Barbara Frank

New posts over at my new blog....

2008-10-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

Check it out:

Homeschooling on the Decline?

The Current Financial Crisis

Cooking School

This will make you smile

Must Homeschooled Success Equal Homeschooled Grandchildren?

Come on over!

I'm Moving....Finally!

2008-10-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

After lots of tweaking, the blog connected to my new site is mostly ready and I've begun posting on it. If you're subscribed via a reader or Feedburner, I will try my best to switch you over. We do have RSS set up over there, and other subscription options will appear soon. Thanks for your patience. :)

Busting Myths or Overgeneralizing?

2008-10-10T06:21:00.000-07:00

My m-i-l gave me a copy of this Chicago Tribune article about raising a child with Down syndrome.

I'm kind of torn here, because I agree with both the moms who say their children are a joy and those who say making Down syndrome look like butterflies and sunshine could mislead people. The bottom line is that while having a child with Ds is both good and difficult, it's not up to us to decide whether a fetus with Down syndrome should live. God has already given that child life. He made the decision...it's not ours.

I hope all parents of unborn children with Ds are being told that there are parents who will adopt their child if they can't handle him or her. One agency that does that is CHASK.

New Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-10-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

This week's carnival is hosted by Susan over at Corn and Oil, a blog based in my home state of Illinois. Do stop by and check out the wide array of posts she's assembled there!

Some of You Will Recognize Yourselves Here....

2008-10-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

Melissa tagged me with a cool meme. Here’s how it works: If you recognize yourself here, consider yourself tagged!

1) I’m a mom and grandma who loves caring for my family and my home. Sometimes I also help my husband with his business. Oh, and I love my garden!

2) Barb and I only live about an hour apart but we haven’t met in person yet. I homeschool my teen daughter and three adorable sons.

3) I’m a Canadian redhead who just added two adorable children to my family through adoption, which now makes me a mom of six!

4) Listening to Charlie Sykes, organic food, the upcoming election and becoming a grandmother for the first time are some of the things on my mind these days.

5) We try to fit homeschooling in between recovering from our recent move to Florida and avoiding the alligators that are our new neighbors.

6) I have one foot on either side of the Cheddar Curtain (the WI/IL border) these days, and am busy working hard for the Lord while keeping up with my teen girls, one of whom has Down syndrome.

A Down Syndrome Pregnancy in the Spotlight

2008-10-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

What Sarah Palin went through in her pregnancy with her son Trig was not easy. Being in the spotlight as the governor of Alaska, she had to work hard to keep her pregnancy and the baby's subsequent diagnosis out of the news until she and her family were ready for what might happen once the situation became public.

Whether or not we know about our baby's diagnosis before birth (I didn't know until my son was a day old), parents of babies with birth defects have to make a lot of hard decisions about how and when to tell people, how to accept the changes in their lives and how to move on. This article goes into detail about how Sarah Palin and her family dealt with her pregnancy and Trig's birth. Many of us can relate to it, I think.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!

2008-10-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

Despite some server problems necessitating a new location than what was originally planned, this week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up and running. Get your weekly homeschooling jumpstart here.

Teaching Traditional Subjects, Homeschool Worries and More

2008-10-01T17:04:00.001-07:00

The October issue of "The Imperfect Homeschooler" newsletter went out this morning. It includes information about teaching traditional subjects and why homeschoolers shouldn't worry about homeschooling for the long run, plus links to sites that offer free great literature in your emailbox and a fun computer game to keep the kids busy for a while, among other things.

As always, we have the latest entry in the "What Our Kids Are Missing Out On Dept." as well. You can see the entire issue here. If you'd like your own free copy each month, go here.

Calming Thoughts of a Simpler Life

2008-09-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

This summer while they were visiting us, my son and daughter-in-law gave me a lovely little book: The Simple Life: Devotional Thoughts from Amish Country.

It's not a very big book, but it's got some really nice stories in it. The author, best-selling writer Wanda E. Brunstetter, uses 60 fictional vignettes from Amish life to illustrate biblical principles.

In scary economic times like what we're living in right now, reading something that emphasizes the simple life along with God's sovereignty and grace is just what I need. And to sweeten the pot, the author includes an Amish recipe after each devotion. Our family loves Amish recipes!

Homeschoolers = Green?

2008-09-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

Susan notes that her homeschooling lifestyle is just naturally green (i.e. environmentally beneficial). I think she's right. I think ours is green, too. We don't use individually packaged anything either. We don't need to, because, like Susan's family, we eat using plates and silverware at home.

What do you think? Is your homeschooling lifestyle green, too?

Treasures

2008-09-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

Remember when you were a kid and you got hold of a special treat, like a box of Chiclets or a bag of M&Ms, and you couldn't wait to share some with someone special?

That's how I feel about Elisabeth Elliot. Anything she does is so wonderful that I just want to share it with my friends. She's so encouraging, so wise, so Biblically accurate that I can never get enough of her work.

Here are some Elisabeth Elliot treasures I want to share with you. First off, here's a list of back issues of her newsletters. At her Web site, you will find a link to her very encouraging radio broadcasts, which she stopped doing in 2001. (Here's a direct link to the transcripts of those broadcasts.)

I was fortunate to receive one of her books for my birthday: Keep a Quiet Heart. The most recent book of hers I read was Discipline: The Glad Surrender, and it was certainly a good one!

I included her fantastic book Shaping of a Christian Family, The: How My Parents Nurtured My Faith in the reading list found in my own book, Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, Second Edition: A Parent-Friendly Curriculum For Teaching Teens To Handle Money, Live Moral Lives And Get Ready For Adulthood, and all three of my older kids have read it.

One of her most famous books is Through Gates of Splendor, the story of her first husband, missionary Jim Elliot, who was murdered by some of the Ecuadorian Indians he and his fellow missionaries were trying to reach with the Gospel (the movie End of the Spear is also about that sad event).

You'll enjoy Elisabeth Elliot's work. And lest you think she can't understand what your life is like because she only ever had one child, you should know that her daughter is a homeschooling mom of eight :)

Some Links and a Timely Reminder

2008-09-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

We're still working out the details on my new site, Barbara Frank Online, and recently discovered that the links to the September articles had self-destructed (who knows why these things happen!) But they're fixed now, and since those articles will be coming down in a week or so, you might want to check them out while you can:

"Knowing When to Back Off" answers one of the most important questions a homeschooling mom can ask.

"The School Buses are Out Again" reminds us that the school bus is a good symbol, not an ominous one.

Also, don't forget, there's only one week left to get a special price on my latest book, The Imperfect Homeschooler's Guide to Homeschooling. You'll find the link to that special price in Melissa Markham's review of the book.

Tonight's Assignment

2008-09-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight dd17 attended a charity art auction in Green Bay as part of an assignment from one of her teachers. She's taking two classes at the local technical college (Wisconsin's version of community college) this semester, in addition to her studies at home during this, her last year of homeschooling.

One of our older kids also attended community college while homeschooling for high school. This is a great way for young people to try college and see if it's what they want before committing to attending a college or university after high school.

I think it's good for the kids to take these classes, not only because of what they can learn about the subject of the class, but because they get to try out the classroom. Of course, there's a lot more freedom than there would be at a public school, so it's a good fit for kids who've never been to school.

A prime advantage, of course, is that they earn both high school and college credit for the courses they take. It really makes a nice transition between high school and college, i.e. between doing things because your mom says so and doing it because the teacher assigned it. Kind of a nice breather for Mom, too :)

And Now for Something Completely Different....

2008-09-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Last year we moved to beautiful Door County, Wisconsin. Door County is primarily known for being a tourist area. However, it's also comprised of small communities that spend 2/3 of the year without many visitors. Having come from the rush and anonymity of the Chicago suburbs, we're really enjoying the small-town atmosphere here.

This fall there has been a particularly neat development. A young man from this area, son of a local artist, has been moving up on one of the musical contest-type talent shows on television. This week he made it to the top ten, and his friends and family gathered at a local establishment to watch him on the show. They all brought their cell phones so they could vote for him at the same time. (There was a cute article about this in the local paper.)

Now everyone is excited because he made it to the top five on the show. Later this week they'll learn if he makes it to #1 and wins $1 million and a show in Las Vegas.

He seems like a nice kid. We saw him perform live soon after we moved here and were impressed with him. Good luck this week, Eli!

Thoughts on Turning Fif....Fif...25x2

2008-09-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

It’s true: time flies when you’re having fun. That’s why I’m having a hard time believing that I turn 50 today…I just don’t feel like I’ve been alive that long. And yet when I consider how much the world has changed since I arrived well into the Baby Boom years, I realize that 50 years is a long time (gulp).

When I was little, ladies wore hats and gloves to church; now some wear jeans and show cleavage. My dad, my grandpa and all of my uncles smoked, as did several of my aunts. Many of the adults I’d see in cars, restaurants and on the street smoked; now I don’t see many smokers in public at all, and no one in my family smokes except one aunt.

As a child, I rode in heavy metal cars with lots of chrome; now cars are plastic or thin metal, and they’re smaller and have more safety features. I remember holding my baby sister in the car; no, she wasn’t in a baby seat, nor did I wear a seat belt.

Like the rest of the kids in my neighborhood, I walked to school in the morning, walked home for lunch (and Bozo’s Circus on channel 9 at noon), walked back to school after lunch and walked back home at 3 o’clock. I always felt safe, because most of the houses I passed had moms in them. In fact, I didn’t know anyone whose mom had a job outside the home until I was in high school.

I never thought much about what it would be like to be 50 someday, but I have to admit there have been a few surprises. I didn’t think I’d need bifocals until much later, and who knew all those fillings my childhood dentist gave me would give out in my 40s, so that I now have more crowns than the Queen of England?

I don’t mind the gray hair (my crown of glory, according to the Bible) or the crow’s feet and smile lines (from lots of good times and laughter), but gravity is definitely taking its toll in a few places. Luckily, I don’t have my glasses on when I come out of the shower, which faces the mirror.

A sad surprise has been how many friends I would lose before I hit 50. A couple of my high school friends passed away within a few years of graduation. One of my childhood friends was murdered the year we turned 30; a pregnant homeschooling mom I knew passed away in her sleep two years later. My friend Linda died four years ago this month after fighting an aggressive cancer. My friend Gary died suddenly a few months ago. I guess I assumed all of us would make it to old age.

Other surprises: My dh and I bought our first house when we were 22, which might explain why I never dreamed I’d be renting a home at 50. But that’s how it worked out, and I’m certainly not complaining! God has blessed us with a nice home in a beautiful area, and while I don’t know what the future holds, I know He has it in His hands.

I also assumed I’d be working full-time outside the home by now, but instead I have a small business and can work at home, plus I’m fortunate enough to still have two kids at home, and to be able to homeschool them. This sure beats the high-powered career the 1970s feminists told my generation we’d need in order to be happy.

A few things do not surprise me. I’m not surprised that I’m still married…I never had any doubts that it would last, because God gave me a wonderful husband. Nor am I surprised that I love motherhood every bit as much as I thought I would. It’s been a fantastic experience that I continue to enjoy as the mom of two adults and two teens….and since last year, mother-in-law to one more!

As for the future, and the thought of turning 60, or 70, or 80, or even older (my great aunt lived to be 104!), that’s in God’s hands. Each year, more and more, I see His hand in everything, as He patiently reminds me that He’s in charge, and it’s all good.

A True Story of God's Provision

2008-09-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

An American playwright, known not only for his highly acclaimed works ("Death of a Salesman," "The Crucible") but also for his marriage to the world's most famous screen siren, dies without admitting to the big secret in his life...the son with Down syndrome whom he institutionalized soon after birth. But after the playwright's death, it's discovered that he left his son a portion of his enormous wealth equal to that of his siblings, and now his son is set for life financially.

You know what struck me after reading this true story? How God looked out for the young man with Down syndrome....how his life turned out to be full of the love of others, even though his earthly father rejected him.

A friend of mine and I (we both have children with Ds) recently discussed wills and special needs trusts. She reminded me that God loves our boys and will look out for them. This article told me the same thing.

As a writer, I also found the ramifications of this father's act to be especially interesting:

It would be easy to judge Arthur Miller harshly, and some do. For them, he was a hypocrite, a weak and narcissistic man who used the press and the power of his celebrity to perpetuate a cruel lie. But Miller's behavior also raises more complicated questions about the relationship between his life and his art. A writer, used to being in control of narratives, Miller excised a central character who didn't fit the plot of his life as he wanted it to be. Whether he was motivated by shame, selfishness, or fear—or, more likely, all three—Miller's failure to tackle the truth created a hole in the heart of his story. What that cost him as a writer is hard to say now, but he never wrote anything approaching greatness after Daniel's birth. One wonders if, in his relationship with Daniel, Miller was sitting on his greatest unwritten play.

Who knows if he could have gotten his greatest play out of it? What matters is that he missed out on knowing his son, which was an enormous price to pay:

He had a bank account and a job, first at a local gym and then at a supermarket. He went to parties and concerts, and he loved to go out dancing. He was also a "natural athlete," says one social worker. He learned to ski, and competed in the Special Olympics, in that sport as well as in cycling, track, and bowling. "Everyone loved Danny," says Rich Godbout, who ran the supported living program. "His greatest joy was helping people. He would insist. If someone needed help moving, Danny was always the first guy to volunteer to help."....

Some wonder why Arthur Miller, with all his wealth, waited until death to share it with his son. Had he done so sooner, Daniel could have afforded private care and a good education. But those who know Daniel say that this is not how he would feel. "He doesn't have a bitter bone in his body," says Bowen. The important part of the story, she says, is that Danny transcended his father's failures: "He's made a life for himself; he is deeply valued and very, very loved. What a loss for Arthur Miller that he couldn't see how extraordinary his son is."

Homeschoolers are Everywhere!

2008-09-15T04:32:00.000-07:00

The high school years have been pretty exciting for 17-year-old Isabelle Erb. Her mom began homeschooling her at the start of high school, which freed up enough time for her to follow her current passion: high-fashion photography.

And yes, she's right in there scrambling with professional photogs for the best shot; here's a photo of her along with the rest of them during the recent Fashion Week in New York City. Don't miss the article that goes with it---the description of her quiet persistence will make you smile.

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

2008-09-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

Oooh, an 80% chance of rain tomorrow! I love warm rainy days.....they're perfect for staying inside and curling up with something good to read.

Right now I have a stack of library books to skim through (a book has to be fantastically good to get me to actually read straight through anymore). And of course, I'm going to spend some time reading the posts over at this week's Carnival of Homeschooling: "The Hero Edition," to be specific. It's hosted by the Cates....don't miss it!

We're Going to School!

2008-09-11T07:54:00.001-07:00

Cooking school, that is.

I've known about the Taste of Home cooking schools for years because my mil and fil regularly gift me with a subscription to Reiman Publications' Country Woman (wonderful magazine, btw....lots of nice articles, recipes, crafts, no ads...what's not to like?), and Reiman also runs the cooking schools.

Recently I heard on the radio that a cooking school event was scheduled near me in a few weeks, and that tickets would go on sale at the local grocery store Sept. 10. While running errands yesterday, my wonderful dh picked up tickets for dd17 and I!

