IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE MOST MERCIFUL

Home Playgroup Central Homeschool Central Kids' Links Fun Stuff Articles Email

Articles

Index of Articles for Homeschoolers, Parents & Educators

Delayed Academics...A Few Thoughts on Readiness (Elijahco.com) Homeschool Burnout (Elijahco.com) Homeschool The Charlotte Mason Way by Jody Courtney Surviving Homework, Tips That Really Work! by Amy Nathan Western Education vs. Muslim Children

Note: I've found these articles thought provoking but as I read, I change certain aspects of the writer's perspective in order to cater to the needs of me and my family. Articles do represent an array of homeschooling and religious perspective but take what is beneficial and ignore what is not. May Allah guide us all.

There is quite a bit of discussion among homeschoolers over
early learning versus delayed academics. Proponents of
the "Early Learning Approach" cite research suggesting
that the early years (before about age 8) are the years in
which children most easily soak up information, find
memorization effortless, and can be best molded into
certain habit patterns that are the foundations of later
character development. This is also the age at which
perceptions about life and self are formed. They point out
that the amazing potential of early childhood is never fully
tapped. St. Francis of Assisi is supposed to have said,
"Give me a child until he is eight and he is mine forever,"
meaning that the earliest influences are the most lasting.

Proponents of the "Delayed Academics Approach," however, also
site research showing that early formal academic study can be
physically, mentally, and emotionally harmful to children.
How does the wise parent find common ground between these two
approaches?

As we have read, talked to other homeschoolers, and taught our
own three sons through high school, we've come to the conclusion
that readiness is a crucial factor in a child's ability to learn
and in his or her attitude toward learning. The two subject areas
in which readiness is most violated seem to be language arts and
math. Because we homeschooling parents are subject to peer pressure
and because most states require testing, we tend to push our
children in reading, writing, and math. The result is frustrated
children and frustrated parents. We hope to encourage you to
slooooow down and be sensitive to each child's readiness to learn.
By readiness we mean that the child is mentally and emotionally
capable of assimilating the information presented; he/she has enough
"life experiences" for the information to be meaningful; and he/she
has minimal frustration in acquiring the skill or performing the
required tasks.

The best kind of learning has four ingredients: (1) maturity (the
physical, mental, and emotional ability to process the information
or perform the assigned task); (2) experience (enough general knowledge
about the subject to provide a base on which further knowledge can be
added); (3) a desire to learn (a receptivity to the information); and
(4) a system (an effective way of presenting the information).

As an example, let's look at these four ingredients in teaching the
skill of reading. The maturity necessary for reading involves being able
to hear language distinctly and distinguish between letter sounds. It
also requires the visual acuity to focus on a printed page without
eyestrain or visual confusion. The experience necessary to reading involves
understanding that letters stand for sounds and that printed groups of
letters "say" something. The child usually reaches this understanding
because from babyhood he has seen others read, has been read to, and also
exposed to printed materials in many forms. Children routinely make these
connections by themselves around age 4 and begin asking, "What does that
say?" Next comes the desire to learn. Most children begin wanting to know
how to read sometime between the time they make the connection that printed
material "says" something and age 8. Once they really want to read they can
learn at an astonishing rate. Some even teach themselves to read. The final
component of meaningful learning is a system. In reading, this is nothing
more than a good phonics program.

Children mature at different rates, and girls tend to mature earlier than
boys. In the early years schooling concentrates on reading, writing, and
linguistic activities that favor the fine motor skills and verbal abilities
of girls. This leaves boys at a distinct disadvantage and the resulting
frustration may cause them to either dislike school or develop low self
esteem. Some of the skills required for completing conventional schooling
tasks and the ages at which they are usually developed are listed below.
The perceptive parent can work with each child's readiness instead of
against it.

1. The ability to hear language distinctly (ages 8 - 11)

2. The visual acuity to perform close work (ages 10 - 11)

3. The establishment of dominance of one brain hemisphere (ages 9 - 12)

4. The ability to reason from cause to effect (ages 7 - 11)

5. The development of fine motor skills necessary for writing
(boys: ages 8 - 10, girls: ages 5 - 7)

6. The accumulation of enough life experiences for academic facts
to be understandable (after age 7)

7. The ability to employ rational, logical, and abstract modes of
thinking (ages 11 - 16)

We have discovered that one of the main reasons homeschooled
children seem resistant to our educational efforts is that we give
them too much too soon. [For a full explanation of the "Resistance
Factor" in homeschooling, see The Elijah Company website at
www.elijahco.com/store and order a copy of the tape seminar,
"When Mothers Teach Resistant Children."]

