What is the one component to an education that will determine whether or not your child will become well-educated?
Read More9 Books Every Parent Should Read→
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The following books were carefully chosen as a guide to help you navigate some of the issues you will face raising your children in present times.
Read MoreAre You Raising Literate Children?
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Who Are We Fooling?
We think of ourselves as a literate society, but the truth is that we’re fooling ourselves.
Just because we can read, doesn’t mean we can read. Just because we can write, does not mean we can write. Unless we are educating our kids to be readers of difficult books, and writers of persuasive essays which they are capable of doing, we are short-changing them.
Read MoreWhy We Should NOT Teach Our Kids to Follow Their Passion
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Teaching your children to follow their passion sounds promising, but when you reflect on the word passion, you realize it's a misnomer. We don’t actually want our children to follow their passions.
Read MoreIs It Possible That Homeschooled Boys Become More Successful?
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What is the first thing we teach boys when they go to school?
Read MoreTwo Tips to Give Your Kids a Solid Foundation for Life→
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There are several advantages, which are vital to your family’s well-being, when you keep your child at home, rather than school, and which serve you better too.
Read MoreSix Hidden Facts of Schooling Every Parent Should Know→
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What follows is an edited transcription of key selections from John’s talk, The Underground History of American Education. As fantastic as it may seem, his findings are based on verified fact, not crazy conspiracy theories.
Read MoreShould We Teach Sex Education in Schools?
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Are four-year-old children developmentally ready to learn about sex? Are children of any age ready for this kind of education?
No, they are NOT!
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.
One of the problems is that rather than deter children from an interest in sex, sex-education classes have the opposite effect.
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 a physical expression of an emotional state called 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.
Having removed the barrier of modesty, the more curious young people become about sex and the less forbidden it begins to seem.
Dr. Anchell's findings make perfect sense in a world where elementary sex education has been normalized for the masses of children attending public schools.
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 judge the various types of "families" in the world. Children take life as it comes without preconceived notions. Whatever world they grow up in will seem normal to them until they are old enough to evaluate it objectively.
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 acquire an education?
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.”
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
Consider this standard: "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.
What do they mean by 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 schooled children are thinking about today whether we like it or not.
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally”
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.”
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.”
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.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, I train you to homeschool your kids with a focus on critical thinking, good character, and the classics. You can enroll using the link below and be confident knowing you can and will homeschool successfully.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, 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.
4 Strategies to Raise Children of Good Character→
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Societal influences can make it easier or more difficult to raise a decent child who is well-mannered, respectful, and obedient.
In today’s social and political climate it’s not always that easy, but there are some things you can do to ensure a better outcome for your family.
When our children are young, we want to train them to do the right thing, so they develop the right habits in childhood and learn to make the right choices.
“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
It begins with little things such as learning to pick up after themselves, doing chores before they play, being considerate of other people's needs, and having good manners.
Role Models
Good role models in a child’s life are essential. If the parents treat each other courteously, if they are respectful to their family and friends, if they are honest and helpful with others, their children are more likely to follow suit.
Discipline
There is also a training through discipline that has to occur, too, as no child is born perfect no matter how good his or her role models may be.
Good parents can produce bad children; there are no guarantees that children turn out well.
You have a higher chance of having them grow up to be good people, however, if you understand how to train them in the ways of respect and obedience.
Public School
Public school can undo your hard work, though, because rudeness and crudeness are now the norms, and the teachers have very little authority when it comes to correcting a child's behavior.
Children sent to school for eight hours a day where the teachers are not allowed to discipline them are at a disadvantage.
On the contrary, children who spend their days in a homeschooled environment are with adults who are able to put the time and effort into guiding the kids in the right ways.
In a home or private schools, adults have authority over the children and can discipline them as needed. The right training in childhood is essential to raising a well-mannered, happy child.
Spare the rod, spoil the child, was an old adage that adults used to repeat before the 60's cultural revolution when sound parenting principles were abandoned in favor of unproven, untested theories about how to raise a kid.
