All schools in our county, Snohomish County, are mandated by our Governor, Jay Inslee, to be closed for a month-and-a-half due to the Coronavirus starting and spreading in our cities.
Some say, the border of our state will close too, as Washington is known for the start, spread, and first death of a virus in our nation, effecting more than 135,000 globally and killing more than 5,300.
The President today declared a National State of Emergency due to the virus.
Parent’s who once dropped their kids off at daycare, waved as the yellow bus drove away their children or worked in the evenings while children went from school to Boys & Girls Club, are now forced to stay home, parent and even educate their children.
The task, seemingly to some, daunting.
Yet, while the world keeps amputating pieces of society, known as “social isolation”, my heart leaps at excitement at what the months ahead will hold.
I am not sure where along the way, parents have been brainwashed into thinking they are not adequate enough to train, teach, or even parent their own children.
Parents have always been their child’s first teachers.
Little by little, we have lost control, handed over the reigns, given the schools and even the government the authority to educate, transport and even feed our children.
Ancient seems the days when father’s were present with their children, training them in woodworking, firebuilding or even plowing.
Mother’s once sat in comfort reading to their children, peeled potatoes alongside their daughters, patiently stitching trousers while telling stories around a fire.
We have become too fast, too blinded by our agendas that we have sacrifices our own littles ones for the sake of our own “successes”.
So, as the world shifts back a full century, seemingly in an instant…
To a time when families couldn’t busy themselves with “accomplishments” and over-burdened schedules…
An epidemic haults a region and jolts us back to when children were less ornamental, edited photos on social media, or accolades stroking our own egos…
We hopefully will return to ta time where children are participants in the family, little people to be respected, partners in chores and students always watching the priority we place on them.
We don’t need to be afraid; afraid to have our kids home, afraid to teach them, afraid to take the center role in parenting and educating our children.
As a homeschool mom of over a dozen years, it seems like we have become experts at compartmentalizing everything, even our childrens learning.
We have mistakenly for some reason, put academics in brick and mordar buildings, our spirituality inside walls with steeples on them, and counted “socialization” as groups of kids vying feverishly for the attention of one daycare worker or teacher, per dozens of children.
Worse yet, we have “boxed-up” and compartmentalized our world and marketed it to others as, “normal”.
We have justified, due to our own agnedas, a life-style, where playing means going on the boat on the weekend, and working includes punching a ticket for monitary payment.
Where are the days when we laughed with our kids, ran around like children playing tag in a big field, connected while we picked weeds, or told stories while we folded laundry in the evenings, under the flickering fire?
Worse yet, when did parenting shrink itself to a small box, including a few hours on a Friday night labeled, “Family time”.
So, when I found out, my seven-year-old, the one God told me to homeschool long ago, is finally going to be a part of the homescool life-style of my other children….
- One that doesn’t include stuffing lunchboxes and verbally hustling her out the door before the morning sun rises…
- One that fails to require us to wait to eat dinner because the yellow bus hasn’t arrived in the evening.
- One that doesn’t require my child napping, waking, and eating lunch while institutionalized, taught by teachers and educators I have only spent a few hours of my life with.
- One that fails to force family time into a box, or Saturday mornings to be packed with chores because we’ve all been divided all week.
I am not going to lie, I am delighted to finally have my child home.
Excited to have her share in the joys of reading on my lap, sitting with her sister while talking about the
science book with fish from the ocean deep.
I can’t wait to watch her laugh with her younger siblings, the ones she misses the majority of her life while at school nine hours a day, too many days all three separated.
Parents, you don’t need to be afraid to homeschool your children. Life is a classroom and every day we are learning.
What you might not know is, Math includes cooking and measuring, building with tools, multiplying numbers, or shopping, adding up the cost of your purchases.
Reading is picking up an enjoyable book, but also slowly meandering through a newspaper, having the time to read the back of a cereal box, because a bus isn’t coming to take your student.
And when home, the spiritual growth of our children can be more than a church that is closed, or the youth group that hopes to morally equip our children.
We are called to teach our children the way they should go and when they are older they will not turn from it. (Psalms 22:6)
Kids learn by watching to see what we are doing.
- How do we spend our time?
- What are we modeling?
- What things are we watching and reading?
- How do we speak?
- Are we thoughtful with those we don’t agree with?
Kids are always listening. Watching. Learning from what we are modeling.
We don’t need to fear teaching our children. Cultures have been doing it from the beginning of time.
Some of the greatest minds were home-educated. (100 famous Homeschooled People) Time and space has always ignited creativity and genuis, setting ablaze to new ideas.
Space to learn always expands the mind, not shrinks it.
With our kids home, we can get back to leisurely reading, long hikes and simple “play” that has proven to teach more than all the academics in the world. (The Power of Play)
You are not ill-equipped to teach your chidren; whether you are a lawyer or barely graduated, because real lessons have nothing to do with mathmatics.
Real education is about equipping the next generation how to work and play, help and endure a flexible day that bends just naturally and always doesn’t go our way…
Teaching character and integrity, kindness and respect, thoughtfulness and compassion to those around them.
Yes, we can still utilitze books, academic resources, and even the computer to educate our children…
But, what if we stretched what learning looks like, instead of smashing it into a box? Modeled faith while a virus paralizes our communities?
Let’s bring our neighbors a meal, connect face-to-face, really listening to our children, bake cookies for someone needing them and watch what kind of human our young people will become.
Learning is about feeling safe and secure, having space and freedom to pursue each unique purpose and interest inside each child.
Listen to your children…they will show you who they are and what they were meant to become.
And perhaps they will teach us too, about what real living is meant to look like.
Let’s trust we CAN teach our children.
But most of all, let’s be open, to our children also teaching us.
