This thing or time we call the “Information Age” makes homeschool parents successful. Really, not just homeschool parents but all parents are now in a position to educate their children through distance learning by internet, digital files, CD’s, DVD’s and all sorts of incredibly ingenious methods of communicating information that fill with me wonder when I consider the incredible processes at my fingertips today.
Parents have always “home schooled”. Consider the myriad ways a mother and father raise a child in those early years before any tutors or teachers outside the family unit become involved. Especially the time a mother pours into her newborn infant. Speech, touch, facial recognition patterns, how to tune in on some sounds while ignoring others and on and on. Not to mention all the transitions a child faces in their life. Parents have certainly been the “go to” people for children for ages and even now, a publicly educated child still loves the input from their parents on everything. (Watch a boy show off for his mom and you’ll get the idea!)
Beyond just the means of sharing data, this vast array of options actually reveal options we, as parents collectively, have not had for, at least, decades or hundreds of years. Options that can help cultivate a rich personal relationship with our children. Strong bonds forged in the back and forth of life where problems encountered are identified and solved while the child witnesses emotion, character with strength necessary to overcome and succeed in this life. I must agree with Dr. James Dobson who said, “Why send your children away to someone else when they are just becoming interesting human beings who can talk etc.”
Options to help us spend more time with our children, find creative and fun ways to stimulate learning and direct curiosity in the kids God has put in our care. There is so much out there that allows us to be mobile and taking care of life while at the same time instructing in time management, problem solving, project management as well as the three R’s.
Another way parents win and are helped by the information age is that we no longer need to be the “outsiders” and “suspect” for beliefs and traditions that were and are strong familial ties that hold generations of a family together. It then becomes the person outside the family unit who receives the scrutiny and that can be a good thing. We need more scrutiny focused on teachers, politicians etc and leave the mother and father who live with that child every moment raise them and invest everything they can spare to assist them in gaining success in this world.
These parents are not looking out for themselves, but down the corridor of time to try to discern the best path, not only for them and their family but, for ALL the future generations who follow. Even to the 10th which means plans are established and passed down to help their posterity through hundreds of years.
A big problem with this is that not ALL parents know how to do this. This information age is dual edged. Personally, this idea was introduced to me only recently (via an instrument of the Information Age. I think it was a DVD). I think we, as parents, instinctively know we should do more in the area of raising our kids, but the idea is drowned out by the flood of “other” information age “stuff”. Things like games, sports, shopping (fill in the blank) but the key might be just doing those things with the family and kids together. Not all the time and, yes, time allowances with compromise (maybe less hunting, more shopping with better half- or, reverse that…)
All of the different aspects in this information age can make homeschool parents successful and any help to this end is appreciated by those who are pouring their life into the next generation. We must remember, this information age is dual edged. It can be used for self gratification and excess, but also for the building and strengthening of the family unit and by extension our community, our countries and world.