Modern Inconveniences
Today, we can add to the problem modern inconveniences such as vulgar films, ribald music, video games, social media, and inappropriate television programs.
Negative influences will unravel any good work you've done to raise your children well, which is why we need to be diligent with the environments we let influence our children.
The Ancient Greeks knew that negative influences in a child's life would help mold their character, and any educator since who has studied the classics or has an ounce of common sense will understand this too.
The rest of society has forgotten it, though, making us negligent in our duty to raise our children according to time-tested principles that work.
A Dishonest Trend
Ninety-seven percent of schoolchildren are dishonest according to statistics gathered by Vickie Abeles, who produced the documentary, Race to Nowhere.
Even without the statistics, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that we are no longer an honest society.
My son took a statistics exam online only to receive an email from the teacher the following day, announcing that some of the students had cheated on the exam.
My son said the exam was easy, too, making it an even more pathetic situation. College students cheating on an easy exam?
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
What happened to the concept of hard work and honesty?
Cheating is a habit for many children today.
When the lines between honesty and dishonesty become so blurred that cheating on exams becomes all too common, we have a serious problem. Cheaters are cheaters. Liars are liars. School doesn't end and real life begin to find these students suddenly turn honest again.
They have become dishonest people. Their characters have formed this way because they are raised in a system that doesn't uphold the values of truth, goodness, and beauty; once so honored in the West.
In a Nutshell
Raise your children well, keep them out of public school, screen multi-media use when they are young (or eliminate it!), avoid inappropriate music, and surround them with natural beauty and good people.
If you do, you'll have accomplished something that is becoming more and more uncommon today; you’ll have raised a decent child.
A child who grows up with the ability to discern truth from falsehood, beauty from ugliness, and good from bad is a child you can be proud to call your own.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Become a Smart Homeschooler to raise smart, ethical, and critically-thinking children. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course and feel secure knowing that you have what you need to homeschool successfully as well as live ongoing support from Elizabeth.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20 years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with her unique combination of mentors, 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.
Is the Concept of Multiple Learning Styles Overrated?→
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Have we taken the idea of multiple intelligences and learning styles too far?
Read MoreCan You Raise Kids Without Technology in 2022?→
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Do you think it’s possible to raise a 2022 child without technology? Let's look at a few facts…
Read MoreA “Head-Start” in Early Education May Do More Harm Than Good→
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Is expecting our children to leave home at earlier and earlier ages, so they can get a head start with reading, writing, and arithmetic, actually giving them a head start?
Read MoreWhy I never Reached My Potential and How to Spare Your Kids the Same Fate→
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John Taylor Gatto, a renowned educator and best-selling author, said that "schools were dangerous places for children."
Having been educated through the public school system, I can say with certainty, as I’m sure you can too, that my best years of learning were wasted.
Not only were they wasted, but as a public-school student, I was exposed to all sorts of immoral behaviors and mediocre influences in my life.
It wasn't a great beginning.
My Twelve-Year Jail Sentence
In my "twelve-year jail sentence," as Gatto likes to call it, I certainly never learned that a "preposition is a word which governs a noun or pronoun and connects it to anything else in the sentence or clause" (definition according to Mr. Gwynne, author of Gwynne's Grammar).
I memorized not a single piece of poetry, nor did I ever learn my own country’s history with any coherency, let alone other histories of the world.
(I did read a lot of classic books, but not in school. My father supplied me with those, and they were my saving grace.)
It would have been helpful to have learned the above subjects during those 12 wasted years and learned other subjects too, which are essential to living a good life.
For example, learning Aristotelean logic when I was young would have given me the ability to see through the kind of propaganda that flies in our faces every day and deceives us to believe in and do things we would not otherwise believe in or do.
“Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.”
Having a better understanding of world history would have taught me that history repeats itself. I would have known back then to look to the past to understand where we have been, where we were then, and where we were headed.