For a limited time, you may still order one of the most important
books we have ever carried, "A Different Kind of Teacher," at a
special price available only to you, our eNewsletter subscriber.

To access the Specials Page, enter the web address
http://www.elijahco.com/store/specials.cgi?action=email

Enter the Specials Code [gatto] and your email address. You will
be able to check out this book and order it if you wish. You will
also be able to check out our entire web store through this
address. Note: you will only be able to place an order for a Specials
Item once.

Look for our newest website: www.homeschoolcounsel available in about
a month. This exciting site is the place to send anyone interested in
information about homeschooling, to see all Elijah Company articles,
the answers to just about any question anyone has about homeschooling,
AND bulletin boards for asking personal questions about
your own concerns or problems with homeschooling. STAY TUNED!

The Davis Family and The Elijah Company

This time of year seems to be the hardest time of all for home
schoolers. Winter weather has kept us inside, but now that spring is
coming we've got too much to do to enjoy the pretty weather. The
drudgery of routine has set in; work has piled up; and we've had a
chance to fail miserably at reaching goals that seemed so easy to
achieve when we started schooling in the fall. Add to that level of
stress a series of small crises, and you have a recipe for homeschool
burnout.

Gail Felker, in Homeschooling Today magazine, says homeschool burnout
is a condition in which "the teaching parent is anxious, depressed,
discouraged, overwhelmed, and ready to quit. Burnout is not uncommon.
Special-needs schools, churches, and nursing homes, for example, have
a large employee turnover due to burnout. Demanding, people-oriented
professions are most at risk. For the home-schooler, it often results
in sending the children back to public school."

Burnout and the 80/20 Principle

One of the most cherished tenets of business is the "80/20 Principle."
This scientifically proven principle says there is always an imbalance
between causes and results, inputs and outputs, and effort and reward,
and that imbalance generally assumes the proportions of 20% to 80%. In
other words, 80 percent of the results you want to see will come from
20 percent of your effort. In business, this means that 80% of your
sales will come from 20% of your products; 80% of the important work
will be done by 20% of your employees; 80% of the actual benefits of a
project will be developed in only 20% of the time spent on the project
and so on. So the key to good business management is to find the 20%
that is most productive and enhance it, and to find the 80% that is
not productive and figure out ways to either eliminate it or make it
part of the 20%.

The 80/20 Principle applies to other areas of life as well. For
example, good students innately know that 80% of an exam usually
covers only 20% of the topics from the course, and they have
discovered how to find out which 20% of the material to study to make
an 80 or higher on the exam. The 80/20 Principle even works relational
y. 80% of the value of your relationships usually comes from only 20%
of the people you know.

OK, so what does this have to do with "Homeschool Burnout?" First, we
need to understand that a major cause of burnout is the feeling of
being overwhelmed and under-supported. Here are some common ways this
feeling is verbalized:

This isn't fun anymore (in fact, it's a real drag).
I feel like things are spinning out of control.
There's not enough me to go around.
My life is fragmented (pulled in too many directions, torn into too
many pieces).
I feel like I'm trying to keep too many balls up in the air (or spin
too many plates).
I'm drowning.
There's too much to do and not enough time to do it.
There's too much to do and I'm expected to do it all myself.
I don't feel anything but anger (frustration, irritation) or sadness
(grief, depression, sorrow).
I resent having to be responsible for everything.
I am the one who has to pick up everything that "falls through the
cracks."
I am constantly disappointed.

Here are some common ways this feeling expresses itself physically:
(1) a tightness in the throat, chest or between the shoulder blades,
(2) pain in the lower back, (3) headaches or dizziness, (4) chronic
fatigue, (5) numbness of certain parts of the body, (6) anxiety and
tenseness, (7) difficulty swallowing, (8) nausea, (9) upset stomach
or irritable bowel, (10) ringing in the ears.

Any and all of the above verbalizations and physical symptoms are a
good indication that we are bogged down in the 80% of our lives that
is non-productive and that undermine our sense of well-being. The good
news about the 80/20 Principle is that there are a very few, key
activities that will dramatically improve our happiness and sense of
productivity.

What do I mean by "key activities?" Well, do you know the simple, key
activities that distinguish thin people from people who struggle with
their weight? If you ever went to a "Weigh Down" workshop, you know
that thin people don't munch, they eat only when they are hungry, they
stop eating when they are full, and they eat smaller portions of food.
In contrast, people who struggle with their weight tend to be
"grazers" who eat large portions of food and don't stop eating even
when they feel stuffed. This means that becoming thin doesn't
necessarily require a massive amount of will power counting calories,
weighing portions, and developing meal plans. The average person can
lose weight by sticking to the key activities of eating less and
becoming aware of when they are hungry and when they are full.

