I always marvel at how much easier homeschooling is than sending my kids to school. For example, the only discipline problems I have are about manners and the boys fighting with each other, since they are in charge of what they do all day. Also, I control our schedule, and I don’t do anything I don’t […]
This is a guest post from Kim Bain. She has three children. I suck at budgeting and finances but I do know this: sending kids to school has costs. I’m not just talking about field trip money and new-Jordan’s-to-impress-the-ladies type costs.
There’s big talk about mindfulness. Maybe because is the era of distraction because we are struggling with multitasking, partial attention, and information overload. But probably because we know there are enormous benefits to mindfulness, but achieving mindfulness is something that does not seem to be natural to us. Time magazine has documented the struggle.
My husband and I try really hard to understand the games my kids are playing. My ex-husband plays a lot of games with them, even incredibly absurd ones, and I watch a lot of the let’s play videos with them.
This is a guest post by Lehla Eldridge. Her blog is Unschooling the Kids. She lives with her husband and three kids in Italy. Our son is nine and he has decided he wants to be able to read and write. He is frustrated that he can’t do either very well yet. So I say, “How do you […]
This is a guest post from Sarah Faulkner. She is a homeschooling mom in Washington state. She has five kids, ages 13, 11, 9, 5, and 2. I have several special needs kids. Not because I’m some hero, but because I wanted to adopt an unwanted child. Only, we are always paying for the choices of others. […]
One of the parts of homeschooling that feels most risky is that the kids will miss out on opportunities school kids will have. This question reminds me of the question, How will kids learn social skills if we homeschool? It’s one of those worries that is common to parents who don’t homeschool, and parents who do homeschool […]
This is a guest post from Kristin Hayles. I met her here, on this blog, and our sons started playing Minecraft together. Kristin and her son came to our house to visit, and I learned so much hearing her talk about her homeschooling decisions that I asked her to write a post. Here it is. I decided to […]
I can’t believe how many examples you send to me of parents and teachers talking about self-directed learning. Here’s the issue: It is pretty much uncontested that the best type of learning for kids is self-directed learning. The problem with self-directed learning is that the more restricted the environment, the less self-directed a child is. Self-directed learning is […]
This is a guest post from Amiyrah Martin. She lives with her husband and three children in New Jersey. Amiyrah owns the popular web site 4 Hats and Frugal. “Sorry for the delay, Mr. and Mrs. Martin. This will only take a few more minutes.” Our son’s guidance counselor seems agitated but appreciative that we were on […]