We're really excited, as I've heard lots of good things about this event, which includes food, coupons and samples. We can't wait :)

Homeschool Encouragement in Your Email Box

2008-09-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

Just sent out the September issue of "The Imperfect Homeschooler" newsletter...it should be landing with a thump in your email box any second.

This month's issue covers topics like
school buses,
when to ignore your curriculum's timetable
and how to get a free copy of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Plus there's a limited time special price on my new book, but you'll have to read the newsletter to find out how to get it.

If you're not already a subscriber, check out the newest issue here. If you'd like a free subscription, you can get yours here.

Lookin' Good, Little Brother

2008-09-04T07:22:00.001-07:00

A lot has happened politically and culturally since I posted last week about Sarah Palin's baby boy. Let's not go there. Instead, I want to share this cute moment at the convention last night. Dd17 and I loved this! We just about fell off the sofa laughing. Anyone who's ever had or been a sister can understand :)

The Help I Wish I'd Had...

2008-09-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder if you realize how lucky you are.

Back in the day, I’d have given my eye teeth to have somewhere to go and learn about other homeschoolers. After all, there weren’t all that many of us around yet, and the homeschoolers I knew didn’t usually have much in common with me other than the fact that we were all weird enough to enjoy being with our kids.

I recall that one used Christian Liberty Academy Satellite School, a few used Bob Jones and pretty much everyone else used A Beka, including me. But it wasn’t long before I began to see my children becoming bored, and I started reading up on different ways to homeschool.

Also, I learned about homeschool advocates like John Taylor Gatto, whom no one else seemed to have heard of, and I wished I knew others with whom I could talk about these things. And of course, at that time I was the only homeschooler I knew with a disabled child that I hoped to eventually homeschool. How I wish I’d had access to other parents homeschooling their kids with Ds back then.

I would have loved being able to visit the blogs of other homeschooling parents! The beauty of the blogosphere is that you choose whether you want to be “the fly on the wall” of someone else’s homeschooling life, become close friends with them, or end up somewhere in the middle.

That’s why I tell new and prospective homeschooling parents to visit each week’s Carnival of Homeschooling. It’s a great way to get to know others who homeschool their kids. I’ve "met" many awesome homeschooling moms because of their blogs, or because they’ve come to mine.

This week’s Labor Day edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is hosted by Carol Topp. Last week’s edition was hosted by a terrific homeschool mom named Renae. If you have a blog, you can submit one of your posts each week just by going here.

If you ever want to know where upcoming carnivals will be held, or where a past carnival was posted, just visit the Cates. They started the Carnival of Homeschooling nearly three years ago, and we all owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. It’s because of their work that parents who homeschool today have such a wonderful source of homeschool friendship and information, right at their fingertips!

Speaking of blogs, I’ve been asked what happened to my old blog. I’m sorry to say it’s been taken down by Homeschool Blogger. Of course, it’s their right to do as they please with their bandwidth, but I wish they'd left my old blog up because recent readers found many of the posts useful. I stopped blogging at HSB in December 2006 because of all the technical difficulties I was encountering there. However, the good news is that I did save the posts, and I hope to use some of them in an upcoming book and/or ebook. :)

Balancing Work and Family: Some Labor Day Thoughts

2008-09-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

I've written before that homeschooled kids tackle adult life with great gusto. At least that's been my experience. My adult kids have eagerly embraced their schooling and/or work. In today's world, that means lots of work hours and steady commitment to the job.

My son and his wife both have jobs that they love and in which they're successful. Work takes up enough of their lives that they have to commit to spending time together. It doesn't just happen. This is a lesson we all learn sooner or later, but they're learning it right now; so far they appear to be keeping up with the balancing act.

But at some point they're going to want children, and that's when the balancing act becomes more complex. Men in particular feel the need to excel at their jobs in order to feed, clothe and shelter their growing families. But sometimes they can become so involved with their jobs that work takes priority over their families, and they can't see it.

That's what happened to Sir Richard Attenborough, the acclaimed British actor and director. Over the course of his life, he achieved fame and fortune while staying married to one woman (for over 60 years!) with whom he had three children.

While on vacation in 2004, his daughter and granddaughter died in the tsunami that hit the areas around the Indian Ocean. This tragedy forced Sir Richard to reassess the way he spent his life (as excerpted from his recently released autobiography):

When I look back, I see the whole of my adult life crammed with ceaseless activity. But in all my roles as actor, director, producer, charity fundraiser, chairman of this, president of that, I've always been aware that it was Sheila, not me, who held us together as a family.

Yet, eternally optimistic and, to a degree, selfish and egocentric, I always believed in a future when I would make it up to the children. In determining the allotment of my time between public and private, work always took precedence.

Supposedly, weekends were set aside for the family. But not as conscientiously as I would now wish. If it needed a Saturday morning to conclude some business, then I took it.

When we lost Ginny - my nickname for Jane - and Luce, that opportunity was gone, never to be recovered. And that has changed my relationship with those who are left to the extent that I will do anything to be with them and we spend much more time together.

I can talk to people about Jane now, although sometimes I can't get the words out. I can also see her. I can feel her touch. I can hear her coming into a room. She comes in laughing or excited or determined, but always full of commitment. That was the very essence of Jane - commitment.

And music. After they died, I started to hear music in my head all the time. Handel is Jane; Puccini is Lucy. I can no longer turn on the radio or listen to CDs because they clash with their music in my head.

Just thinking about Jane now, I am listening to the Messiah: I know that my redeemer liveth. How about that? Me, an agnostic.

I have, I know, been one of the privileged creatures on this Earth, not just slightly but hugely privileged. Even as early as my mid-20s, I was aware of leading a charmed life.

I won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Then, unlike many of my contemporaries, I survived the war unscathed and went on to marry the most wonderful girl in the world.

My career blossomed in so many different areas. I had fame, fortune and good friends.

I became a knight, an ambassador, a president, a commandeur and a chevalier, several kinds of chairman, a university chancellor and latterly a lord. And although I now have hearing aids in both ears and my heart is ticking courtesy of a pacemaker, I have made it to my mid-80s.

Before the tsunami, I had always thought of myself as a sort of ridiculous male Mary Poppins, the eternal optimist whose glass is always half full. But, after the loss of my daughter and granddaughter, nothing would ever be the same again.

In case you're wondering, yes, I did send this to my son :) And as a side note, isn't it interesting that Sir Richard hears "The Messiah" in his head....how do you suppose that got there?

What You May Not Know About Sarah Palin

2008-08-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

CNN is reporting that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate for November's presidential election.

I haven't yet considered the political implications of this choice, or even the fact that McCain has chosen a female veep candidate. I'm more excited because Ms. Palin is the pro-life mama of adorable little Trig Palin, who was born four months ago and has Down syndrome. I'm picturing future photo ops and articles that will hopefully clue people in to the gifts that a child with Ds can bring to a family. What an opportunity! :)

Every Child Has Special Needs?

2008-08-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

Got back from several days in Chicago yesterday, weary but happy. It was the first time I've ever taken a trip alone with dsds15, and it went very well. We stayed in a hotel near O'Hare with ds23, who was in town on business. This was a great help to me, as I could take a shower without worrying that my youngest was downstairs hailing a cab or something, because his big brother kept an eye on him for me.

Came home very tired, and found this in a homeschool email newsletter I receive:

Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries

I have special needs children. In fact, ALL my children are special needs children. First, there's Ben (15) who really needs me to listen to him talk . . . because he talks a lot. Then there's Sam (13) who likes to tease but who needs me to know when it's time to stop teasing and be understanding. Katherine (11) needs me to be extra gentle during these "changing" years.

Ike (9) needs lots of one-on-one attention. Abe (7) needs snuggling and closeness. Maggie Rose (4) needs me to help her use self-control. Cal (2) needs me to read books to him and Jed (7 mos.) needs me to smile at him.

Now before I get an angry note from some well-meaning mother who insists that I'm making light of or minimizing special needs children, let me say that I am not doing that at all. I know some of you have children who demand incredible sacrifice and labor on your part. I know you lie awake at night wondering if you can make it through another day. I'm certainly NOT trying to equate my "special needs" kids with your "special needs" kids. But I am trying to point out that ALL of our children have special needs and that we've done our children and ourselves a disservice by labeling our special needs children as "special needs." They're just children like all the rest.

Yes, they have special needs, but as I've already described, all children do to some extent. Amazingly, God has given you the abilities to meet those special needs and has given your children the mom and dad just right for them. You don't have to feel inadequate or apologize for their lack of progress, or label them as a "special needs" child.

All you have to do is love, train, and prepare them for THEIR future. Oh, yeah, and one more thing . . . . . .
Be real,
Todd

Wow. That didn't sit real well with me yesterday. I pictured myself reading that back when my son was little and we were trying to adjust to homeschooling three kids while caring for a toddler on an apnea monitor who couldn't keep weight on because of severe reflux, and I think that attitude (no matter how well-meaning) would have really hurt me.

Also, having just seen family in Chicago who have a daughter (our niece) with delays of unknown origin and how they have to fight to get the right kind of education for her out of their local school district, and having some idea of the pain they have gone through with and for her, his message kind of got me going:

Hi Todd,

I read your column in TOS' THM occasionally, and usually find it amusing. But I've got to tell you that you stepped in it today. I get your drift about all of our children having special needs, but you're off track here, and I'm afraid you probably hurt some parents of children with disabililties.

We have four kids, currently 15, 17, 23 and 24. They were all homeschooled from birth. Like your children, they're all special. But our youngest has Down syndrome, and let me tell you, once you have a child with true special needs (i.e. mental retardation, not a need for extra hugs), your entire life changes, and it will never be the same.

Todd, kids with special needs aren't kids like yours (and my older three) who simply need to gab a lot or snuggle a lot. We're talking about kids with major physical and/or developmental issues. This is life-changing stuff, not "Love Language" preferences. Flip through an issue of the wonderful magazine NATHHAN puts out and you'll see what some families' daily lives are like. You might also want to read The Dance Goes on by Roberta Bandy for a true-life description of the joys, blessings and heartache of a Christian family whose oldest son was born with a chromosomal defect.

I'm certain you didn't mean to offend anyone, but some of your comments came across as a bit flippant, to say the least. Like you, we have a 15-year-old son who needs us "to listen to him talk...because he talks a lot." Of course, his speech is extremely delayed, so we have to work to understand him. He may well be telling us about what happened in one of his beloved Winnie the Pooh videos, which he's told us a hundred times before, but it's important to him, so we listen. BTW, at 15 he can't play outside by himself because he runs off and has no sense of danger. He was in diapers until he was almost eight.

We love him dearly, and are grateful that God gave him to us just as he is. But telling us or other parents that all we have to do "is love, train and prepare them for THEIR future" is incredibly naive. Newer parents of the disabled (who are still coming to terms with their child's disability) are likely to consider it insensitive, and I would agree.

Todd, be real: please consider issuing an apology.

Sincerely,
Barbara Frank

Each of my kids is unique, no question. And they are all special and very dear to their dad and me. But one of them does have special needs. We didn't give him that label. He got it when he arrived with an extra chromosome. It is what it is.

Dreadful Homeschoolers?

2008-08-27T03:12:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like digging into a juicy article promoting school choice. Apparently, even the socialist-leaning Swedes have begun allowing it. But it's not permitted here in the Land of the Free, except in some areas where your only "free" choice is from among the public schools in your district.

After the article, one of the commenters got my attention by asserting that "Half of homeschoolers are dreadful. That's a fact." Then he made some Lutheran references. This lifelong Lutheran found the urge to respond to him irresistible, lol.

Feel free to have at him. Many others already have.

Homeschooling a 12th Grader.....Again

2008-08-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

It’s a bittersweet fall for me, as I once again have a 12th grader.

The first time it happened, it was exciting: wow, we’ll soon have our first homeschool graduate!

The second time it happened, the very next year, it was still exciting, but it went by so fast I couldn’t believe it.

This third time is different. I now know firsthand how very quickly this year is going to pass. One of the great things about homeschooling for high school is that your teens can do it their way, which means lots of stuff going on. And we all know how time flies when you’re busy.

Reaching the end of 12th grade, no matter how gratifying, is tough on Mom. Another one ready to fly the coop. I miss the first two a lot; I can’t imagine letting go of this one. Let’s not go there right now, ok?

Instead I want to talk about homeschooling for 12th grade. When I was in high school, senior year was pure torture. It seemed like such an afterthought. After all, by December I’d already been accepted to the university. Hanging around high school seemed so….anticlimactic.

But there I was, marking the time until I was released.

My kids didn’t have that experience. Each one’s 12th grade year has been different.

Our eldest made it very clear that she didn’t want to go to college. So we used that year to do projects that would give her a leg up on the independence she craved so much. (They’re the basis of Life Prep.) She worked through a math-review-for-adults book from the 1960s (my dad had used it to prepare for his military exams, and for some reason I had it on my bookshelf.) She read some good literature. She put in many hours a week watching a neighbor’s baby while she was at work (and bought a car with her earnings). She ran a fundraising table for Rock for Life. She got into local concert promoting. And then April came, and we called it graduation for the one-woman Class of 2001. She moved out on her own two years later.

Number two was a different story. He wanted to go to college. He studied some subjects at home, plus took a noncredit Chemistry course at one local college and Spanish at another. The latter was at the community college, so he got college credit for it. He was on the board of our church’s youth group, a great job for someone with an eye for ministry. He also worked at a local grocery store. He spent the year after his 2002 graduation doing much the same things, except he didn’t study at home. In fact, he was rarely home! So 12th grade and real life a year later were very similar. And then he went off to college. Shortly after college graduation, he got married and moved to his wife’s hometown, ten hours from here. Another one flies the coop.

Now we come to number three. She has neither the fierce independent spirit of her sister nor the academic desires of her brother. But she is very creative and has many interests. This year will be spent exploring them further. Sure, we’ve got some formal studies planned, and she’ll continue to work her way through Life Prep, too. She’s also taking a few for-credit college classes (one online, one in person). And if there’s time, she’s going to enroll in a Christian Writer’s Program. But she’ll also be playing her violin in the county’s youth orchestra. She hopes to keep growing her craft business and her web design business. And she just got a new job in a coffee shop, where she’ll be working a few days a week. Before we know it, the year will have flown by, and it will be graduation time again.

Looking back over the 12th grade experiences of all three of my older children, I see that they look more like real life than a school year. That satisfies me. It means my kids weren’t marking time the way I did senior year. I realize they can’t appreciate that the way I do; from birth to age 17 or 18, all they ever knew was homeschooling. But it makes me feel good to know they had it better than I did.

Number three doesn’t want to leave home yet; she says she’ll still be around for a while. That should make this third high school graduation a little easier on Mom. :)

Still, in many ways, this year marks the end of homeschooling as we knew it. After number three graduates, homeschooling will be the day job of our 15-year-old with Down syndrome and me. He won’t ever need our very useful (if not always loved) copy of Saxon Algebra, or our A Beka High School Literature series. By the time he reaches 12th grade, he’ll still have many years of study left, and he’ll be nowhere near ready to leave home. That’s ok. His senior year will consist mostly of real life, just as it did for his brother and sisters. And like the others, he’ll be just fine.