The Six Purposes of Schooling
Fast forward many years later to my discovery of the six purposes of government schooling that John Taylor Gatto uncovers for us and guess who was livid?
I wasn’t alone.
Like many of us, I realized that I had been cheated of a real education, and there is nothing more infuriating than discovering that you have lost the best years for training your mind to a dumbed-down, nefarious government school program.
I should also tell you of something else that happened to me when I was in public school which has been an impediment throughout my life. As a young kindergarten enrollee, I had developed a false belief that I was not very smart!
This may sound strange, but it happens to be fairly common for children who are almost a year younger than the oldest child in the classroom but expected to do the same level of work.
Unfortunately, beliefs we form from childhood experiences become like deep grooves in our minds, and it can take a lifetime to polish them out, which is why we need to consider carefully the way we are raising our children.
“School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.”
5 Reasons for Homeschooling
In this brief summary of my unfortunate government school years, did you notice that I just gave you five reasons why concerned parents elect to homeschool their children? If not, let me summarize them for you as it’s important to reflect on them:
Concerned parents want to give their children a real education where their children learn, at the very least, how to read well, write well, and speak well.
They want to give their children proper training in morality and what it means to be an ethical and civilized human being.
They want their children to understand that mediocrity is not good enough; they must learn to strive for excellence.
They don't want their children exposed to early sexual influences, drugs, and perverse ideologies.
They want their children to have self-confidence and as much self-knowledge as they can acquire during a well-spent youth.
These are the five most common reasons for homeschooling, but there are two more that are gaining momentum. Crime is a big problem in schools today, and many parents are not putting their kids into public school or are taking their children out of public school because of safety issues.
I mentioned this to a group of parents about 15 years ago, and one parent thought I was being extreme. But I wasn't. I was just on top of the statistics earlier than they were; now, I believe it is common knowledge that schools are not safe places for kids.
We also have health concerns with the government schools now mandating a new drug for children that many parents feel is unsafe, despite the propaganda, because the ten or twelve years it takes to safely test a new drug is still in the future.
We have many new homeschoolers now because of the mandates which I find interesting.
Now I’ve given you seven reasons why concerned parents choose to homeschool. Here’s one more that seldom gets mentioned, but that I believe is the most important because it encompasses all the rest:
Your children were born with a God-given potential that they will realize throughout the course of their lives if, and only if, they’re given a fair chance.
If you want your children to reach their potentials, the best chance you have to help them is to intelligently homeschool your kids. Don’t let them waste their best years of learning in public school.
Educate your children well by doing it yourself or hiring competent tutors to teach your kids. One-on-one instruction is superior to class instruction which is why the aristocracy were always tutored.
What’s vital to remember is that an education tailored to one is the education of people who lead themselves, and may even lead others, as opposed to being led.
Let me conclude by saying this: living in a dumbed-down world is frightening. Dumbed-down people are easy to manipulate, and Americans may be the most manipulated people on this planet today.
Keep your kids out of public school and homeschool them so they can grow up to be leaders who are intelligent, ethical, critically thinking people.
Mediocrity will not do.
*****
To learn about John Taylor Gatto’s Six Purposes of Government Schooling, use this link.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life.
Become a Smart Homeschooler and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home using the Smart Homeschooler Academy Curriculum and teaching methods taught in the program. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course and feel secure knowing that you have what you need to homeschool successfully as well as live ongoing support from Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20 years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with her unique combination of mentors, Elizabeth has developed her own 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.
Why Homeschooling Is Easier If You Get the Early Years Right→
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Get the early years of raising your children right, and homeschooling will be much easier.
Read MoreAre You Raising Ethical Children?→
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You may be, it can be difficult to tell. Sometimes it requires an honest look into our own behavior. How ethical of a person are we?
“Ethics, also called moral philosophy, the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong.”
And sometimes, it requires an honest look at how we are raising our children. Are we holding them accountable for their actions?
Regardless, each of us has an innate moral nature. At very early ages, children will begin to make judgment calls about what is right and what is wrong. Consider how young a child is when he begins to say things like, "But that's not fair!"
