country with wise and just leaders will make the well-being of its families a primary concern. 

Considering the same points that were just mentioned, let's now look at how homeschooled children differ from public schooled children:

Homeschooled Children

1) Homeschooled children tend to be self-learners for life, pursuing knowledge for its own sake. They tend to have better critical thinking skills, because they are used to thinking for themselves.

They don't have unrealistic demands put on them by an educational bureaucracy comprised of businessmen like Bill Gates and Mike Milken who know more about making obscene amounts of money than they do about the educational needs of our children. 

2) Homeschooled children are typically good readers who love to and do read in their leisure time. They are continually increasing their knowledge, their understanding, and their minds, which contributes to a not dumbed-down society, a condition we desperately need to remedy. 

3) Homeschooled children tend to be better mannered, which amounts to a naturally improved character. They grow up under the supervision of parents who have the time and influence to guide them in the right ways. 

4) Homeschool children are more likely to grow up with the same values as their family contributing to a more solid family unit, and consequently, a more solid society.

Let's look at how this affects us as a country.

We claim to have high literacy rates, but it's common knowledge that we lower the standards of the tests to make us look better educated. We’re not as literate as we seem on paper.

Talk to ten high school students about their reading habits if you want to know how far from reality the literacy statistics veer.

Here's what our president had to say about it: "We're 26th in the world. 25 countries are better than us at education. And some of them are like third world countries. But we're becoming a third world country."

It is difficult to disagree with him. 

The less educated we are and the lower our moral standards are, the more mediocre a people we become. 

This, I conclude, is the reason why homeschooled children are our only hope for turning the tide on a country inflicted with a moral and intellectual malaise.

Ask any Canadians or Britons what they think of the average American intelligence? I've asked them many times, and I always get the answer I expect. A kind of embarrassed giggle and a confession that, yes, they think we are of inferior intelligence. 

It's no secret to anyone but ourselves. It's not that we are born with inferior intelligence, but that we don't develop our minds. And if we don't develop them, we can hardly use them, which is why the shameless entertainment and technology industry is making such a killing off of us. 

Why do we accept this for ourselves and our children when we can do so much better?

The human spirit is capable of greatness.

Greatness!

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

— Shakespeare

If you're able to homeschool, please join us! Without a miracle of some sort, and until we have a better educational system in place, it's the one hope we have for a better future.

Take control of your child's education and do the best job you can do. 

With diligence and perseverance, it will be far better than the dumbing down of our children's minds that the government schools are forcing on us.

Homeschooling is a rewarding experience. It is inspiring to watch a young person discover his or her mind and put it to better use than you could ever imagine.

And if you're already homeschooling, then you know that there is nothing more satisfying than being this person's teacher. 

How to Raise a More Intelligent Child and an Excellent Reader, free guide and book list with over 80+ carefully chosen titles.

Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy to learn how to give your child an elite education at home.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.