Cacophony of Curricula

2008-08-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

Maybe I’m just getting old. But when I open the many homeschool-related e-newsletters I receive, and when I visit homeschooling sites, I’m often overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of curriculum now available to homeschoolers.

One homeschool magazine in particular sends me oodles of offers, to the point where my eyes start to glaze over. I wonder, does this cacophony of curricula overwhelm other people too? Or is it just me?

I run the risk of being seen as hypocritical here, because I, too publish homeschool materials. But I don’t work fast enough to produce anywhere near the vast amount of homeschooling products being produced elsewhere. (I’m still homeschooling and caring for my family, and those things have to come first.) I also don’t send out mailings every other day, because I don’t want to add to people’s already overstuffed email boxes. A good portion of Cardamom’s sales come from word-of-mouth recommendations anyway, as far as we can tell, and we’re grateful for that.

The bottom line? I’m glad I’m not a new homeschooling mom these days. Too many choices overwhelm me at the grocery store, much less when flipping through my doorstop-sized Rainbow Resource catalog. When I first started homeschooling, there weren’t that many choices of what to use, so I just used what was available. Since then, I’ve learned that what you use isn’t nearly as important as that you spend time working one-on-one with your children when they need it.

As children get older, they can be trusted to take on more responsibility for their learning. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t assign them things that we think will be good for them. But the mass quantities of curriculum available now could make people, and especially newbies, think homeschooling means buying a lot of stuff and pushing it all on their children. I’ll be interested to see how that works for them as time goes on.

Playing Catch-Up

2008-08-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy lately, but I didn't realize how busy until I noticed that I hadn't posted here since Friday. Seriously, it seems like I just posted a day or so ago. Time flies when you've got a long to-do list, I guess.

So I had better get caught up here. First off, you won't want to miss this week's edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling, which is being sponsored by Janice Campbell, who very kindly parked the cover of my book next to my post. Thank you, Janice! BTW, you can tell that many people are getting back to homeschooling this time of year by the great variety of posts at the carnival this week.

Next, I want to thank Melissa Markham for the lovely review of my book. We're offering a special price on the book, but only for those who visit her blog and read the review. Again, thanks, Melissa!

I don't know where the time went since Friday, but part of it was spent shopping so I could do another round of bulk cooking. The nearest Sam's Club is an hour away, and just happens to be down the road from the community college where dd17 started classes this week (more on that in an upcoming post). It just made good sense to combine those two trips. After stocking up at Sam's yesterday, I spent today making red sauce (40 cups, now frozen in bags), chicken parmagiana (five dinners) and pork ribs with sauce (two dinners).

Before we went to Sam's, we went to JoAnn Fabrics, where I bought three yards of a layered set of fabrics called Warm Windows. It was $27/yard but I had one of those 40% off coupons. I'm going to make window covers for our bedroom. We just signed another year's lease on the house we're living in, despite the difficulty we had last winter keeping this house affordably warm (that was the only downside to this house; it's wonderful in every other way!) Since we're staying another year, I'm ready to make a few improvements.

In the coldest month last winter, it took $300 worth of natural gas to keep the house at 65 degrees. Not good! So the landlord is going to have the boiler tuned up, and we're going to try to make the house a little tighter against the cold Wisconsin winds. After I make the window covers, I'm going to hem the thermal drapes I recently bought to go over the dining room windows. The curtains and the Warm Window fabric are a creamy white, so we can take these window treatments with us to the next house, wherever and whenever that might be.

I'm hoping to get that work done over the next few days. Next week, dsds15 and I will be heading to Chicago, where we will visit with some dear homeschooling friends. Ds23 happens to be there on business those days, so we're going to meet up with him, too. It will be great to see them all!

Get Rid of Her

2008-08-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a headline that caught my eye this morning:

When my little girl was born with Down's, I felt like I'd given birth to an alien and just wanted to get rid of her

Yow! Of course, I had to read it. I guess I was led by that same impulse that makes you look at a car wreck even though you're afraid you might see dead bodies. And I was prepared not to like this woman, just going by the headline.

But you know, it's actually a pretty poignant story (Kleenex alert!) I can't relate to her feelings when she first saw her little girl, because I loved Josh before he was born and my feelings only intensified when I found out about his spare chromosome. But I've known other moms of kids with Ds whose feelings more closely compared to this mom's than mine. It took courage for her to admit it.

Her little girl is absolutely adorable. I do hope this mom understands that God is using little "Grace" in her life to change her. I pray that she comes to know God, if she doesn't already, and that He gives this little girl the best medical care available.

My New Site, Plus Newsletter Update

2008-08-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

My new Web site is now live! BarbaraFrankOnline.com has many articles and freebies related to homeschooling, including two new articles, More on Bulk Cooking and Quiet Kids. C'mon over and check it out!

The site is designed and run by Mary, aka dd17. She worked on it diligently this summer, and I want to thank her for taking the time to do that for me. She’s a great girl (and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mom!)

BTW, her plan is to move this blog over to the new site very soon. But I’ve told her I want to take it slowly. All this change is a bit much for technologically challenged me.

Also, the latest issue of the “Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter is now available. Most subscribers received it this morning. If you’re a subscriber and you did not receive it, most likely you forgot to renew your subscription when we changed over in June. Please reread your June newsletter to see how to do this (you’ll find back issues here), or just go here to subscribe again.

Please note: You won’t be officially resubscribed until you click the confirmation link we’ll send you. I hate to add in that extra step, but it’s necessary so we don’t get attacked by spambots again >:(

New Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-08-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

The Homeschool Memories Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is now up. Sprittibee has assembled a lot of great posts that will get your homeschooling engine humming. Don't miss it!

Living in the Past

2008-08-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted about Tasha Tudor, the artist and homeschool mom who lived as though it were the 1800s, shunning modern conveniences for most of her adult life. Of course the Amish are known for living the same way; a few homeschooling families I've read about have also made this choice. As much as I like modern conveniences, I find the lives of those who "live in the past" quite interesting.

But I found it especially fascinating to learn that there are young women in their 30s who shun today's culture in an effort to return to the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. They particularly revel in their roles as stay-at-home wives (though one does work part-time), but they also wear the clothes, use the appliances and drive the cars of the era they admire.

According to this article, their choice of lifestyle is a reaction to the problems in our modern culture as well as the vagueries of modern marriage and roles of men and women. One of the women says:

I admit I am in retreat from the 21st century. When I look at the reality of the world today, with all the violence, greed and materialism, I shudder. I don't want to live in that world.

I relate to that sentiment, but realistically, I can't help wonder what pushed them to this point. I mean, I've always had a fascination with the 1920s and 1930s (in high school, I had a crush on Humphrey Bogart, who died the year before I was born), but I live in the modern age, with a computer for each of us, a 2003 car and a couple of cell phones. What is it that makes a person retreat this far into the past?

Do check out the article, if only for the photos, which are really interesting.

Nannies 24/7: Why Have Kids at All?

2008-08-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

The photo of the little munchkin that accompanies this article just breaks my heart. It's the middle of the night, and she's being comforted not by the parents she doesn't see during the day because they're at work, but by the night nanny they've hired so their sleep isn't interrupted by their adorable baby.

The article explains that Mom and Dad are tired from their day jobs and need their rest. Before Congress gets wind of this and votes to offer taxpayer-subsidized night care, I'd like to point out who's driving the demand for night nannies:

The bulk of Nocturnal Nannies’ clients are dual-career, professional families, Ms. Seveney said, and revenue has been increasing 25 percent a year.

So this is not an economic necessity. The fact that there are actually agencies with names like "Nocturnal Nannies" for the convenience of parents who don't have time for their kids at night much less during the day is really depressing. Poor kids. Why have children if you don't have any time for them?

(By the way, ours is not the only country where babies are often seen as an inconvenience. In Australia, they're saying that babies are a drag on the economy!)

The Books I Wouldn't Sell, Part 2

2008-08-06T02:41:00.000-07:00

Woman Reading

Despite several reduction campaigns, my book collection is not small, thanks to homeschooling four children. Here are more of the books that I just would not sell:

Wisdom and the Millers: Proverbs for Children (Miller Family Series) was recommended to me by a homeschooling friend many years ago, and I'll always be grateful to her for that. This book is part of a series that uses the adventures (and mishaps) of a young family to teach children Biblical principles. Our kids loved these stories! There are workbooks that go with the Miller books, but we only tried one and, not surprisingly, it seemed to dampen my kids' enthusiasm. These books are best-suited for reading aloud or devotions. We also have Prudence and the Millers (Miller Family Series) , which humorously illustrates the need for wisdom. These books were published by and for Mennonites, which means you'll see women wearing headcovers, etc. They are charming books.

I really did try to make myself sell our set of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers/Boxed, but I just couldn't do it. These hardbound readers are reprints of the originals with which so many American children learned to read. The irony here is that I didn't use them to teach my children to read, although they did read these for pleasure. But they're such nice readers that I just can't let them go.

Speaking of reprints, two beautiful books that I will never give up are Aesop's Fables: Childrens Classics and Tales from Shakespeare: Children's Classics. I like these specific versions because they're hardbound, beautifully illustrated reprints from the 19th century originals. Tales from Shakespeare is especially good because it's a retelling of some of Shakespeare's works (including Taming of the Shrew, Romeo & Juliet, Pericles, etc.) written specifically for children.

Two books that were deservedly popular among homeschoolers when they were first published are The BOOK OF VIRTUES and The Moral Compass: Stories for a Life's Journey. Both were edited by Bill Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education. These are great read-aloud books, but I also assigned stories from them to my older kids. I've been known to sit down and read a few stories from these books for my own pleasure.

My husband loves history, and he asked me to hang on to our copy of The Bulletproof George Washington. Not a problem....we all loved this story of how God protected George Washington over his lifetime so that he could become the father of his country.

I got rid of most of our textbooks, figuring I wouldn't be using them with our youngest, who has Down syndrome and is more of a kinesthetic learner. But I kept Saxon's Math 54: An Incremental Development as a memento more than anything else, because we used the Saxon series for many years and it worked very well for my kids. I sold all the rest of the books we used, right up through Algebra 2, but this first one I can hold in my hands and remember all the hours we spent at the table doing math. :)

Before we got started with Saxon, though, we used Miquon Math All Six Student Workbookswith a set of wood Cuisenaire rods very similar to this one: CUISENAIRE RODS INTRO. SET WOOD 74/PK I don't have the workbooks anymore (they're consumable), but I saved some other books we used with the rods, including Lab Sheet Annotations (Miquon Math Lab Series:), Everthing's Coming up Fractions with Cuisenaire Rods: 6 Fraction Lessons with Blackline Masters (Grades 4-6) and Using Cuisenaire Rods: Multiplication and Division (Grades 2-4).

I also spent time with each of my older children using Winston Grammar, and those little cards hold a lot of memories for me, so I'm keeping it. My kids may not share my fondness for this set, but they are all good writers, so I think it was time well spent.

Finally, someone recommended a simple little book to me, and it helped a couple of my kids learn to draw and sketch. It's called Drawing Textbook, and despite its humble appearance, it's a really nice little program for budding artists or anyone who wants to be able to draw. My husband has artistic talent, which has shown up in our kids and will likely be present in some of our future grandchildren. So I'm hanging on to this one!

The Books I Wouldn't Sell, Part 1

2008-08-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Books in Winter

When we moved last summer, we ended up with two storage units full of stuff. Last fall, we pared down to one unit, overloading the nearest Goodwill store in the process. Forced to reduce my mountain of books, I pulled all the ones that were easiest to give up but kept my favorites from 20 years of homeschooling.

This spring, I went back to the storage unit for the first time in months and became completely depressed at how much stuff we still had. I decided I needed to be more ruthless about paring down our library. I went through all of the remaining books one more time, removing many wonderful books that I forced myself to admit I could give up.

One of my summer projects this year was to post those books to a blog called Used Homeschooling Books. It was a great success. Most, though not all, of the books have sold. The rest are still for sale there, in case you feel like browsing.

As for my favorites, some are back on my bookshelves, and the rest are in boxes here at the house, not in the storage unit. I want them to be where I can get at them.

Why am I saving them? Well, you never know, some of my grandkids (none of whom have arrived yet, of course, but I like to plan ahead) might be homeschooled and their parents might want these books. And even if my future grandchildren aren't homeschooled, we'll need some good books to read together when they come to visit.

So I want to share some of these titles with you, because we booklovers like to recommend good books to our friends.

The Eloise Wilkin Treasury is so beautifully illustrated. I love the way she depicts small children. We also have many of the Little Golden Books she illustrated, including my youngest son's favorite, We Help Mommy .

I'll bet I've read The Seven Silly Eaters aloud to my youngest son at least a hundred times. He likes the silly story and the cadence, while I just love (I know it sounds ridiculous) the house the family lives in. Illustrator Marla Frazee has captured my dream house in a dream location, which is why reading this book to my son is never a chore for me.

Like many homeschoolers, we enjoyed Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series. One of the versions I kept, Little House on the Prairie: Deluxe Edition (Little House), is particularly pretty, with beautiful borders and a nice hardbound cover.

Along the same vein, A Pioneer Sampler: The Daily Life of a Pioneer Family in 1840 is such a lovely book that I couldn't give it up. Each of my older kids went through a "pioneer" phase when they were younger, and books like this really helped them imagine what it was like back then.

History comes alive when you give your kids good historical fiction. Some of our favorites have included Matchlock Gun, Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805 (Dover Books on Americana), and anything by the D'Aulaires, particularly Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln.

A curriculum we loved, Literature Approach to Geography (History Through Literature), introduced us to the works of Holling Clancy Holling. We added the Holling Geography Map Packto the mix, along with Pagoo, Tree in the Trail, Paddle-to-the-Sea (Sandpiper Books) and my daughter's favorite, Minn of the Mississippi, and we not only had a wonderful learning experience, but discovered four books we now love too much to give up!

When I was a child, I inhaled every book of the Childhood of Famous American series in our school library. Once I found out they were still available when I had children, I bought quite a few of them. We're keeping them all, of course. The kids' favorites included Paul Revere: Boston Patriot (Childhood of Famous Americans Series.), Amelia Earhart: Young Aviator (Childhood of Famous Americans), Teddy Roosevelt: Young Rough Rider (Childhood of Famous Americans) and Ronald Reagan: Young Leader (Childhood of Famous Americans). My own personal favorite was Betsy Ross: Designer of Our Flag (Childhood of Famous Americans (Sagebrush)), a book I received on my sixth birthday and which I still own.

Wow, this post is getting kind of long, and I still have quite a few books to write about. I think I'll save the rest for the next post.

Advice from a Wise Man

2008-08-01T03:44:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've heard of Tony Snow. He was a journalist, a radio talk-show host, a musician and a past presidential press secretary. He was also a husband and the father of three children, and he died a few weeks ago after battling cancer for several years.

My husband and I admired Tony Snow immensely. His wit and charm made even his political opponents his friends, and he spoke and wrote clearly and winsomely about his life and faith as well as his political beliefs.