What are the simple, key activities that distinguish financially
stable people from people with chronic financial troubles? Financially
stable people resist going into debt, they save, and they don't fill
their lives with expensive doodads. So what does this mean? This means
that becoming financially stable doesn't necessarily require keeping
track of every expenditure to the penny, becoming a Scrooge, and
denying yourself your dreams. The average person can become
financially stable by following a few, key principles of money
management.

Now, back to the 80/20 Principle. The book, 80/20 Principle says,

There are always a few key inputs to what happens and they are often
not the obvious ones. If the key causes can be identified and isolated
we can very often exert more influence on them than we think possible.

What this means is that there are a few key things that cause us to
feel overwhelmed and under-supported, that contribute to that feeling
of always being on edge and the tenseness in our bodies, and that make
us want to throw up our hands and quit.

Simple measures

OK, what are some simple measures we can take? First of all, we can
identify our "energy vampires." These are the people, activities, and
beliefs that literally "suck" the energy and enthusiasm out of us.

People as Energy Vampires. Not only can groups be draining, but
certain individuals can cost us a lot of energy. In our former church,
there was a woman who was like a huge emotional vacuum. Her neediness
and negativity would suck all of the optimism and energy out of me. I
had to learn to let someone else try to help her.

When I first started homeschooling three boys, I tried to keep up with women's Bible studies, homeschooling field trips and other get-togethers, but it didn't take long to realize these social outings didn't provide me with enthusiasm, they only wore me down.

I also had to learn to say no. It's amazing that people will assume
since you're home all day, you're available. They wouldn't dream of
calling a career woman at her office and asking her to take the
afternoon off to listen to their problems, but they will call you and
assume you're free to help them. I learned to think of myself as a
"career woman," only my career was managing a home and educating my
children. I didn't just work a 40 hour week, I was on the job 24/7,
so didn't have to apologize or lie when I said, "I'm committed this
afternoon."

Before you know it, you can spend 80% of your time on social
activities that have a pay-back of less than 20% in terms of what is
really important to you. There are two key solutions to the "People as
Energy Vampires" problem. (1) Pare down your involvement to only those
20% of social activities that have real meaning to you, and (2) Get an
answer-phone and let it take all calls for certain hours each day. If
your household is like mine, just leaving an answer-phone on most of
the day saves me about 45 minutes in answering telemarketing calls.

Activities as Energy Vampires. One of the best pieces of stress-
reducing advice I ever got was from a time management book. It said to
mentally visualize myself going through a typical day. This meant
visualizing getting out of bed, getting dressed, fixing breakfast,
brushing my teeth, and so on...every little activity I typically did
in a day. As I screened through my day, the book said to notice any
time I felt irritation, tension, or resistance, and jot down that
activity.

What an eye-opener! The first thing I realized is that it irritates me
to be interrupted while I am in the bathroom. Sounds pretty stupid,
right? But what this meant was that I was starting every day irritated
because there was hardly ever a time I wouldn't be interrupted while I
was in the bathroom. Stupid problem. Simple solution to eliminating
that source of irritation: Always close the door when I go into the
bathroom and tell everyone that when the bathroom door is closed I am
not to be disturbed.

By the time I finished visually screening a typical day, I realized
that there were dozens of annoyances like the bathroom scenario. None
of them was significant enough by itself to ruin my day, but a day
filled with 40 or 50 unconsciously irritating moments might have
something to do with my being frazzled by suppertime.

Certain routine activities are always accompanied by some amount of
emotional or physical pressure. What are your stressful activities?
The laundry? Cooking? Shopping? I've never particularly liked to cook.
Plus, taking a car-load of small boys to the grocery store has got to
be on my list of "Top 10 Ways to Torture a Tired Mother." So I had to
experiment with getting the grocery shopping done without wearing me
out (or freaking me out when I saw the receipt), and with developing
some simple menu plans that didn't exhaust me after a long day. Plus,
I had to be realistic about my limitations. As much as I might want to
provide my family with three, lovingly created, nutritious, home-
cooked meals a day, it would be psychotic of me to think I could pull
it off and still do everything else I needed to get done. So in my
household, we have meals where everyone is on their own to fix
something for themselves, meals that another family member prepares,
and meals that I prepare, depending on everyone's schedule and what
will give us the most family time around the table.