As children mature, we want to teach them how to govern their emotions and act with the intention to do the right thing. Conducting ourselves with integrity is a choice.
“Integrity, from the Latin word: integritas meaning purity; morally, uprightness”
Yet, given the state of affairs today, there appears to be a grave breakdown in our sense of right and wrong, making it challenging to model ethical behavior for our children.
Learning how to determine ethical boundaries begins in the home, but learned behaviors in school also play a role. As Vicky Abeles points out in her iconic film, The Race to Nowhere, 97% of high school students lie and cheat on exams throughout their high school years to be able to graduate at the end of their four-year term.
Now, upon first hearing this, you might think this kind of behavior is restricted to high school, but this isn't the case.
Children who learn to make exceptions for ethical behavior when the exceptions lead to acquiring something important, such as a high school diploma, are at risk of adopting habits contrary to good character.
“It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good.”
We can all sympathize with their plight as the demands made on schoolchildren are impossible, but something is wrong when they are part of an educational system that they cannot succeed at unless they lie and cheat. And we have to ask ourselves, "Do we really want to enroll them in such a system?"
Regardless, once bad habits such as these are established, it is unlikely they will be limited to the classroom. On the contrary, a habit is a habit, and to correct a bad one requires an intention to break the habit. But first, a person needs to see that there is a problem.
It's difficult, however, to see that you have a problem when your problem has become the norm. Between the school environment plus the unclear boundaries in the home, one can expect that the child's ability to accurately distinguish between right and wrong will be blurry, at best.
And this is what we are dealing with today. Lying and cheating are the norms to such a degree that even people who think they are ethical are not.
However, each individual is responsible for his own actions. We cannot shift the responsibility of our behavior to anyone or anything else. Science is good at blaming our behavior on mythical chemical imbalances or brain configurations that deviate from the norm.
We are very good at blaming our parents or anything we can reasonably point our fingers at, but the reality is that the only direction we can honestly point our fingers is at ourselves.
We all have the ability to choose and evading responsibility for our choices will get us nowhere. While the blame game may make us feel better momentarily, it will not make us a better person, and it will not help us raise better children.
Before we can assume responsibility for our actions, we have first to understand what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior. Once we can make this distinction, we must choose to correct our less-than-admirable behavior, so we act in harmony with our values.
It is of paramount importance that we teach this kind of mindfulness to our children. We must avoid putting them in situations that will undermine this teaching, and we must set a good example for them with our own behavior.
The latter means that we have to be honest with ourselves about the state of our characters. We learn to understand our character by diligently questioning our intentions and actions and correcting them when we find them not aligning with our values.
We all have a conscience and know in our heart of hearts when we are doing something wrong. As my father once said, "The road to Hell is a long series of negotiations with the devil." In other words, it isn't one big thing we do that determines who we are, but the little things we do over and over again that will eventually decide the state of our characters.
The majority of us often compromise our integrity in mindless ways. Sometimes we compromise it in simple acts like withholding information from a friend to produce an outcome that benefits us or maybe the grocery checker forgot to check something in our basket and we walked off without telling her.
But sometimes, we compromise our integrity in more significant ways.
“Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...”
We might do egregious things like damage someone's bumper and drive off without leaving a note. Maybe we plant the seeds of doubt about another person's character to mutual friends because we are envious of them? Maybe we charge for a high-quality service that we aren't competent to provide.
To correct these kind of behaviors, we have to stop and ask ourselves this question: for how much am I willing to compromise my integrity?
Will I compromise it for the 50 cents I didn't have to pay because the teller missed the apple in my cart? Will I compromise it for the 100 dollars I saved because I didn't fix the bumper that I damaged? Will I compromise it for the benefit I received for withholding information from my friend or lessening people's opinion of someone? Will I compromise my integrity for the extra money I earned for fraudulently advertising something I couldn't fully provide?
When we reflect on especially the minor injustices we commit, we realize for how little we will compromise our own integrity.