Here's a transcript of a speech he gave last year at a college graduation. I don't know of many people who could pack that much wisdom and love into one brief talk, but he could. One of my favorite parts:

American culture likes to celebrate the petulant outcast, the smart-aleck with the contempt for everything and faith in nothing. Snarky mavericks. The problem is these guys are losers. They have signed up for an impossible mission. Because they’ve decided they’re going to create all the meaning in their lives. They’ve either decided that no moral law exists or they will be the creator, the author of those laws. Now one road leads to complete and total anarchy. Life is solitary, nasty, brutish and short. The other is to insanity, since it requires playing God. We know in our hearts, intuitively, from our first years as children, that the universe unfolds with a discernable order and that moral laws, far from being convenient social conventions, are firm and unalterable. They predate us, they will survive us. Rather than admitting our weakness a lot of times, we just decide we’ll try to get by. And maybe rather than giving God credit, we’ll try to look for a cheap substitute.

Walk into a bookstore, you’ll know what I mean. The shelves are groaning underneath the trendy tomes promising salvation — medicine balls, herbs, purges, all sorts of weird stuff. In politics, there’s a variant that elevates government to the status of God. It says that it is the source of love. It ought to be the recipient of your tithes, but government, while it does pursue compassionate ends, cannot be loving and personal. It treats all of us as completely equal rather than uniquely divine. The point is you can’t escape the question of God and you can’t escape the question of commitments.

When it comes to faith, I’ve taken my own journey. You will have to take your own. But here’s what I know. Faith is as natural as the air we breathe. Religion is not an opiate, just the opposite. It is the introduction to the ultimate extreme sport. There is nothing that you can imagine that God cannot trump. As Paul said “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And once you realize that there is something greater than you out there, then you have to decide, “Do I acknowledge it and do I act upon it?” You have to at some point surrender yourself.

Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing. You'll be glad you did.

Something New

2008-07-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

Just added a few new links to the blog, and they're for freebies :)

Both are special reports that you can download. One is called Teaching Your Children to Write, and the other is Ten Tips for Coping with Temperamental Teens.

Scroll down a wee bit and you'll see the links for them on the right side of your screen, in the section under the photo link for Life Prep.

The first report comes from my vantage point as a writer as well as a homeschool mom. The second comes from my experience living with and raising teens (we're on our second pair.)

In the name of fairness, the next special report we publish will be written by my 17-year-old daughter, and will be titled Twenty Tips for Coping with a Menopausal Mom.

Just kidding....maybe. :)

More Used Homeschool Books

2008-07-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

You may recall my summer project, a blog called Used Homeschool Books where I planned to post and sell many of the books we've used over 20 years of homeschooling.

Well, it's been quite successful, and I'm thrilled to know that some very good books are now in the home libraries of other homeschooling families. I'm down to the last few books I can bear to give up, which I will post at that blog this week. But for now, I've got a list of those that have not yet sold, in case you're looking for something specific.

New Carnival is Up!

2008-07-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Judy Aron is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling, with the great theme of Boy Scouts. Don't miss it!

Why Homeschoolers Love Calvin and Hobbes

2008-07-28T14:27:00.001-07:00

My family is full of Calvin and Hobbes fans. We have several of the C&H comic strip books, and can read them again and again and still laugh every time.

Over the years I've found that many other homeschoolers like Calvin and Hobbes, but I never thought about why that might be. Then I read this essay. As he puts it:

As this strip clearly shows, Calvin has nothing but utter contempt for his school, as did I for mine. Calvin’s fantasies are clearly more violent than mine. (All I ever wanted to do was stay home sick.) ....There is not a single Calvin & Hobbes comic strip that has anything positive to say about this institution. Just use the search engine in the link at the beginning of this article and type in "school." You will be taken from one strip to another where Calvin is bored, anxious, unhappy, disgusted, hopeless, daydreaming, or scared. The only school-related strips where Calvin is in a better mood have to do with recess or grossing out Susie at lunch (an episode that got Calvin & Hobbes cancelled at one local paper). His teacher is named Miss Wormwood, after the apprentice devil in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Think about it. That’s not a joke the average reader would get. Just what is Watterson trying to say?

I remember walking the few blocks to school on a foggy morning and pretending that the reason I couldn't see the school building looming up ahead was because it had mysteriously evaporated. I, like others who were bored or unhappy in our own school experiences and later chose to homeschool our children, relate to Calvin. Why didn't I notice this before? Duh.

When Kids are the Center of the Universe

2008-07-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

A recent thought-provoking article at a British newspaper's Web site caught my eye. It laments the rise of the child-centered world, where keeping Junior’s self-esteem intact becomes Job 1. The large number of comments after the article makes it clear that the writer struck a nerve with a lot of people. Apparently, there’s a bumper crop of self-absorbed young people around these days.

It’s easy to bash schools where teachers aren’t allowed to correct students’ work in red pen because it could make them feel like failures. It’s natural to lament parents in the store who fall all over themselves trying to make their children like them by buying them presents (yes, I have actually seen mothers begging their child to choose a large toy. It’s an amazing thing.)

But it’s also tempting to think that it won’t happen to us when, as homeschoolers, it could easily happen to us.

I mean, homeschooling takes over your life. You find yourself poring over curriculum catalogs, spending hours on the phone signing your children up for co-ops and lessons and staying up late planning upcoming learning experiences.

And that’s just in the summer! Then there’s all the time you put in working with your children, reading to them, making sure they understand concepts they’re having trouble with, taking them to zoos and museums ….add in feeding them and clothing them and making sure they live in a healthy environment, and you can easily end up living in a child-centered world. And that’s not a good thing.

In a child-centered world, kids are the center of the universe. That’s how they come to believe that their needs are more important than anyone else’s, and often turn into adults who continue to believe that.

Over the years, I’ve struggled to maintain a balance between giving my kids what they need in order to grow and develop properly, and giving my kids what they need in order to learn that they are not the center of the universe. I haven't always been successful.

Being sensitive myself, and having been hurt in childhood by some adults, I wonder now if I protected my children’s feelings too much. As they’ve ventured out into the world of work, they’ve sometimes gotten their feathers ruffled over things that aren’t the end of the world. Maybe I should have been tougher on them.

There were also times when I wondered whether I’d gone overboard in creating a learning environment for my kids, because once they discovered an interest in something, they took off with it on their own, with no encouragement from me. Perhaps some of the time spent making lesson plans would have been better spent on a dinner date with my husband.

Oh, yes, him. That patient guy I married. He worked to pay for all the books and educational games and craft supplies, and he never complained about how much time I spent with my nose in the Rainbow Resource catalog. Sometimes I think we should have carved out more time for ourselves.

But on the other side of the scale, there were times when I managed to make my kids understand that the world does not revolve around them. We limited their outside activities so we could have time together as a family. Occasionally, they’d find me on the sofa with a good book or having fun using my sewing machine and they knew that anything they asked me to do right then would be denied. Of course they had chores and responsibilities that they had to do, whether they were in the mood or not. And then there were the evening walks-for-two that were reserved for their dad and me.

As they say, hindsight is 20-20. The end result is that my kids, while not perfect, are doing fine. But looking back, I can see that if I hadn’t struggled with maintaining a balance between their world and ours, they might not have turned out so well. That’s why even now, with only two children left at home, I keep fighting to maintain that balance. Because it’s when you’re not aware that you need that struggle between your world and theirs that you fall into the child-centered universe.

Homeschool Class Rings

2008-07-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

Brumbemom asked me a question last week. Like me, she has a senior homeschooler this year, and they’re wondering about class rings.

My older kids were not into “school” things like that; my eldest didn’t even want a graduation party. As for dd17, she seems more interested in my high school ring (she’s into anything “vintage,” i.e. 1970s!) than one of her own.

But there are places where you can go to get your teen a homeschool class ring, including Josten’s. If your teen would rather design his or her own ring, this looks like a good place.

For more information on this topic, here’s an article you might find helpful.

Blog Carnival 101

2008-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve gotten a few emails asking me what exactly are these blog carnivals I keep mentioning in my blog.

It’s easy! A blog carnival is a post on someone’s blog that consists of descriptions and links to posts at other blogs. There's always a subject theme (ex. the subject of the Carnival of Homeschooling is homeschooling) and most of the time, the carnival itself has a theme that it’s structured around.

For example, this week’s edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling has the theme of the 12 Labors of Hercules (homeschoolers are a well-read bunch, but you probably already knew that!) So the hosts of the blog carnival have cleverly arranged the posts around this theme.

The beauty of a blog carnival is that it connects you with others who share a common interest with you. In the case of the Carnival of Homeschooling, you get to peek into the lives of others to see what their families are like, how they homeschool, what their children are learning, what they’re learning from their children, etc.

For the newer homeschooling parent, this will help you feel that you’re not the only one out there living this wonderful and challenging lifestyle, because you’re definitely not! For the more experienced homeschooler, the Carnival of Homeschooling offers an opportunity to widen your sphere of friends while also sharing the wisdom you’ve gained from your years of homeschooling.

For bloggers, participating in the carnival means exposing their blog to a larger audience than just their friends, relatives and the people who happen to find them by clicking the “Random Blog” or “Next Blog” button.

So, if you’re new to the concept of blog carnivals, why not jump in right now? Head on over to the carnival, read the posts, leave a comment if you’re feeling really adventurous, and just enjoy yourself. Everyone is welcome at the Carnival of Homeschooling.

And if you have time for any other interests beyond homeschooling (!), you might also want to visit blog carnivals about other subjects. Here’s a site that will help you do that.

The Power of a Diagnosis

2008-07-21T03:44:00.000-07:00

When we got the news that our day-old baby had Down syndrome, we were completely shocked and not a little bit frightened. At the time, it felt like the entire world had shifted, and it took us a while to adjust to the idea.

But there was no question of whether the diagnosis was in error. Not only were a few of his physical features clues, but the hospital staff drew some of our son's blood for a karyotype, which indicated that Josh did, definitely, have Down syndrome.

Once we knew what we were dealing with, we and a team of medical professionals were able to discuss how to proceed. After Josh got out of the hospital, and indeed, throughout his childhood, we worked with professionals who had experience helping people with Down syndrome. All this because we had a certain diagnosis.

Over the years, it's occurred to me many times how fortunate we were to have that exact diagnosis, even though it was difficult to hear when we were first told. We know of others whose children have disabilities, but they were not noticeable at birth, and were only diagnosed after a long, painful time period during which the parents suspected something was wrong but didn't know what it was. In a couple of cases, there is still no official diagnosis, just the observation that something is wrong.

One particularly difficult diagnosis is autism. Generally (though not always), the signs begin to appear at around 18 months of age. In some cases, the toddler actually seems to regress. How painful for the parents!

There is no blood test that I'm aware of for autism, no spare or funky-shaped chromosome to blame. But now that people have become aware of autism, there has been a much-discussed increase in the rise of cases of autism, and also something new: children on the "autism spectrum."

Thomas Sowell, author of Late-Talking Children and The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, recently wrote about the possibility that a child might not be on the autism spectrum, but instead is simply a very bright child who is also a late-talker. According to his article, this is a common combination in young children, particularly among boys.

As Dr. Sowell points out, enough of these children exist that a diagnosis of autism spectrum could be wrong. His concern is that the money the government spends to help autistic kids could be going to some kids who have been misdiagnosed, thus leaving less help for those who truly do have autism.

I can see where this could be a controversial subject among parents of autistic kids, and medical professionals as well. And my heart goes out to those parents whose children seem to have a problem, but have no official diagnosis.

Erma, She Ain't

2008-07-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

I realize this gal is trying to be funny, but she lost me pretty quickly with her essay about the horrors of having her kids home all summer.

As I read it, I kept thinking that at some point, she would acknowledge that despite the work involved, being home with your kids can be a time of bonding, of teaching, of loving.

Nope. Just whine, whine, whine. She also throws in a little envy of working moms for good measure:

By the end of the first day of “vacation,” every stay-at-home mother is rethinking Linda Hirshman and scanning help-wanted ads surreptitiously. The working moms, meanwhile, sit in their orderly, air-conditioned offices, oblivious to the sweat and stench that accompany the sticky children of summer, and thinking wistfully of their own childhood summers spent catching fireflies in Mason jars and selling ten-cent Kool-Aid from a card table on the front lawn. Wishing that they could revisit those days, they think — fleetingly — that maybe the SAHMs have it right, and really, they should march into the boss’s office and offer two week’s notice. But then it occurs to them: If they were home now, they’d be making peanut-butter sandwiches, and consuming half-eaten crusts for their lunch. Better Ruby Tuesday’s salad bar, and joyously back to work.

Wow, the working moms I've known missed their kids. Guess I hang with the unenlightened crowd.

I think this writer is trying to imitate the late Erma Bombeck and other female writers of the 60s and 70s who made a career of writing humor pieces about life as a housewife and mother. But no matter what Ms. Bombeck wrote about her kids, she made sure you also knew how much she loved them. I’m not getting that vibe with Ms. Graham’s essay, and that could be why it fell flat with me. I mean, how else do you interpret her closing statement?

Like Steve Buscemi’s character accepting the imminent destruction of Earth in the movie Armageddon, we must learn to embrace the horror. Without summer vacation, there would be no school teachers, and we’d have to hang out with our kids all year.

Hanging out with your kids all year. Who could survive that???

Nationalized Child Care? It Could Happen

2008-07-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

I always considered staying home to raise our children to be a great privilege, and I'm so grateful that God enabled me to do so. Naturally, I want my children to have that option once they have children (no pressure for grandchildren yet, guys, I'm just sayin'....)

So, articles like this alarm me. One of the presidential candidates has an "education" plan that involves infants:

Sen. Obama's plan begins with a "Zero to Five Plan". That is not a plan for pre-kindergarten students; it is a plan for infants beginning just after birth. In fact, one of his "Success Through Education" header statements is "A Pre-School Agenda That Begins At Birth". Sen. Obama would plunk $10 billion a year in federal tax dollars down to provide "high-quality child care" for children, to expand access to Early Head Start (is this redundant?), Head Start, and pre-school, and create a council to the president (himself) which would coordinate these efforts nation-wide.

We know how this works. We've seen it before: first it's a goal, then it's an option, then it becomes "compulsory." Isn't that what happened with vaccines, and indeed, education itself? The fact that this expensive program is part of Senator Obama's plans when our country is in such bad financial shape tells you that he is really committed to it. I don't like the looks of this at all.

There is Hope

2008-07-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

I admit to a bias in favor of homeschooled teens. Having met so many (not to mention having several of my own), I just think they’re so creative, interesting and bright.

But dealing with government-educated teens, like the ones that have trouble taking our orders in local fast food restaurants, and those I see slogging down the street in herds with their pants falling down on purpose, has given me the impression that they’re quite the opposite of the homeschooled teens I know. And that’s not fair. The bright kids, the ones who succeed despite spending their lives in school, also exist, but I don’t see them around too much, probably because they’re too busy spending their time in more useful pursuits, like starting and teaching their own Advanced Placement classes in Economics.

That’s right, Seth Weidman of Pittsburgh, PA, believed there was plenty of demand for an AP class in Economics, but his high school did not offer one. So he created his own class by studying up on the subject and teaching what he learned to his fellow students.

