HOMESCHOOLING BEGINS WITH HOME

Homeschooling Benefits
Elementary School and Junior High School

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGEPart 2 of 3

Please read Part 1 first. It addresses one of the many homeschooling benefits: establishing a love of learning through knowledge acquisition—both shared and personal—during the elementary school and junior high school years.

This Christian Homeschooling Articles series includes the following themes:

1. Relationship
2. Stewardship
3. Scholarship
   • Skills and Knowledge (Overview Article)
     • Preschool and Early Elementary
     • Later Elementary Years and Junior High
       • Knowledge Acquisition
         
       • Skills Development (This article)
       • No More Grumbling During Deskwork
         
       • Affirm Each Child’s Abilities
         
     • High School Homeschooling
       
   • Family Reading
     
   • Your Child’s Portfolio
4. Easy Recordkeeping

The refining of relational, personal, and moral skills, which began during preschool and early elementary years, continues throughout the later elementary school and junior high school years.

Sharing from my personal experience, each of my five children, like yours, received the unique touch of Father-God’s Hand on their souls (their brains, emotions, and wills) and bodies. One of the most rewarding homeschooling benefits for me has been getting to know each of these unique creations.

During this crucial time of making decisions about when to begin the development of traditional academic skills, I got to know my unique children as I learned to discern the Voice of the Lord for their specific needs:

• advanced, gifted/creative, strong-willed, “unintentionally” unschooled daughter

• obedient, science/math-oriented, traditionally schooled son

• active, “loves physical work,” service-minded, funny, lovable, forgetful Tigger (like on Winnie-the-Pooh) son

• sweet, language-oriented, literal, “source of joy,” classical bent daughter

• “slow to mature,” non-language-intuitive, cuddly son

Through ministering to them individually—among other circumstances—the Lord has grown my soul to a prospering one and revived my spirit, one of the greatest hidden homeschooling benefits.

Even though the academic skills development aspect of homeschooling has often been the most difficult and trying, it has also been the most rewarding in my life because I have seen my children’s hearts—and they have seen mine. We have learned to love each other unconditionally.

The sweetness of the mature and maturing relationships in our home is worth the tears, anxiety, and sacrifice of laying down my agenda to meet my children’s true needs through academic skill development.

1. Nurturing Unconditional Love.

   Instead of following the world’s way of treating your children fairly, as you find out who they are, you will treat them as God created them: uniquely and distinctively.

   This approach will create an environment where sibling rivalry cannot grow, another of the many homeschooling benefits.

   Each one will learn to love the other unconditionally for who they are and will not compare himself or herself to another.

   Why?

   Because mom will not compare her unique children to each other but rather validate and value their uniqueness, and mom will not compare herself to another except Christ.

   Each child will also learn to rejoice in his or her uniqueness.

   Why?

   Because mom will rejoice in each child’s uniqueness.

   When each person is valued for his or her individuality, unconditional love flourishes in hearts and homes—one of the most Life-giving homeschooling benefits.

2. Exercising Godly Authority.

   Let’s face it. Developing skills is not fun! But developing skills is beneficial for a lifetime.

   Developing skills builds discipline in one’s life.

   The fruit of discipline
   is an increased skill you will love to use!

   Another of the hidden homeschooling benefits is that your utter despair at times will lead you to seek the One Who has the answers for your unique relationships and circumstances. As you yoke with Him, you will develop the insight to exercising Godly authority over your children’s lives by directing the development of their traditional academic skills until they themselves have formed the habits necessary for self-government, self-control, and personal responsibility.

   This process of exercising Godly authority—not carnal control—requires frequent, prayerful evaluation. God will not tell you what to do or what to buy, curriculum-wise; instead, your liberty in Christ grants you the freedom to choose and learn from your mistakes and successes. Glory be to God for liberty!

   For example, in 2003 when my daughter was five, she requested that I teach her to read. Being quite language intuitive, she learned to read in three months with basic instruction from me. Her older brother, however, who is not language intuitive, was working through an intensive reading program because of his particular needs in this area. I could not have possibly taught them to read using the same materials because they are unique creations to whom I must minister uniquely.

   Each child is unique, and therefore,
   academic skills development will also be unique for each child.

3. Renewing your mind about the “opportunities” inherent in deskwork.

   Although your children—and you—may find developing academic skills burdensome and overwhelming at first, your perseverance and gentle authority coupled with wise child training during this time will draw your children’s hearts to you so that deskwork becomes joyous over time.

   The burden of academic skills development increases
   if mom’s focus during skill development is on the
   subject content
   rather than on the
   character of both her child and herself.

Neither of you needs to grumble through deskwork. Part 3 deals with this subject in more depth.

Additional articles related to the theme of Scholarship:

• Skills and Knowledge (Overview Article)
  • Preschool and Early Elementary
  • Later Elementary Years and Junior High
    • Knowledge Acquisition
      
    • No More Grumbling During Deskwork
      
    • Affirm Each Child’s Abilities
      
  • High School Homeschooling
    

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