If you can understand that the little things add up to the big things, and the big things make up your character, somehow saving the cost of an apple or a bumper repair hardly seem worth it.
“What a piece of work is a man! How Noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In Action, how like an Angel in apprehension, how like a God!
The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—”
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life.
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.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20 years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with her unique combination of mentors, Elizabeth has developed her own 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.
Why You Shouldn't Focus on Your Child's Happiness
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I believe it was Isocrates who said that the healthy child wants to become an adult. In raising our children well, we must teach them how to act and think like mature people.
Yet, the phrase we hear most often repeated is this:
"I just want him to be happy."
But if you think about it, it isn't what you most want. What you most want is that he grows up to be a decent, hard-working, mature adult. If you raise him to become these things, then happiness will follow.
As the ancients understood and current research now proves, happiness is found in living a virtuous life. The modern pursuit of pleasure and good times, it turns out, is just a myth being thrust upon us by very sophisticated and manipulative marketing techniques.
Contrary to this empty rhetoric, a good life does not come from the pursuit and acquisition of pleasure, in whatever form you desire, but it comes from being a virtuous person. As the concept of "virtue" seems to be an idea that’s gone out of fashion, let me share with you some of the qualities that a virtuous person might possess:
Humility, courage, mercy, patience, tolerance, diligence, and generosity. These are some of the qualities a truly “happy” person might embody.
To inculcate these kind of qualities in your child, you must begin when he is very young.
You must train him in the way of good habits, and then, and only then, will you be able to raise a happy child who later becomes a happy adult. One state naturally follows the other.
What is the key to raising a child with good habits?
Raise a child who is obedient and does the right thing, not from fear of you, but from a deep love and respect for you.
We don't need behavioral studies to prove this; we need to pay attention. A child who is always complaining and throwing tantrums and always asking for this and that is not a happy child, is he? Nor is the child who is always doing what he is told not to do.
However, the kind of training that protects from these unhappy states must start when your child is very young. You should begin training your child in the ways of good behavior as soon as he or she turns two years of age.
If you wait until much later to begin, the training process becomes increasingly more difficult. Waiting too long means you will need to correct bad habits first and then work on instilling the good habits in your child.
It’s a much more tedious and frustrating experience to correct bad habits than it is to avoid them from forming in the first place.
“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”
If you fail to raise your child well, then he will be destined to spend the rest of his life working to correct deeply ingrained negative traits (a lifetime pursuit and not for the easily discouraged). Even worse, he will perpetuate and suffer the ills in life (as will everyone he encounters) that arise from not being a good person.
You see, the opposite of the virtuous person would be the wretched one who will never know any real happiness. We've all known wretched people, especially as they get older and nature carves their wretched states into their faces. We certainly don't want this for our children!
In a nutshell, if you focus on the happiness factor when your child is young, you will fail to raise a happy child. Focus on raising a decent child first, and his happiness will follow.
If you don't know where to begin, do this: throw out all of your parenting books and stop asking your friends for advice (the latter is the equivalent of the blind leading the blind). Moving forward, begin to think about the consequences of your actions as a parent.
Start asking yourself questions such as, "If I do this, then what is the message I am giving my child?" If I let him do this, then what am I teaching him about his behavior and the journey of life?"
For example, this may surprise you to know that many parents look to their children's desires to decide how they should educate them. I know this for a fact (no studies done, yet) because the parents say things to me like, "I thought about homeschooling, but he wanted to go to school with his neighborhood friends," or "I thought about homeschooling, but he's so social, and I think he'd be happier in school."
How you educate your child is a huge decision that will alter the course of his life, but he is too young to make such a life-changing decision. You are the adult; this is your decision to make for your child.
It doesn't matter if he prefers to go to school with friends or that you think he would be happier in school because he has friends to socialize with every day. What matters is whether or not a school is the best place for your child or whether another option might be such as homeschooling.
You have to weigh the pros and cons accurately and objectively before you make this kind of a decision.