And was he successful! So far, of the 18 students in his class, nine have taken the test, and eight of the nine have received their test scores. Six scored a 5, the highest score you can get, and two scored a 4. Compare that to the national average of AP test-takers (last year, less than 15% scored a 5 and a little over 25% scored a 4), and you can see that Seth was quite successful indeed.

I applaud Seth’s initiative in setting up this class, and can’t resist emphasizing that his students did better than the average American AP test-taker, who most likely took AP classes taught by a certified, college-educated, NEA-approved teacher. Ahem.

Seth’s friends thanked him for his efforts with a cake that had “Thank you, Seth” written on it and t-shirts made for the entire group that said “Weidman School of Economics” (Seth’s wearing his in the photo accompanying the article.) What a great group of kids!

What To Do When Your 12-year-old is Bombarded with Questions About His Future

2008-07-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's interesting (and sometimes alarming) to watch how other adults talk to your homeschooled teens. For some reason, many of them feel the need to quiz your offspring about their future plans, and particularly about where they're going to college. (Maybe it's their way of checking to see if "this homeschooling idea" actually works, LOL.)

I saw this with my own kids, and it put a lot of pressure on them. Feeling like they have to live up to the expectations of the other adults in their lives can be a huge temptation, simply because said adults appear serious and concerned about the issue. But deciding what to do with your life, much less whether and/or where you're going to college, is a big deal, and it certainly doesn't help to have people putting so much pressure on you, especially when you're not quite 13.

That's what happened to a 12-year-old whose mother posted a question asking how to handle this pressure to the readers of "The Homeschooler's Notebook." Their responses are so good, I just had to post this link to share them with you. Just scroll down a little less than halfway, to where it says "Last Issue's Reader Question."

By the way, at the bottom of that page, you'll find a link for subscribing to the "The Homeschooler's Notebook." I've been a subscriber for years and I highly recommend it!

Musical Interlude

2008-07-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

Just felt like sharing one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite singers. :)

Teaching Your Girls About Money

2008-07-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers was first published, and since then I’ve gotten many email messages from readers who used the curriculum with their kids and were pleased with it.

Sadly, I’ve also been asked why I chose to include girls in my target audience for the book.

Now, I realize that many homeschoolers are even more conservative than I am, enough so that they plan to keep their daughters at home until and unless they marry. But to keep them in the dark about financial matters seems so misguided to me.

In the past, many women were uninformed about their finances. Men kept track of the money, and their wives kept track of the cooking and cleaning. But if their husbands died before they did (which is statistically more likely to happen), they often found themselves wondering if they were rich widows or poor widows, because they didn’t know. They had to rely on other male family members to help them find the paperwork needed for probate and figure out where they stood financially.

Unfortunately, marriages also break up, and women who are unaware of financial matters can find themselves left with children to support and no idea of how to prudently handle the income they now need to bring in. The pain of an unwanted divorce is thus compounded by the need to learn about money. It’s hard to learn something new when you’re emotionally distraught.

My grandmother raised four children as a single mom during the Great Depression, and the stories my dad told me about what she went through made it clear to me that girls need to know about finances every bit as much as boys do.

Recently, I was reminded yet again of that when I read this article about women who find themselves losing their homes because they were not knowledgeable about the mortgages they applied for when they bought them. The combination of ignorant consumers and greedy mortgage companies has resulted in some single moms also losing thousands of dollars that they really can’t afford to lose.

In the stories quoted in the article, the women now losing their homes didn’t understand that buying a home without putting any money down is a warning sign that you’re going into a loan with some danger zones. They saw it as a lucky break, when it was anything but that. It usually means that you have an adjustable loan, and in the current climate, your house payment will continue to rise, even if the value of your house does not rise (or worse, drops.) You are responsible for the amount of money borrowed to buy the house no matter what the house is now worth.

Even if her loan did not have an adjustable rate, the first woman seemed like a great candidate for a house because of her income level. She also thought she was making a good purchase because she didn’t borrow as much as she was approved to borrow. Big mistake! Pneumonia and then a broken wrist made her miss work, and she was forced to spend what cash she had paying bills. But she ran out of money, and could no longer make her mortgage payments. She not only lost her house but ended up owing the bank $32,000.

These women were also apparently unaware of how stressful it can be to have a huge house payment when you’re the head of a single income family. Had they been taught about financial freedom and the joy of being debt-free, they might have never become homeowners, but they wouldn’t have lost their homes, either. When you look at everything through the mindset of minimizing debt, you have more control over your financial situation, especially as the years go by and the good habits you’ve developed bear fruit.

Reading the sad stories about those women has reminded me yet again how important it is that we educate our girls as well as our boys about how to handle money and how to aim for financial freedom. Judging by what’s going on in our economy right now, this kind of education is more important than ever. We homeschooling parents have the time and the opportunity to do it right.

Homeschool History and Info

2008-07-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

Last week Jamin of The Old Schoolhouse's Freebie Friday newsletter shared a lot of great links for homeschooling information, background and history. I thought she pulled together a wonderful variety of resources. You'll find her post here.

Her First Job

2008-07-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

Dd17 started her first official job last week. By official, I mean not a babysitting job, or doing work for Cardamom, but working for someone else in their place of business.

She worked long days on her feet last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and came home tired but happy. Now she has a couple of days off before it begins again. This is tourist season, so it's constant customers along with answering the phone, mopping the floor and doing all the other things that need to be done in a small but busy retail establishment.

So far she enjoys the work, and is more than ready for her first paycheck. She says her goals are to buy an iPod and then save up for a car.

It's strange not having her around during the day, and we miss her, but we're glad she's found a job that she likes.

She had applied for a job at the public library a while back, but when she didn't get it, she marched right into town and starting going up and down the main street of the downtown area, asking each of the merchants if they needed help. No one did, until she got to one of the last places remaining, and he was about to hire new help and said she could add her application to the pile. And the rest is history.

She could have applied at the local Target but said she wanted to work in a smaller place where she's get to do a variety of things, so this is working out well for her.

It's working out well for us, too, because of all the places for the child of a chocoholic mother to work, it's a candy store, and when we visit, we get a free sample of their homemade chocolate fudge (yes, she's already learning to make fudge in their big copper pot.) Of all the skills she's learning at her new job, I put fudge-making at the very top of the list :)

Testing Your Teen's Level of Financial Literacy

2008-07-04T05:26:00.000-07:00

Our country's economic situation illustrates what happens when large numbers of people are financially illiterate and thus fail to live within their means. People bought houses they really couldn't afford using mortgages with payments that would increase dramatically over time. Worse, many also borrowed against the home equity that developed as the bubble inflated. Now, they're losing their homes because they can't make the payments, and the repercussions of so many foreclosures as well as the subsequent decline in prices are affecting the entire economy.

Lack of financial literacy is a real problem. Public schools have failed to teach kids about money, but more importantly, many students' parents have failed to teach them about money. It is our responsibility to take the time to teach our kids about financial matters while they're young, so they will make wise choices when they grow up.

That's what Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is all about, and I'm thrilled to be using the curriculum again, this time with my third child. This past year, she worked through most of the reading list. This fall, she'll begin with the projects. Since she just got her first "official" job (beyond babysitting), it's the perfect time to do these projects, as she'll be able to use the financial principles she's learning in her daily life, now that she'll have a steady paycheck.

I was glad to hear that some parents are teaching their kids to be financially savvy. HSLDA reports that a homeschooled boy is one of the high scorers in this year's National Financial Literacy Challenge. If you'd like to be notified about the next challenge so that your own child can take it, sign up here.

Fourth of July Carnival

2008-07-02T03:18:00.000-07:00

This week's edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling has a Fourth of July theme. With the holiday weekend coming up, I hope you get some time for yourself somewhere along the way so you can enjoy the wide variety of posts for and by homeschoolers that you'll find there.

P.S. The video is of fireworks in New York City on the Fourth of July, 2005. Now that we're living in a small town, I'm thinking YouTube may be the only way we can view fireworks this year :)

Tasha Tudor, Former Homeschool Mom

2008-06-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

A 92-year-old former homeschool mom passed away last week.

You may have heard of her. Tasha Tudor was an award-winning illustrator of books who was known for her love of the past. For most of her lifetime, she lived as though it were the 1830s instead of the 20th and 21st centuries, shunning modern inventions for a lifestyle very similar to that of the Amish.

Long before it was fashionable, Tasha Tudor homeschooled her four children. She often sketched them as they played and used the illustrations in her work. One of her sons would eventually build her a house, by hand.

I have a lovely book of hers called Take Joy! The Tasha Tudor Christmas Book that is just wonderful. It’s full of Christmas stories, poems, music and recipes, but what makes it so special are the illustrations. They make the book so warm and homey.

Tasha Tudor’s lifestyle did not go unnoticed by members of the homeschooling community, some of whom admire and emulate a similar lifestyle of simplicity and the shunning of modern culture. A while back, Practical Homeschooling Magazine published an article about Tasha Tudor, written by a homeschool mom who once worked with her on a book.

You would probably recognize Tasha Tudor’s work in certain editions of old books that your children might have, including The Secret Garden (HarperClassics) and A Little Princess. You can learn more about her work at the site run by her family, Tasha Tudor and Family.

Homeschooler Gets Full Ride to University of Chicago

2008-06-27T05:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm always reminding (nay, nagging) people to check out each week's edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. There's a reason for that: you'll find awesome posts there!

Take this week's edition, for example. Lots of good stuff, but one post in particular stands out for me. A new blogger shares her family's homeschooling journey, which includes the news that her son (a bright guy who scored 35 on his ACT and 2300 on his SAT) has been awarded a full scholarship to the University of Chicago.

In case you don't know, that's not some lame Mickey Mouse college. It's an excellent school with a fantastic reputation. This is a great story that should encourage current and prospective homeschoolers everywhere.

No, I'm not linking to it. Go to the carnival and search for it yourself. Bet you'll find lots of good stuff while you're there. :)

Used Homeschool Books blog

2008-06-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that I continue to post a book for sale each day at my other blog, Used Homeschool Books, as I go through the many boxes of books that moved here with us and force myself to part with most of them (we've downsized).

If you especially like vintage textbooks, scroll through the posts...there are still a few left. (Books that have been sold have a notation in red at the end of the post, where the price had been.)

There are also some more recent books. Tomorrow's book is a pretty popular one, so don't miss that post! You can subscribe to the blog by email if you want to be among the first to see each book as it's posted. You can also look up books by topic using the labels on the right side of the blog.

The Perils of Using the Internet for Research, and the Solution

2008-06-25T05:21:00.000-07:00

In Scotland, a parent-teacher organization is blaming the Internet and specifically Wikipedia for the falling test scores of Scottish children.

Let's set aside the discussion of test scores; that's a huge issue in itself, and one I don't want to go into right now. It's the rise of the Internet and the way kids have figured out how to use it to their perceived advantage that interests me.

When I was in college, one of the so-called advantages of the Greek (fraternity/sorority) system was that its members had access to the completed tests and essays of past members. Thus they could memorize test answers instead of learning what was presented in class, and re-type the essays of others inside of writing their own. This saved those students all sorts of work; we who were not "Greek" felt it was an unfair advantage. But the bottom line was that these students didn't learn anything because they didn't have to read the assigned books, nor did they learn via the process of assembling information and giving it back to their professors in the form of essays.

I imagine that frat house filing cabinets are collecting dust now that kids have the Internet. There are sites where they can go to find prewritten, high-graded essays that they can pass off as their own, thanks to the cut-and-paste function.

And for the times when they actually have to do their own research and writing, there are sites like Wikipedia. Savvy teachers probably check Wikipedia's take on the assigned topic before they correct the essays so that they can tell who's been playing cut-and-paste there. But this doesn't solve the problem, which is that kids are wasting their time and not learning anything, at least not much that's accurate.

One solution to this would be to require kids to write their essays while in the school library or classroom, using the books and materials available there, with no Internet access. With a tool like the Neo (which I own and highly recommend), students could type their essays and never get near a computer.

For homeschoolers, this is much simpler. We can supervise our kids more easily than a teacher can keep tabs on thirty kids. By requiring our kids to use printed matter only for research, they will learn the material and develop writing skills in the process, because we've removed the temptation of the Internet.

But printed matter can be dated, and we've become accustomed to the immediacy of the Internet. Isn't there some way to take advantage of that immediacy?

The good news is that there is. By requiring our kids to use primary sources and reputable secondary sources, we can avoid the problems that are going on where kids are allowed to use Wikipedia and other sites that have proven to be inaccurate.

On the Internet, primary sources are sites where the information is first generated. For example, for the activities of our president, kids can visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Further government info can be found at http://www.usa.gov/. For government statistics on employment and information on the labor market, go to http://www.bls.gov/.

Secondary sources are trusted entities that access primary sources. A large city newspaper like The New York Times or the Chicago Tribune is considered a secondary source. Newspapers are not as trusted as they once were; recent cases of lying reporters have tarnished their image, and budget cuts have forced them to reduce the number of editors who check on the sources used by reporters. Still, quoting a large newspaper should be considered fairly accurate, and certainly much better than Wikipedia.

This is not to say that Wikipedia is not useful. I've allowed my teen daughter to use it as a jumping-off point, as it gives her a quick briefing on a topic. But she is then required to back up what she finds with research from trustworthy sources.

Sympathy for the Teachers

2008-06-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

I know, you think I've lost my mind. I'm the one usually posting articles about abusive, crazy or pedophile teachers. And yet today I'm offering sympathy to teachers.

There certainly are bad teachers out there. I suffered through many of them during my years of incarceration, er, public school. But I'm aware that there are some good teachers who struggle to help kids within the framework of a flawed system.

A couple of them are friends of mine, and the one consistent thing I hear from them is that parents can often be harder to deal with than students or administration. One friend has actually gotten into shouting matches with angry parents who want her to raise their children's grades even though the children have not put forth the effort required for higher grades.

But even if some American parents cross the line when it comes to being obnoxious to their children's teachers, apparently Japanese parents are even worse. Read this article and see if you don't feel even a little sorry for teachers in Japan.

Wanted: Common Sense

2008-06-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

Are we raising children with common sense?

The ability to think for yourself based on what you see going on around you is not as common as its name would suggest. And when it's purposely snuffed out, as adjunct college professor AWR Hawkins suggests in this essay in American Thinker, the result is this:

Our society as a whole seems to have accepted the mental framework which holds as a maxim the idea that we are not allowed to know what we know; rather, we are only allowed to know what we are told. As a result of this, although common, decent, everyday people see their beloved culture eroding and intuitively sense that something is not right, they dare not declare that this downward cultural slide is wrong. Instead, they just keep their mouths shut, without realizing they are keeping their minds shut as well. In the end, others speak for us, and this explains everything from our over-reliance on the judicial system to our dependence upon experts for many everyday decisions.

If Hawkins is on target, then raising kids with common sense is simply a matter of what you don't do: you don't snuff out individual thought, but instead encourage it. You don't insist on going to experts but instead urge your children to educate themselves. And you can't insist that B is true when all the child has to do is open his eyes and look around to see that, in fact, A is the real truth. By doing so, they won't end up like Hawkins' students:

My students, and with few exceptions the students of my colleagues, are the fruits of a garden planted with the intention of producing only identical fruit. As a guarantee to that end, the plants in this garden have been pruned of their trust in innate knowledge, i.e., common sense.