Another thing that can be done is to go through each room of the house
and note anything that is irritating. Rooms have a powerful effect on
our sense of well-being. They can make us feel like prisoners in our
own homes or make us feel gracious and relaxed. Are there certain
colors that make you feel tense? That make you feel relaxed? Could
the room be re-arranged so that the pattern of traffic flow is better?
Could simple changes be made that contribute to a sense of peace and
order?

Do the tools you have enhance your productivity? For example,
I started out writing our catalogs on an old IBM electric typewriter
($25, second-hand), made photocopied reductions of the book covers,
and had to cut and paste everything together. It was a massive, time-
consuming, mess-producing job. So, guess how I began to feel about the
catalog? I dreaded the thought of starting each new one, and the whole
time I worked on one I was a witch. It was like trying to build a
modern house with stone tools. Then one day I heard Mary Pride say she
always tried to invest in things that increased her productivity. I
began to look around at all of the equipment I relied on. Everything
from my vacuum cleaner to my typewriter was out-dated and difficult to
use. So I began systematically replacing my "tools," starting with the
equipment I used most and that caused me the most aggravation. I also
began investing in skills that made me more productive. I learned how
to use word processing programs and scanners and Adobe Photoshop. I
read every household and time management book I could get my hands on.
I tried to increase my knowledge and skill in every area that drained
energy.

Another stressful area for home schooling parents is the "schooling"
itself. In our desire to make sure we don't leave any educational
gaps, we tend to overdo. We need to evaluate our homeschools by the
80/20 Principle. What are the key areas we need to be concentrating
on? How can we eliminate the unnecessary and ineffectual? What simple
changes can we make to decrease stress and enhance enthusiasm?

Lifestyle as an Energy Vampire. A recent article in U.S. News and
World Report focused on sleep-deprivation in America. Because of our
fast-paced lifestyles, very few Americans ever know the clarity of
thought and level of energy that comes with being fully rested. Not
only do adults suffer from lack of sleep, but now children are at risk
for sleep deprivation, because their lives have become as demanding as
their parents'.

Although this seems elementary, the amount of rest you get and the
kind of food you eat can have a dramatic effect on your ability to
cope with life's demands.

Some questions you might ask yourself are: What makes me happy? What
energizes me? What makes me feel productive? What comforts and renews
me when I feel worn out and used up? What am I passionate about?

You can make major lifestyle changes that refresh you, or you can make
minor changes by building "happiness islands" into your day. For
example, I am a person who needs solitude in order to recharge and
reconnect with what is important to me. Yet for years I lived in a
four room house with three active boys and five or six employees
coming in and out of an upstairs office all day. It was a radical
invasion of my privacy, and some days I thought I would lose my mind.
I had to force myself to find reflective time, to create "happiness
islands" for myself. Sometimes these "happiness islands" were as
simple as taking a walk by myself, or shutting myself in my bedroom
with a good book. Sometimes they had to be more extreme, like flying
to Dallas to participate in a horse-judging seminar, or taking the
boys to the beach for a few days by ourselves. In the process, I found
out which colors, smells, sights, and activities renew me.

Beliefs as Energy Vampires. Think about it. Here we are, absolute
amateurs, sitting around our kitchen tables, using our own children as
guinea pigs and clinging to a belief that we can somehow give them a
better education than an American institution that has multi-million
dollar facilities and a professional staff, and that spends an average
of $5,500 a year on each child. The only tools we have at our disposal
are our own willingness to give it a try and assorted teaching
materials modeled after those used in the public schools. So we are
surrounded with constant questions-questions from our relatives, our
friends, members of our church-that undermine our convictions. Even
worse, we have to battle questions from own minds like "Can I really
pull this off? Do I know what I'm doing? Am I doing too much or too
little? Am I using the right teaching material? Am I simply wasting
time? Am I going to warp my children and make them total misfits?"

No wonder we struggle with burnout!

Obviously, these questions can become "energy vampires" that erode our
sense of confidence about what we are trying to accomplish. We need to
surround ourselves with confidence builders that reinforce our
convictions, like books by John Gatto that let us know all is not as
good as it may seem in the public schools. Or books by Raymond Moore
that tell us that warm, loving, family life overcomes any deficiencies
there may be in our teaching materials and methods. Or books by Edith
Schaeffer that make us realize our homes have the power to mold lives
in eternal ways.

There are three major "energy vampire" beliefs I have noticed as I've
talked with home schooling families across the nation. You can
probably spot more self-defeating beliefs in your own life, but here
are three I have noticed:

Beliefs have a powerful impact on how we perceive life. Next time you
are frustrated, anxious, or depressed, ask yourself, "What would I
have to believe to feel this way?"