Base your decision upon your values and what you want for your children. If you want to raise decent children, you have to consider the moral environment of the child.
If you're going to raise highly intelligent children, you have to evaluate the level of academic training a school offers. If you want both, then you have to look for an educational model that provides both,
If you only care about your child's immediate happiness, then you can let him make this decision.
I used the example of educational decisions because I hear about them a lot, but the truth is that there are many decisions we let our children make every day, such as when they can finish playing; when they need to do their chores; when they need to get ready for bed.
Instead of training them to understand that these are non-negotiable commands we make of our children, we go to the negotiating table with them and let them argue their case for an extension of time for whatever it is they want to do.
We also exhaust ourselves in the process, which is one reason parents find raising children so challenging today. It's always tiring to have to argue with someone and then give in to them when they should have done what you asked them to do in the first place.
Children need most, and what they don't have enough of are adults who guide them on their way to maturity by concerning themselves less with whether or not their children are happy and more with whether or not the parents are training their children well.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
The point to childhood is to prepare for adulthood; you should be less concerned about making a child happy and more concerned about raising a child who grows up to be a responsible, honorable, and mature adult.
It's not uncommon today to see grown children well into their 30's, or 40's still living at home because they can't make it on their own. The other day, my 30-something chiropractor told me that half of his friends still live at home.
I know of many situations where the parents still have aging children at home. An offspring well into adulthood and living at home out of necessity was unheard of when I was young.
Literally.
Make your priority for your children less about their happiness and more about behaving well and doing the right thing.
If you do, the chances are strong that you'll be able to enjoy your golden years knowing your kids are doing well and on the way to acquiring the kind of happiness that comes from living a good life.
*****
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, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.
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 Ways to Stimulate Your Child's Love of Learning
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The other night a friend showed me a clip of her nine-month-old baby trying to imitate her mother's expressions. I looked into the baby's eyes as I watched the video and the intense alertness that I witnessed, the acute observation of each facial move in her mother's face, was fascinating.
The baby wanted to know how to make the same faces her mother was making, and she was trying to understand how to do this by conducting a scientific investigation.
It's the intense desire to know that all healthy children possess, yet what happens to their curiosity as they grow older? Why do so many children forsake that infinite sense of wonder that is so innate to each of us?
“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”
One of the reasons this happens today is because too many children start school at young ages, and by the time they reach kindergarten, first grade, if they are lucky, the light within them begins to dim.
Consider this: if your child’s desire to explore and understand the world around him is constantly thwarted by a teacher’s dictates, he will begin to give up his investigative work, and his sense of curiosity will eventually wilt.
For example, if a child has a small shovel in his hand, but every time he tries to shovel something a teacher tells him to stop, he will eventually stop picking the shovel up.
When a child cannot follow the lead of his curiosity, or is not in an environment where he can exercise his desire to know, as children who are in daycare and preschools from early ages are, they begin to put their curiosity down.
If you have a child whose curiosity is waning, or whose curiosity you want to stimulate, here are five things you can do:
If you have to put your child into an outside program, look for a daycare or preschool that is play-based and ideally held in the outdoors, such as a Forest School. Make sure they are operated by people who understand what children need at these tender ages. If you aren't sure what the philosophy for the school is, ask them. Please do not be shy about these matters; after all, this is your child, and you want to make sure he is under the best care.
Immediately remove all screens from your child's life both inside and outside the home. Under no circumstances should you hand him your cell phone to quiet him because you are busy. Screens are a cause of a dimming curiosity; not only that but they will thwart your child's brain development.
Do not entertain your child! Let him entertain himself. It is not that you don't ever play with your child, but only that you do not become his full-time playmate. Allow him to follow the dictates of his curiosity and figure things out for himself. Children are little scientists; let him conduct his own experiments.