Common sense used to be common. I'm hoping that homeschoolers will help make it the norm again.

This Week's Carnival of Homeschooling: Let's Go to the Movies!

2008-06-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

This week's carnival has a great theme: "Let's Go to the Movies!" I love how she has mixed the movie quotes with the posts. Speaking of the posts, there's quite a variety this week. So be sure to make time to visit the Carnival of Homeschooling over at Apollos Academy.

The Skydiver with Down syndrome

2008-06-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

This is the coolest story about a young man with Down syndrome who loves to go skydiving. (Gulp!) The video, in particular, is just so good. The joy in Casey's face is just wonderful to see.

For those of us who have kids with disabilities, hearing about adults like this encourages us, even if we'd rather not see any of our kids, disabled or not, go skydiving.

(Hat tip to Ann M.)

The Newsletter is Up

2008-06-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

I sent out the June newsletter right before I took the week off, so I didn't get a chance to post the link to it here until now. If you're a subscriber who doesn't check your email very often, be aware that this was your last issue if you haven't already renewed.

To renew your subscription, just fill out the form you'll find here. If you're new to the newsletter and want to subscribe, you can use the same form. All renewing and new subscribers will receive our latest special report, "Ten Tips for Coping with Temperamental Teens," once they confirm their subscription.

The next issue won't be out until mid-to-late July because I'm working on a new book and need to dedicate some time to it. I don't usually do monthly newsletters in the summer because most people are so busy with things besides homeschooling anyway.

A Bit of Gatto Before I Go

2008-06-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

Children learn what they live.
Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community;
interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important;
force them to plead for the natural right to the toilet and they will become liars and toadies;
ridicule them and they will retreat from human association;
shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even.
The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.

That's by John Taylor Gatto, and he cuts right to the chase, doesn't he? Here's a quote from a review of one of his books over at Amazon:

I wish I'd read this while I was in school; I'd have seen then that there was something wrong with the system, not me.

That's heartbreaking. How many adults were wounded by school when they were children? Gatto knows. He taught in the public schools for thirty years. When he was given the New York State Teacher of the Year award, his acceptance speech (pdf) was not exactly what they were expecting! It was a criticism of the institution of school.

I'm thinking about Gatto today because I mention him in a new article just posted to my Web site. I also have plans to re-read a lot of Gatto this summer.

Summer for me officially begins on Saturday, because tomorrow is our last day of school until after Labor Day. I plan on starting off my summer with a week off of work (that means this keyboard), so I won't be posting here for about ten days....if I can stay away. ;)

Don't Miss the Carnival!

2008-06-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Tami's got a great collection of posts over at this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. Whether you're looking for homeschooling information, encouragement or both, you won't want to miss this!

There's More to Education Than Smarts

2008-06-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Homeschoolers have developed quite a reputation for being smart. After all, they're winning spelling and geography bees, and colleges are actively recruiting them.

But it's not enough to be smart. I think a look around our society these days shows there is a great lack of good moral character. Think of the people who make the news with their bad behavior: celebrities having affairs and using drugs, corporate CEOs making off with millions while leaving employees and shareholders to suffer, and politicians spending their spare time misbehaving in public restrooms.

Once in a while, the fact that these are immoral behaviors is pointed out. Take an excerpt from this article, for example, describing what happens when a GM stockholder attends the company's lavish annual meeting:

According to an Associated Press calculation, GM chairman and chief executive officer Rick Wagoner received compensation valued at $15.7 million for 2007, up 64 percent from the previous year.

"I came to scold you for your greed," Mary Ann Wiley of Seattle told Wagoner.

Wiley, 77, said she has owned General Motors Corp. stock for 70 years, but that Tuesday marked her first annual meeting. Wiley said afterward that GM has moved far too slowly in developing new and better products and embracing next-generation fuels, and that management should not receive higher salaries and bonuses when the company is struggling.

"If the company does not do well, management should take an equal hit, and I don't think they've taken an equal hit," she said, adding that GM has grown so big that it has lost its humility and its "sense of democracy," not caring about shareholder concerns.

"This was a charade," said Wiley, looking out over the ornate Gold Ballroom of the Hotel DuPont, where GM has held its annual meetings for more than a decade.

"I would suggest they have a stockholder meeting at a factory," she said. "They don't need to rent the DuPont hotel."

Mind you, this is a company that sustained a $38.7 billion loss last year, and just today laid off thousands of people in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and yet its CEO had no qualms about accepting a 64% raise. Bravo for people like Mary Ann Wiley, who is not afraid to confront this man and this company.

We need leaders in business and politics who do not put themselves first, but instead try to make things better for everyone. If we can educate our kids to be ethical and moral as well as great spellers, we will have done right by them, and also by our country.

Getting an Education in Driver's Ed

2008-05-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while (eight years, to be exact) since we signed up one of our kids for Driver’s Ed. I’d forgotten what it’s like. Your offspring's first few times behind the wheel can test your nerves and rev up your prayer life, that’s for sure.

Dd17 is doing fine, though, and it’s interesting to get her take on the classroom portion of the instruction. We’re using a private driving school because Driver’s Ed is not offered in the public schools here as it was where we used to live. As a result, the class is not run by the school district yet is full of kids from the public schools. If there’s another homeschooler in her class, dd is not aware of it.

Each time she comes home from class, she thanks me for homeschooling her. I remember my son doing the same thing when he took Driver’s Ed at the local high school. He used to come out to the car where I was waiting and say, “I feel dumber.” This might have been because the teacher (a coach) breezed through the material and then showed the kids movies (popular movies, not driving instruction movies.) This went on for an entire semester.

Dd is surprised by the amount of wasted time in class. She’s used to working efficiently, and the classroom is not at all efficiently run. Sometimes the class doesn’t start until 15 minutes after it is supposed to start. The teacher sits up front and says, “Let’s wait in case there are latecomers.” There might be one or none. Nevertheless, she does this each class. Considering the classes are only two hours long, that’s a good-sized chunk of time lost at the beginning of the class. And yet sometimes, the kids are released early.

This is not a good thing, because the classes are held at night. Dd can call us to pick her up early, but it’s 15 minutes away, so she is left waiting there in the dark with a few other kids. As a result, her dad has taken to waiting in the car with a book. This means he’s right there whenever the teacher lets the kids out, and it also saves gas (one round trip instead of two). But it also means he loses 2 ½ hours to Driver’s Ed. Starting this weekend, the classes will run ten nights in a row. Losing that much time is going to get old. We’ll have to take turns bringing her to class.

So it’s not very convenient for us, but it’s important for her, and not just in order to get her driver’s license. I can see with her, as I did with her two older siblings, that having a classroom experience for the first time (excluding Sunday School) is a real eye-opener. If you want your child to appreciate homeschooling, sign them up for the classroom portion of Driver’s Ed!

Survivor: The Kindergarten Edition

2008-05-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

I am appalled by this story: a boy in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger's was voted out of his kindergarten class by 14 of his 16 fellow students, after his teacher put him in front of the class and asked each child individually whether the boy should stay or go.

Here's a video report of this story, where you can see the boy and his mom. After watching this video, I have so many thoughts:

1) What kind of teacher humiliates a small child like this? She must be mentally ill.
2) Why would this child's mother humiliate him further by discussing this traumatic event on national television with him present the entire time?
3) What has the teacher taught her students about dealing with people with disabilities? Vote 'em out!
4) Is this an example of how mainstreaming a child with special needs can sometimes disrupt the classroom and therefore the learning experience of the other students, resulting in resentful children and an exhausted teacher?
5) I wish I could congratulate the parents of the two kids who voted no on raising such kind-hearted children.
6) How thankful am I that I can homeschool my disabled son so that he cannot be humiliated like this? Incredibly thankful.

Rejecting Fanatic Feminism in Favor of the Joy of Motherhood

2008-05-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Imagine having a mother who's a famous feminist (and author of The Color Purple) and believes that having children turns women into slaves. She treats you with annoyance, when she's not neglecting you, because she sees you as a millstone around her neck. You are raised believing that you are one, and that any children you might have will be millstones, too.

And then, in your mid-30s, you have a child and you fall in love with him from the moment he's born. You begin to wonder how your mother could believe what she did about being a mother. But you can't ask her this, because she cut you off once she found out you were having a baby.

Rebecca Walker's story is amazing; don't miss it.

What Happened to Andrea Jaeger?

2008-05-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Maybe you remember her. I do, because she's from Chicago, where I'm from. Andrea Jaeger was a famous tennis player from age 14. She had fame and fortune, and she was miserable.

And now she's not. Post-tennis, she started a foundation for kids with terminal cancer and then became a nun. Read her story if you want to feel good, because it's wonderful.

Ditching Class

2008-05-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

I was at a blog recently (not a homeschooling blog) and saw this comment:

I ditched 5 out of 6 days in High school. Would goto the library and read. The truant officers never looked in the library. The best place to get an education is the library. I would show up to school on test days get an A and leave. Hated high school. Tested at 15 out went to college at 16 was in the was in the army at 17. That was the real education sitting in the desert having someone shooting at you.

I'll admit it's obvious that this man ditched punctuation class. :)

But he's now a self-supporting adult (I don't know how old he is). Given his ability to test out of high school and be accepted into college, just how much did he miss out on by ditching school? I see his posts occasionally at that blog, and clearly he's quite knowledgeable about economics and business. Makes me wonder how many others would be better off spending the day in the school library reading and hiding from the truant officers.

New Project

2008-05-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

Summer's almost here! Dd17 and I are taking off the summer from homeschooling, and I'll only be doing regular review with dsds15. So I'm already making plans to get a few things done this summer that I haven't had time for this past year.

One thing I really need to do is sell some of the many homeschooling books we've accumulated over the past twenty years. The homeschool group I'm in is having a big used book sale soon, but their process for booksellers is so time-consuming that there's no way I can participate. So instead I've started a blog, where I can post the books for sale (with photos) one at a time, as time permits. That way I can break this big project down into smaller chunks, which will work a lot better for me.

I think it will work out well for potential book buyers, too. All they have to do is subscribe to the blog. Each time I post a book for sale, the post will automatically be sent to subscribers via feed or email.

The blog is called Used Homeschool Books. I've posted a link to it on the right side of this blog for those who would rather not subscribe.

Bribery for Class Attendance

2008-05-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

They're paying kids to go to school again.

Seriously, this is pathetic. A Connecticut high school's Advance Placement (AP) classes are not attracting many students, so it's decided that the way to get kids to take these harder classes and pass the AP tests is to pay them for doing so. A $450,000 grant from the National Math and Science Initiative will be providing the cash for these kids.

How much are kids likely to really learn if they're only there for the money? The root of this problem is not being addressed: what happened to kids' inborn desire to learn? How can that desire be nurtured instead of snuffed out?

Not that I approve of bribery, but since NMSI is going to spend this money anyway, I think they should start a program that offers parents some "hard cold cash rewards" to start reading to their kids and taking them to libraries and museums instead of giving them DVDs and video games from the time they're tiny. Seems like that would be more productive than bribing the kids.

A Young Actor with Down Syndrome

2008-05-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

In England, a new book written by the mother of a boy with Down syndrome is due out in two weeks. The boy is 15, loves acting and currently has a role in his second movie.

I love how she describes life with him in this article. She certainly captures it well. (He's almost the exact same age as our son.) I especially appreciate her comments regarding her unwillingness to have a subsequent pregnancy tested for Ds because she would never abort a baby with Ds. I think she and I would get along just fine.

Two Wonderful Homeschooling Magazines

2008-05-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

There is a lovely little homeschooling magazine in Australia called Otherways. How do I know this? (Considering that I live in the U.S.?) Because they just sent me a complimentary copy so that I could see how they used my article "Homeschooling a Child with Special Needs," which is excerpted from my new book.

I am thrilled to have my work in this publication. It actually reminds me a little of Growing Without Schooling, one of the first homeschooling magazines in the U.S. Last year, when we moved and were forced to whittle down 20 years' worth of belongings, I sold my beloved collection of GWS to a homeschooling mom who snapped them up as soon as I posted them online. I hope she's enjoying them as much as I did. They're a gold mine.

Fortunately, some GWS back issues have been posted online. I go there when I miss my old issues too much :(

When Are They Too Smart To Be Homeschooled?

2008-05-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Imagine homeschooling your extremely intelligent son and realizing that he's so smart that he should be in college....at age eight! What an interesting story.

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-05-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

The new Carnival of Homeschooling is up, and I'll let you find your way there by using the lovely new Carnival of Homeschooling icon, which you'll find on the right, just between the blog archive and the post labels.

The Cates, founders of the Carnival of Homeschooling, had an icon contest, and that icon was one of three winners. You can see the others here.

Now you can use this icon to see the latest carnival (but that doesn't mean I'll stop reminding everyone when there's a new carnival!). If you have a blog, feel free to put one or all of these icons on your blog to lead your homeschooling friends to the carnival.

Happy 17th Birthday, Mimzy!

2008-05-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in a Mother's Day post, I mentioned the best Mother's Day gift I ever got, which was my daughter, born on Mother's Day 1991. That was May 12, which is today! So Happy Birthday, DD17, aka Mimzy. You are so special to all of us :)

(That's her banner ad on the right, btw, with all the little creatures on it that she makes and sells. )

The May Newsletter is Up!

2008-05-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

This month's issue of "The Imperfect Homeschooler" newsletter is now online. Feel free to check it out, and remember, you can always subscribe to the newsletter at my site so that it turns up in your email box and you don't have to wait for me to remember to post it here (because sometimes I forget, like this month, and post it late....sorry!)

New articles include "Our Entrepreneurial Homeschooler," "The Kids' Flea Market" and "Preschool Pressure or Preschool Peace?" And as usual, there's the "What Our Kids Are Missing Out On Dept." Sadly, I never seem to run out of news in that department!

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Mother kissing infant

How well I remember the moment it really started to sink in that I was a mom.

It was the middle of the night, and I was trying to beat back the lingering adrenaline rush and fall asleep a few hours after giving birth to dd24.

A nurse walked into the dimly lit room carrying a tiny pink-wrapped package, and said, "Here's your little angel, Mom."

Mom? Me? Well, the bracelets matched, so I guessed she had the right person.

The nurse handed me my baby girl, who stared into my eyes (I soon learned she liked being awake at 4 am). And at that moment, it hit me that I really, truly was a mom.

It's a sweet memory. As it turned out, over the next ten years I was fortunate enough to be handed three more packages totalling four in all, two pink and two blue.

What joy! What responsibility! Even now, it amazes me that God would loan out some of his best work to someone as flawed as I am. Good thing He looks out for all of his children. Because it's tough being a mom, and if it weren't for His help, how would I have managed?

Fast forward to May 1991. My doctor tells me that I'd better hope the baby comes before my due date, Memorial Day, because if she doesn't arrive until then, she'll easily hit 11 pounds. Ouch. But she's a wonderful child, so considerate to kick hard enough to break the water she lives in, so that I spend Mother's Day giving birth to her. At 9 lb. 9 1/4 oz., she's my biggest baby, but she's not 11 lbs. for which I am so grateful. And what a great Mother's Day gift!

I have great birth stories about my boys, too, but I won't go into them now because I've gone on about birth long enough. Yes, it's what turns us into moms, but what really counts is how we spend the rest of our lives loving our kids and doing the job God gave us when He loaned them to us.

I've been blessed to know some truly awesome moms. Some, like Sandy and Darlene and Bev, are my role models. Others, like Mary and Ann and Bobbi, are my friends and my encouragers, just by their existence. And then there were Julia and Linda, who died long before they were done mothering. Their smiles and their joy live on in their children, all of whom are now young adults.

To all moms everywhere, and especially to those who visit this blog and to those whose blogs I visit (you know who you are!), Happy Mother's Day!

Book List for Homeschooling a Child with Down syndrome

2008-05-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my recent post on homeschooling a child with Down syndrome, there have been many books that have helped me as I homeschool dsds15. Not all of them have been "school" books.

There’s a certain amount of acceptance that parents of kids with disabilities must gain, and it takes a while to get there. Sitting down to work with your child makes you realize just how hard it is for him to learn things, and that can really get you down.

Some books have helped me understand that homeschooling him is a process that will go on in one form or another for his entire life. It’s not like it was with my older kids, where we worked together for a certain number of years and then sent them out into the world. This guy has a lot of hurdles in front of him, and while I try not to be negative, it was plain to me pretty early on that he would not attain anywhere near the level of education his siblings would. That was a pretty depressing realization for me, and I had to find encouragement from a multitude of sources, including books, in order to keep homeschooling him.

(Sometimes, when I got discouraged, I thought about what it would be like for him in school, and that usually got me back on track. After all, who has time to sit patiently with him each day and work and play if not me? No teacher or aide has time to work with him one-on-one, which is what a distractible guy like him needs, and no teacher or aide can know him as well as I do, anyway.)

Keep in mind that while these books helped my son and me, that doesn’t mean they’ll work for all parents homeschooling kids with Down syndrome or other developmental disabilities. Children differ in temperament and ability, and so do parents. There’s a wide range of abilities among children with Down syndrome, and they develop at different rates, although most do develop more slowly than your “typical” child.

In my son’s case, there are other issues. Due to central apnea during his infancy, he may have sustained minor brain damage. His doctor said we could run a lot of expensive tests to find out for certain if and where such damage occurred, but he felt that we’d be spending a whole lot of money without being able to change things. We agree. But what our son went through makes it harder for him to learn certain things. Even his long-time speech therapist said some of his speech patterns are not typical of Down syndrome.

So he is a unique individual, and so am I, thus don’t rely on this booklist to cure what ails you and your child. On the other hand, I’ve always felt that if I learned one useful thing from a book, it was worth reading. So hopefully, you will find at least some tidbits in these books that will make them worth your time.

(Do keep in mind that the curricular-type books here are not the only things I use to homeschool my son. We do a lot of hands-on work also. But the purpose of this post is to share books we’ve found helpful.)

Christian Homes and Special Kids by Sherry Bushnell and Diane Ryckman

This book is a great resource and encouragement for all parents homeschooling their child with special needs, and I’m not just saying that because there’s a chapter about our family in the book. It’s just a book written by parents who want to share their experiences and their favorite resources.
ISBN-10 09744332-0-9
Available at http://www.nathhan.com/

Helps for Special Education Teachers by Eileen Shaum

I bought this book from Rod and Staff, one of my favorite sources for homeschooling books. It helped me establish a well-rounded foundation for my work with Josh. It helps you set goals and gives you activities for reaching those goals.
Available at http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/item/19031

Rod and Staff’s Preschool Series of Workbooks

We bought and worked through the entire series twice, that’s how much we liked these workbooks. Lots of cut-and-paste educational activities. Pages are nicely illustrated (farm animals, not licensed characters!) without being too busy and cluttered as many workbooks are. I used this series with dd17 when she was little and wanted to do school with the big kids, so that’s how I knew about them when dsds15 reached that developmental level. I can’t say enough about these workbooks!

Available at http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/item/10020/

NOTE: You can usually find Rod and Staff products at homeschool conference vendor halls. I highly recommend their products for all children.

Teaching Reading to Children With Down Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Teachers (Topics in Down Syndrome) by Patricia Logan Oelwein

Excellent resource! This book offers complete instructions for building a reading program for your child. By the way, I have been to two of Ms. Oelwein’s seminars and learned so much. If you get the chance to attend one, go! You won’t be sorry.

Teaching Math to People With Down Syndrome and Other Hands-On Learners: Basic Survival Skills (Topics in Down Syndrome) Book 1 by DeAnna Horstmeier, Ph.D.

Personally I don’t find this book as useful as Patricia Oelwein’s book, but your mileage may vary. I do like the fact that this book is intended for people of all ages with Down syndrome, not just children. I attended Dr. Horstmeier’s seminar and enjoyed her stories about her adult son with Down syndrome.

Communication Skills in Children With Down Syndrome: A Guide for Parents (Topics in Down Syndrome) by Libby Kumin, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Filled with ideas for encouraging proper speech development in your child.

When Slow Is Fast Enough: Educating the Delayed Preschool Child by Dr. Joan Goodman
An eye-opening book that helped me understand exactly what early intervention is all about.

Teacher Created Resources

My son is a workbook guy: he gets great joy from finishing a page and getting a star on it. We have had success with some of TCR’s math workbooks. I love how they have several workbook pages for each step in the learning process. I photocopy the pages over and over and over until he gets the concepts (it can take a long time).

You can buy TCR books online, but I recommend going to a teacher store and flipping through them yourself to see which might work for you and your child. If that’s not convenient, you can download many of their titles as eBooks at:

http://www.teachercreated.com/

Here are two of their books that we’ve really used a lot:

Math Practice for Beginners

Math Picture Puzzles Grade 1 (Practice Makes Perfect (Teacher Created Materials))

Take It To Your Seat Learning Centers
published by Evan-Moor

These premade manipulative activity books called “Take It To Your Seat” are really good—clever learning projects all ready to be cut out, laminated and used regularly. Two we’ve enjoyed are:

Take It to Your Seat Math Centers, Grades K-1

Take It to Your Seat Phonics Centers, Grades K-1

Buki Books

We love Buki Books! They’re educational but so much fun that kids don’t mind. There are dot-to-dot books up to 1-150 (painless way to learn number sequencing), Calc-U-Color books (color by number where you have to figure out the number first using addition or subtraction), maze books and more. They have several age levels for each type of book. Once again, I find these in teacher stores, but you can also check out their online catalog at:

http://www.poof-slinky.com/catalog/catalog.asp?org=15

Note: They don’t show the full line on their site for some reason. In teacher stores, they’re often found on freestanding kiosks. They’re very colorful and hard to miss!

Betty Lukens Felt Activity books

Great for teaching Bible stories to kinesthetic learners. My son (15) still likes to look at these books and arrange the felt pieces on them. I think the fact that they’re realistic-looking and not babyish helps.

http://www.bettylukens.com/

50 Bible Paper Pop-Ups: 3-D Visuals for Hands-On Learning Fun by Robin S. Parimore and Lynne Marie Davis

We’ve been working our way through this book for the past year. Requires cutting skills. I combine each project with the appropriate Bible story.

The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling by Barbara Frank

My new book has a chapter in it on homeschooling your child with special needs.

The Dance Goes on by Roberta Bandy

The true story of how the birth of a child with special needs grew the faith of a young couple. We’ve known the Bandy family for years; their story is so encouraging!

A Mother's Day Treat

2008-05-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

Melissa of Melissa's Idea Garden has a lovely Mother's Day treat for all of us homeschooling moms this week: the newest edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. There are so many wonderful posts included that I don't know where to start.

One interesting trend I'm noticing in the carnivals as of late is that more young people are getting involved. What a great way for them to get their work out into the blogosphere!

Making Gifts in "School"

2008-05-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that you can take the time to indulge a child’s interests. I tend to keep a fairly regular homeschooling schedule with my kids, but when we need to change things, we do so.

That’s what happened at the end of last week. On Thursday we devoted the day to Home Economics. What this means is that I found a really cool new bulk cooking cookbook at the public library (more on this in a future post) and decided that dd16 and I should do some major cooking during the day Thursday and count it as a school day.

While we worked in the kitchen, I mentioned to dd that I still needed to wrap presents for dh’s birthday the next day (one of those major birthdays….let’s just say an AARP card turned up in the mail right on schedule, lol). And she responded dejectedly that she had wanted to make her dad the perfect gift but had been unable to come up with anything. We discussed a few ideas, but nothing caught her fancy.

That night I heard her sewing machine humming up in her room and went to see what she was making. Sure enough, she had come up with a gift idea for her dad. It was a great one, but quite ambitious, and I wasn’t sure she would be able to finish it by the next day.

By the time she designed the project, chose the fabric and cut everything out, it had become obvious to me that she would not get done in time. But she got up at 7:00 the next morning to work on it, and after hearing her sewing machine humming for three hours, I made the executive decision that school would again be Home Economics that day, but this time sewing instead of cooking.

She finished her project after lunch. She chose the subject because one of her dad’s favorite Bible verses is Isaiah 40:31. Needless to say, he was quite taken with her gift.

The Kindergartener's Plastic Surgeries

2008-04-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

I read this story and just felt so sorry for this little girl, who went through "radical and painful" plastic surgery three times by the time she was five because her parents felt it would help prevent people from judging her by her appearance.

Her appearance was that of a child with Down syndrome. That's why they had her tongue reduced in size, the area around her eyes changed, and her ears adjusted so they didn't stick out.

I've always felt like my son's facial appearance is a gift. Yes, he looks like he has Down syndrome, and that's good, because it gives people a visual cue that he might have some delays, helping them control any knee-jerk reactions they might have. How much harder it must be for children whose developmental disabilities offer no visual cues. They immediately see the reactions of strangers to any behaviors they might have that are different.

My son with Down syndrome has been fortunate not to have had any surgeries, cosmetic or otherwise. And let me tell you, he's a good-looking fella. Don't take my word for it, though. Tell him he looks handsome, and he'll say "Yep! Thanks!" :)

Post #300!

2008-04-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

In celebration of my 300th post on this blog, I share with you this lovely print by my favorite artist, Carl Larsson:

Getting Ready for a Game, 1901

I have many framed versions of Carl Larsson's works, but I would not have known how to post one on my blog if I hadn't read Renae's blog, Life Nurturing Education, where she has posted some wonderful links to places where you can obtain free artwork for use on blogs. Thank you, Renae!

The Homeschool Bag Lady

2008-04-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

Dana over at Principled Discovery certainly had her hands full organizing a large group of posts for this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. But she did a great job with it, using the theme of "The Homeschool Bag Lady." Don't miss out on the fun; check it out now.

I Should Have Known

2008-04-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

There's this site I like to go to that is so cool. It's done by a family in L.A. that turned their small city lot into a gardener's paradise. Seems like every square inch outside has been put to good use, whether it's for growing vegetables or goats.

This family has so many clever ideas, and I love reading about them. I've been popping by there for some time now, so one would think I would have figured out something about this free-spirited family that seemed very likely. But I had to stumble on to this page to learn what I should have figured out a lot sooner.....they were a homeschooling family! Duh.

Strong-Willed Children

2008-04-21T13:23:00.001-07:00

It has been suggested that these two at left look like our eldest and our youngest when they disagree. Yes, they're my strong-willed kids, and yes, neither is very willing to give in to the other. It can actually be pretty entertaining to watch each of them try to get the other to back down because, despite their ten-year age gap, they are pretty well-matched when it comes to wills. And yet, they adore each other.

Celebrity as a Goal

2008-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

The British press is a lot different than the American press. Across the pond, they tend to be much more liberal when it comes to things like nudity in their newspapers. But oddly enough, they can also be quite open, more than we are, about what they see wrong in their culture, particularly when it comes to social mores.

Take, for example, this article written by Melanie Cantor, a judge on one of the many performance-based reality shows on British television. As she puts it, “I'm billed as the tough celebrity agent” on the show. Of the contestants she sees, she says:

“Everyone feels they have the right to fame because they know that talent is no longer required. The cult of Big Brother has made it possible for the most stupid to make millions simply on the back of being stupid.

…We live in a country where our children no longer aspire to be doctors, nurses, lawyers or teachers - they want to be famous. To them, celebrity is an easy escape from the mundane, a quick route to riches based on no particular skill or effort on their part.”

Isn’t that the truth? And since American television is no better, I wish there were more Americans willing to admit that many, though not all, of the contestants on these shows have no talent and know it. They just want to be celebrities. That’s their only goal in life.

Instead of pointing out how useless the goal of celebrity is, American culture celebrates it. Little girls are given Bratz and Barbie dolls that come with guitars and microphones, not to mention limousines. In school, children are taught songs like “I’m a Star!” that are supposed to build their self-esteem.

But the elusive goal of becoming a celebrity will likely destroy self-esteem instead of developing it. Ms. Cantor makes it plain when describing today’s culture:

"Celebrity is all - Fame is held up as a God to be venerated. Never mind the emptiness, ignore the public scrutiny that might tear your life apart, better to be famous for nothing than to be nothing.

The joy of anonymity has been lost to this next generation.”

Britain is not the only country with this problem. We have it, too. And it’s up to us as parents to present our children with good examples of achievement, not celebrity, if we want our culture to let go of the worship of celebrity status.

Homeschooling Your Child With Down Syndrome

2008-04-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

Momto4 recently left a comment on a February post from this blog:

I had my daughter in public school, she is 6 in kindergarten and has down syndrome. They haven't a CLUE what they are doing. I was very disappointed in their lack of teaching. I will be homeschooling her and it will be interesting as I have never done such a feat. Is there anywhere one could go to help start off in kindergarten for my little girl? Is the curriculum the same? So many many questions. I do know this, anything is better than what we have now.

Since there might be other parents with this same problem, I thought I’d post my response here, where they can find it easily.

Momto4, I admire you for taking matters into your hands once you became unhappy with your daughter’s schooling experience. Pro-active parents are the best asset a child with a disability can have.

Every child with Down syndrome has unique abilities and unique needs, and that’s why I did not use a specific curriculum with my son with Ds, who is now 15. Having homeschooled three older children, I could see that my son was not at or near grade level in scholastic subjects at age 6. I decided instead to test him (using a test I rented for a very reasonable cost from HSLDA). There weren’t any surprises in the test results because I’d been working with him since he was 3 or 4, but you might find such testing very useful for you and your daughter. It will give you an idea of where to concentrate your efforts.

Anyway, after testing him, I continued working with him as I had since he was small, using my own IEP to chart the path we’d need to follow at his speed. We read many, many books, he practiced his printing every day, and we played lots of board games that stressed the different skills he needed.

For example, he had real problems grasping numbers conceptually. He could recite numbers but did not understand what they meant. We played the game “Trouble” once or twice a day and that helped him understand what “six” meant, because that’s the best number to get in that game. BTW, I frequently found the best educational games (sold in teacher stores) discounted at TJMaxx and Marshalls. For my son, educational games where he learns by using his hands instead of just sitting and listening are a real blessing.