Be curious yourself. Take your child into the outdoors and explore with him. Let him walk barefoot on fallen leaves and dip his feet into spring water to awaken his senses. Bring his attention to the songs of birds and the rustling of the trees as the wind blows through them. Collect a bug or two and read about them when you get home. Notice a particular bird sound (my favorite is the red-winged blackbird!) and look the bird up in a reference book or on the internet when you get home. Try to imitate the bird's song with your child. Ask him questions to stimulate a conversation and discover the answers together, such as how birds fly and what foods they eat.
Lastly, if you can, don't put your child into any school programs until he is at least ten years old. Until then, teach him yourself because so many learning problems take root during those early years. The first few grades of elementary school are easy to teach when you know what you are doing.
Remember that the desire to know is our natural state, but we have this yearning socialized out of us in various ways, the least not being school. Our innate desire to know, however, is still there within us.
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
If your child's desire for knowledge has dimmed for any of the above reasons, understand that you can help him awaken it. It is something you must make the intention to do too because reaching his full potential in life begins with the desire to know.
Why should he become less than he could be when he can be so much more?
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, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.
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.
The Six Purposes of Schooling by John Taylor Gatto
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When people have asked me why I homeschooled, I tell them I had no choice. I tell them that if they understood what I understand about public education, they would homeschool too. John Taylor Gatto was the man who opened my eyes to the nefarious agenda behind public school.
What follows is a transcription of the key section from John’s classic speech and opus, The Underground History of American Education. John was a brilliant and well-researched man. I have read what is below in Ingles’ book myself; it is all true.
Transcription of John’s Talk
“I have something here. I have the six purposes of schooling [from the book Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis] as laid down in 1917 by the man whom Harvard named their Honor Lecture in Education for.
So far from being a fringe individual, this guy is the reason the Harvard Honor Lecture in Education is named as it is: The Inglis Lecture. I would like to read you the six purposes of schooling. I moved heaven and earth as it took years to find this book [Principles of Secondary Education]--just like trying to find in past years a copy of the Carol Quigley [book] Tragedy and Hope.
I learned about Inglis from a twenty year President of Harvard [1933-1953], James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in World War I--and was in the very inner circle of the Atomic Bomb Project in World War II--was High Commissioner of Occupied Germany after the War.
So he [James Bryant Conant] wrote--there must be 20 books about the institution of schooling--of which he was completely a proponent. And he is a very, very bad writer. I forced myself to read most of these books, and one of them he says that if you really want to know what school is about, you need to pick up the book that I’m referring to Principles of Secondary Education.
Two years it took me to find a copy of the book [Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis]--750 pages, tiny print and as dull as your imagination can be. And furthermore, it is not till you get to the very middle of the book--in an unlabelled section--that he spills the beans. Let me spill them for you.
There are six purposes, or functions, as he calls them. The first he [Alexander Inglis] calls the Adjustive Function: Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. That’s their main purpose--habits and reactions to authority.
That is why school authorities don’t tear their hair out when somebody exposes that the Atomic Bomb wasn’t dropped on Korea, as a history book in the 1990s printed by Scott Foresman [did], and why each of these books has hundreds of substantive errors. Learning isn’t the reason the texts are distributed.
The Adjustive Function
So, first is the Adjustive Function--fixed habits. Now here comes the wonderful insight that being able to analyze the detail will give you. How can you establish whether someone has successfully developed this Automatic Reaction because people have a proclivity when they are given sensible orders to follow.
That is not what they want to teach. The only way you can measure this is to give stupid orders and people automatically follow those. Now you have achieved Function #1.
The Integrating Function
Have you ever ever wondered why some of the foolish things that schools do or allow to continue? [Function] #2, he [Inglis] calls it the Integrating Function, but it is easier to understand if you call it the Conformity Function.
It’s to make children alike as possible--the gifted children and the stupid--alike as possible because market research uses statistical sampling, and it only works if people react generally the same way.
The Directive Function
The Third Function he calls the Directive Function: School is to diagnose your proper social role and then log the evidence that here is where you are on the Great Pyramid, so that future people won’t allow you to escape that compartment.