My son is speech-delayed, like many children (especially boys) with Ds. I sat in on his sessions with the speech therapist and imitated what she did with him at home on a regular basis. We could not afford thrice-weekly sessions, which had been recommended, but at least this way he was getting daily speech practice. One of the most effective methods of working on speech sounds with him was something the therapist taught me: he’d say a word or sound and I’d reward him with a puzzle piece. So he had to make 100 sounds to get all the pieces of a 100-piece puzzle, and then we’d work on the puzzle together. (We still do this at least once a week, because he really enjoys it.)

In addition to working on his letters, number concepts and speech, we did lots of artwork, including working with crayons, paint, stampers and clay. He loved this, and it was a nice break from the “school” work. We also got him out in nature by going on bike rides (we used a third wheel attachment on my husband’s bike because our son loved to run off and we didn’t want to teach him to ride a bike on his own, thus helping him get away from us more quickly!) Visits to parks, zoos and the aquarium also widened his horizons.

One more thing we did as part of his “school” was to teach him how to work around the house. He’d seen the older kids doing their chores and wanted to be like them, so this wasn’t hard. In fact, he’s been a very eager helper. He also likes to work with his dad in his workshop. (I can still picture him at around age five or so driving nails into a piece of wood with great intensity.)

You’ve asked for specific materials that will tell you what to do with your daughter. There have been several books that helped me learn how to work with my son, and I will list them in a subsequent post. In the meantime, I’ve asked another blogger who homeschools a daughter with Ds to answer your question. You’ll find her post here.

The bottom line, Momto4, is that you are really doing something wonderful for your daughter. Homeschooling her will mean she will get much more one-on-one instruction, or “face time” as I like to call it. Not only is that much better for her, but it will help you learn more about how she learns. She’ll also be able to avoid the negative effects of school socialization, such as picking up bad habits and being bullied because of her disability. And, of course, the bottom line is that you know her better than any teacher can know her, so she’s getting a teacher who knows her well and wants the very best for her. I think your daughter is very fortunate to have you for a mom.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have, and I’ll try to get that book list together soon!

It's Official: "The Imperfect Homeschooler's Guide to Homeschooling" is In Print

2008-04-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I posted, but we've been a bit busy. On Tuesday the semi pulled up with our new books! The neighbors were probably trying to figure out what the heck was going on over here. You don't see many semi's in this neck of the woods :)

The books look beautiful! They also take up a lot of room, but we stored some of them in the garage and the rest were taken into the house so they could be packaged and shipped to everyone who ordered a copy via our pre-publication special. Thank you to all of you who ordered a copy of the book! It took three of us (dd16 was a big help) a couple of days to get all of the orders together (good thing no one was planning to take photos of our living room for Architectural Digest, as there were USPS containers all over the place for a while.) The good news is that we loaded up the van this morning and handed all of the boxes over to the good people at the U.S. Postal Service. So your books are on the way!

We were excited to learn that Eclectic Homeschool Online has already reviewed the book. If you haven't been to that site before, you're in for a treat. They offer anything a homeschooling parent could need to make her job easier. Thank you, EHO, for the lovely review :) Rumor has it that another review should be popping up before too long over at Homeschoolbuzz.com.

Now that the book is out, the hard part starts: marketing it! And of course, I can now finish the other book I was writing before I got distracted transforming this one from eBook to print. All of this takes a lot of time, and I can't work at it full-time thanks to that little thing called homeschooling that we still do every day. Still, homeschooling is my priority!

Lotsa Books Headed This Way!

2008-04-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

The Imperfect Homeschooler's Guide to Homeschooling is on its way!

The printers emailed us yesterday to say that the new books are on the truck! As soon as they get here, the book is officially published and that's the end of the prepublication special mentioned here.

But until that truck full of books pulls up here (we're hoping for Monday!), you can still buy the book for the special price of $12 plus free shipping! (Continental U.S. only; contact us for discounted international shipping.)

(Remember, the 192-page print version of The Imperfect Homeschooler's Guide to Homeschooling is twice as large as the eBook, thanks to the addition of lots of homeschool encouragement for all homeschooling parents (some of it from my newsletter). It's full of the strategies I've learned over 20 years of homeschooling.)

Once that truck pulls up, the prepublication offer is over and the regular price ($13.95 plus shipping) applies. So click here to save a few bucks and be among the first to read my new book!

P.S. I almost forgot----the first two reviews of this book are in! Thank you, Carol and Kathy, for your kind words:

I recommend her guide to new homeschooling parents. It’s neither dryly theoretical nor boastfully self-congratulating. It’s practical, encouraging, and unintimidating, without underestimating all that homeschooling involves. If you’re not new to homeschooling, but low on energy and enthusiasm for it, this guide is for you, too.

Carol Goudie
Otherways Magazine
(full review in May 2008 issue)

….(T)he truth is there is no perfect home school. Even though I know that already, how empowering it is for me to read Barbara Frank’s book The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling…. This guide is an excellent resource both for those just starting out and the rest of us that need some good old-fashioned encouragement and empowerment.

Kathy Davis
Homeschoolbuzz.com
(full review to be posted late 4/08)

ACT Day

2008-04-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Dd16 took the ACT this morning at the local high school, and it was interesting to see the reactions it provoked among us.

My husband came home after dropping her off and immediately said how glad he is that she's who she is. He then described the kids he saw, specifically how they were dressed (skimpily in today’s spring snowstorm), and how they drove into the parking lot (he worried about getting hit).

Meanwhile, dd16 was forming her own impressions. She said the girls seemed pretty calm, but the boys hung together in loud groups, with lots of yelling and swearing. The first thing she said to me when she got home was, “Thank you for homeschooling me.” That’s always appreciated :)

She also mentioned that she said a quick “Thanks!” to the proctor when she left, as everyone always thanked the teachers after class when she took homeschool classes at the community college where we used to live. But today, the proctor looked at her as if she had said something strange. Guess he wasn’t used to a student being polite to him.

Finally, she said that there was not a single cute guy there. Not one of our concerns, but it ranks on her list.

As for my reaction to her taking the ACT (you knew I’d have one, right?), it came when she told me what the essay question was (she took the ACT writing test after the main test). She was asked to write about whether schools should limit kids to one extracurricular activity. Mind you, the practice question on the ACT web site for the writing test asks the kids whether they think students should have to attend a fifth year of high school.

Good grief! Is that all these people can think about…school? Whatever happened to asking kids to describe their favorite character in literature, or their favorite historical figure, or to choose sides on a current social issue, like global warming or free trade? Aside from the fact that “school” questions are biased against homeschooled students (who are admittedly a tiny minority of those taking the test), they’re just dumb questions that really don’t require a lot of thought.

Anyway, she should be able to look up her scores online fairly soon. She doesn’t know if she wants to go to college right after high school or ever, but as we learned from our son’s experience, you need to take the ACT at least once in order to skip some college placement tests and even to help qualify you for scholarships. So taking it is a necessity if there’s any chance at all a teen might go to community or four-year college.

Is There a Young Writer in Your House?

2008-04-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

I began writing when I was quite young. The best encouragement I ever got back then was seeing my work published in my junior high and high school's newspapers and also in my local paper. Seeing your work in print gives you a tremendous boost.

We have a young writer at our house, dd16, who is hard at work on her second novel. Once she finishes this novel, and then works with me on editing both novels, we plan to publish them using Lulu.com.

I've used Lulu for the proof copies of my books and have been so pleased with them. I don't used them for subsequent printings because we generally order a couple of thousand books at a time, and other printers are more competitively priced for large quantities. But you don't need to have a bunch of money squirreled away for printing. The new publishing model called Print on Demand (POD) is the perfect thing for personal projects, and it's what Lulu does best. You write the book, format it, design a cover and then upload your files to Lulu. They keep the files on hand; whenever someone orders a copy of the book, they print one and send it out. Today's printing technology allows this to be done fairly quickly and very reasonably, price-wise.

Just as an example, the proof copy of my new book is 192 pages and cost me a little over $8 plus shipping. That's a great price for a single copy! Just think, you could have your child's work printed and bound for less than ten dollars! Lulu has a printing calculator on site where you can work out the exact cost. They do offer expensive packages for teaching you how to assemble and market the book, but you can find that information for free online or at your public library, so unless you're impatient, I wouldn't recommend it. Besides, unless you think your child is the next J.K. Rowling, you're probably just doing this as a family project, right?

When I use Lulu, I classify my printing projects as private because they're just proofs. But at Lulu, most people sell their books through Lulu's online bookstore as well as other places. So if Grandma wants a copy of your child's book, just send her to Lulu's online store, where she can order copies for herself and probably all your distant cousins. Your child will earn money on those sales of his/her work. How encouraging would that be?

Here's a great interview with an 11-year-old young man who's already selling his fiction work via Lulu. He cites homeschooled Christopher Paolini (author of the Eragon series) as his inspiration. Maybe his interview will inspire your young writer.

Upcoming Homeschool Conferences in Illinois and Wisconsin

2008-04-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

Many of you know me from the newsletter I used to publish, the "Northern Illinois Homeschool News." So, in case you aren't already aware of them, here are the details on two upcoming conferences in your area, one in Illinois and one in Wisconsin.

Homeschool conferences are a great way to restore your homeschooling enthusiasm for the coming year. Plus, it's so much fun to meet other homeschoolers!

Wacky Week

2008-04-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

People are freaking out about Wacky Week, a yearly event at a school in my newly adopted home state of Wisconsin, where kids voted to dress up as the opposite sex or as a senior citizen. Those having fits about this suggest it’s a public school effort to promote cross-dressing.

Given the propensity of public schools to promote so-called “alternative lifestyles” in recent years, I can see where parents would be suspicious at first. But it appears that this was the kids’ choice. Besides, if the school really was promoting cross-dressing, I doubt the principal would have said this:

"I can assure you we will not be having this day (again).”

Instead, she would have been quoted as saying something like, “This was simply an exercise in diversity,” while straightening the tie she wore with a pin-striped suit.

I’m not defending Wacky Week here. I don’t see how dressing silly for a week helps anyone study harder, and as someone with one of those ends-in-zero birthdays coming in a few months, (ahem), I don’t see the humor in dressing like a senior citizen…..what does that mean anyway, wearing Depends under a housedress or chest-high pants?

Regardless, it does bring back a memory from when my older children were little. They were probably four and five years old when they came running down the stairs one afternoon, giggling and calling for me. I was in the kitchen making dinner when they burst in. They had switched clothes. My daughter could barely fit into her little brother’s clothes, and hers were way too big on him. I thought they looked pretty funny and we all had a good laugh.

But then Daddy came home, and he was not amused. He told them to go change back into their regular clothes, and he gave me a look when I whispered that I thought it was funny.

Now, this was nearly 20 years ago, before cross-dressing changed categories from mental illness to celebrity fad. Looking back, I can see why he wasn’t happy about it. But they were so young at the time that I knew they didn’t mean anything by it. In fact, the thought of it brings a smile to my face because I can still hear their giggles in my memory. They’re now in their mid-twenties, our son is five inches taller than his older sister, and neither of them would be caught dead in the other’s clothes, lol.

Stossel Weighs In On California Homeschool Ruling

2008-04-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

I don't normally blog on Sundays, but today I saw this and just had to share it with you. John Stossel puts his common sense attitude to work and the result, as usual, is clear and understandable. Spend a few minutes reading this and then share it with your friends (and relatives!)

They Had It All

2008-04-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, British journalist Valerie Grove decided to interview women who “had it all” for at least 25 years. She defined having it all as:

"...they had to have been married for more than 25 years and have had three or more children, as well as a brilliant career."

She turned her findings into a book, The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career - Can She Have It All? Her conclusion was that it was very rare for a woman to be able to successfully juggle a husband, children and successful career.

Now, a British newspaper has marked the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication by going back and interviewing some of the women whose lives were chronicled in it to see if they think it’s gotten any easier to “have it all.” The very interesting (and lengthy) article is worth reading, but if you’re pressed for time, I’d like to share a couple of key points these women now make, as they look back on their lives from the vantage point of old age.

1) Women try too hard to give their children the perfect childhood.

Author Faye Weldon, 77 and the mother of four sons, says:

"Today, we try to fight that destiny and give our children the perfect childhood in the hopes that it will make them perfect. I think children are the better for a little healthy neglect. Mine certainly were.”

I don’t think she means neglect in a bad way. What she’s saying is that if we give our kids more autonomy and stop trying to micromanage their activities, they’ll do just fine and we’ll be less exhausted. This is a point we homeschooling moms, who are already involved personally in our children’s daily education, need to take to heart.

2) Women should realize they can have a career while raising children, but it won’t be easy, and the children must come first.

Shirley Hughes, 80, the mother of three children and a well-known children’s author, recalls writing at home with children underfoot:

“…despite publishing more than 50 books, Hughes managed without a nanny.
"I would have been too jealous of her relationship with my children," she explains.
"We did have au pairs to help out domestically, but I would never have left them in sole charge of the children all day…..But fractured concentration due to interruptions from children is the bane of a working mother's life, especially if you work from home as I did.
"But it was the right thing for me. I was able to be there for my children, and so glad I was self-employed and did not have to disappear off for long days away from the home."

3) Women expect to have too many material things that don’t matter in the long run.

Sheila Kitzinger, 80, a mother of five grown daughters and honored by the British government for her years of work for the National Childbirth Trust, says:

"Women now think they need so much more. Everyone must have a second car in the family.”
She also seconds Ms. Weldon’s concern about providing a wealth of perfect educational experiences:
“But also, we feel the need to do so much more with our children. There are constant educational trips - must see the Tutankhamun exhibition, must see the Chinese warriors at the British Museum.
"It's relentless, exhausting and very expensive."

Ms. Hughes agrees:

"Perhaps women think today they need to have too much. We all say we work because we need the money, but are there sacrifices to be made.
"Perhaps not having a second car; maybe moving to live somewhere cheaper.
"It's very sad when people think they cannot afford to have more children. What do you regret at the end of your life? Is it the expensive stuff, or not having a child?"

According to the article, these women with such successful careers look back over their lives and see where their time was best invested: in their husbands and children. As Ms. Hughes put it:

"My only regrets are that I got too bogged down with getting the shopping and household chores. I should have let it all go to pot a lot more than I did.
"What I wish I'd done more of is sitting and talking to my children round the kitchen table.
"And conversations with my husband, too, now that I'm widowed. Once your husband dies, that is what you long for above all.
"But when you're young and busy with work and family, you are always rushing on to the next thing. That's life."

We can all learn from those who have come before us. And with that, I’d better go make dinner and spend some time enjoying it with my family :)

Disabled and Gifted

2008-04-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

Since I have a teenage son with Down syndrome, I do know something about having a child with a disability, but I only really know about his specific issue. There are many other disabilities that I know little or nothing about.

One of those disabilities is autism. My cousin has a son who’s six weeks older than mine and he’s autistic. But I’ve only met him a few times because we live pretty far apart. I also have a homeschooling friend whose youngest son is autistic, but again, I’ve only seen him once or twice because we don’t live near them.

So I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with autism, but I have to admit that stories like this one fascinate me. To be able to recreate a scene with so much detail from memory is just completely amazing, and an incredible gift.