The Differentiating Function
The Fourth Function is the Differentiating Function. Because once you have diagnosed the kids in this layer, you do not want them to learn anything that the higher layers are learning. So you teach just as far as the requirement of that layer.
The Selective Function
Number five and six are the creepiest of all! Number 5 is the Selective Function. What that means is what Darwin meant by natural selection: You are assessing the breeding quality of each individual kid. You’re doing it structurally because school teachers don’t know this is happening.
And you’re trying to use ways to prevent the poor stuff from breeding. And those ways are hanging labels--humiliating labels--around their neck, encouraging the shallowness of thinking.
I often wondered, because I came from a very very strict Scotish-Irish culture that never allowed you to leer at a girl. But when I got to NYC, the boys were pawing the girls openly and there was no redress for the girls at all, except not showing up in the classroom--high absentee rates.
Well, you are supposed to teach structurally that sexual pleasure is what you withdraw from a relationship and everything else is a waste of time and expensive.
So, the Selective Function is what Darwin meant by the favored races. The idea is to consciously improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit with their inferiority by poor grades, remedial placement, and humiliation, so that their peers will accept them as inferior. And the good breeding stock among the females will reject them as possible partners.
The Propaedeutic Function
And the Sixth is the creepiest of all! And I think it is partly what Tragedy and Hope is about--a fancy Roman name, the Propaedeutic Function. Because as early as Roman bigtime thinkers, it was understood that to continue a social form required that some people be trained that they were the custodians of this. So, some small fraction of the kids are being ready to take over the project.
That’s the guy--the honor lecturer [Inglis], and it will not surprise you that his ancestors include the major-general of the siege of the Luknow of India--famous for tying the mutineers’ on the muzzle of the cannons and blowing them apart, or somebody who was forced to flee NYC, a churchman at the beginning of the American Revolution, because he wrote a refutation of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
They were going to tar and feather him. He fled and was rewarded by the British by making him the Bishop of Nova Scotia. Those are Inglis’ ancestors!
So, Al Inglis is certainly--when I learned of this and wrote to Harvard, asking for access to the Inglis Lecture. Strike me dead, Lord, if I’m exaggerating at all. I was told “We have no Inglis Lecture--hasn’t been for years, and we have no records.
It was the same that happened when I discovered that Elwood B. Cubberly, the most influential schoolman of the 20th century and the bionomics genius had been the elementary school editor of Houghton Mifflin, and I wrote Houghton Mifflin--Is there any record? And they said, “We have no record of anyone named Elwood P. Cubberly.
Now Harvard is telling me, “There is no Inglis Lecture. A week passed and I got a call from Harvard, from some obscure office at Harvard, saying “What is your interest in the Ingles Lecture?” I knew that I was on thin ice.
And I said, “Well, James Conant referred me in his books to the man the Inglis Lecture is named after, and I was just wondering if I could get some background on this fellow, and a list of the lectures.
And in due time, I got a list of the lectures and instructions [on] how to access the texts, but not easily. Enough hoops that someone who has to mow the lawn and burp the baby wouldn’t jump through those hoops. I was able to prove Harper’s [magazine] wouldn’t publish [it in] the cover essay I wrote, which Lew Laflin [?] named Against School, but I had called The Artificial Extension of Childhood because I think that is the key mechanism at work here.
So, they wouldn’t print the information about Cubberley because Houghton Mifflin denied it. It was only months after that I looked through my extensive library of incredibly dull books about schooling, and I opened [one]--and on the facing page said Elwood B. Cubberly, Editor and Chief of Elementary School, publishing arm of Houghton Mifflin.
By the way, the secondary Editor and Chief was Alexander Ingles. So you see how this cousinage works.”
*****
Download your free copy of 10 Surprising Facts About Homeschooled Kids.
*Video transcribed by Roger Copple. To watch the full 12-minute video: The Six Purposes of Schooling [Video]
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, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.
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.
Goodbye, Mr. Potato Head
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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.
One Method to Raise Courageous Children and Catapult Their Careers
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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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