1. The belief in scarcity. This is the belief in "not enough"-not
enough time, energy, money, opportunities, resources, and so on. When
we hold a belief in scarcity, we limit ourselves. We tend to not step
outside of our own "boxes," because we feel we must hoard what little
we have and we feel that no matter how much we try, our efforts won't
be "enough." We are always afraid we are going to "run out" of time,
energy, money, opportunities, etc., etc. When we choose to believe in
scarcity, we not only limit ourselves, but we insult God-the God Who
is Enough, and Who, in fact, promises to give to us exceeding abundant
y, pressed down, and running over. We also lock ourselves into anxiety
over finances and time pressure, and into regret and grief over wasted
time, energy, and money. One of the reasons our family has tried to
keep Hudson Taylor's biography in print is that he was a man with a
firm conviction that God would always "be enough," and his response
to every extremity was, "Now we have an opportunity to see what God
can do!"

2. The belief in difficulty. The word "bummer" has become firmly
entrenched in the American vocabulary. It is reflective of a widely
held belief that life is a hassle, a battle, an uphill climb, a
constant proof of Murphy's Law ("everything that can go wrong will").
Yes, it is true, we live in a fallen world, but that doesn't mean we
have to approach everything with a "What's the use?" attitude.

One of the most important lessons I ever learned was about the power
of repetition. I used to never make up my bed, because I would hit the
floor running each morning and never slow down until I fell into bed
again at night. The unmade bed always bothered me, but it seemed like
an insurmountable task to tackle first thing in the morning. A friend
happened to mention that if you do something for six months, it
becomes a habit and it no longer requires any extra emotional or
physical energy. Silly as it may sound, I thought, "Maybe I can try
making up my bed for six months." Well, that was twenty five years
ago, and I don't even think about making up the bed anymore. I just do
it when I get up. Since that time, I have used the power of repetition
to eliminate the draining effect of certain tasks that I dislike. I've
found out that social scientists call this "unconscious competence."
All tasks, particularly tasks that require overcoming a certain amount
of inner resistance, have a "competency" curve where once you reach a
level of mastery, no further mental, emotional or physical effort is
required. We see this all the time when we teach a child to read. For
months it seems like we are getting nowhere, but all of a sudden our
child reads effortlessly.

Speaking of the word "bummer," did you know that you can change how
you feel about life by simply changing the words you use? If you find
your everyday conversation filled with words like "exhausted,"
"rushed," "overloaded," "stressed," "frustrated," "disappointed,"
and so on, you may want to make a conscious effort to change the words
you use. Find positive (or even humorous) words to replace your
"bummer" words. For example, you can say, "I am achieving warp speed"
instead of saying "I'm rushed" or "I'm at critical mass" instead of
"I'm overwhelmed." Not only will changing your words make you think
about the labels you put on your life, but it will make those around
you start listening to you again. Your family has probably tuned you
out because they've heard you say the same negative things over and
over.

3. The belief in failure. Robert Kiyosaki says the most damaging
beliefs the public school system teaches are (1) that mistakes are bad
and (2) that there is only one right way to do something. These
beliefs create a fear of failure, a fear of making mistakes, that
thwart true learning. Kiyosaki further says that most true learning
comes from making mistakes, from falling down and trying again like
you do when you learn to walk or learn to ride a bicycle. So failure
always has something to teach us, and often teaches us more than
success does. Kiyosaki says there are no failures, only "outcomes"
and he calls mistakes "outcomes with attached emotions."

What if we really believed God works everything for our good and even
redeems our mistakes? That would dispel a lot of our fear and anxiety.

4. The belief that it will always be this way. One of my mother's
favorite phrases is "This too, will pass." It is her way of
acknowledging the inevitability of change. Sure, right now you are up
to your elbows in baby doody, your house is a wreck, and there is no
way you will have supper on the table in time. No wonder you feel
stressed and harbor thoughts of sending the kids to military school!
But believe me, there will be a day when you would give anything to
have a peanut-butter and jelly smudged four-year-old son crawl onto
your lap and ask you to read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel for
the four hundredth time. These days with your children will pass you
by in an instant. All of my children are now well beyond the diapers
and peanut-butter stage and what I miss most are the snuggles, the
little hands reaching up to me, the plaintive cries for "just one
more story," the proud calls of "Mama, come quick and see what I did!"

How could I ever have thought it was a hardship to read Mike Mulligan?
I would gladly trade all of the clean houses in the world for more of
those stressful years when my children were small and every day held a
thousand new wonders for them to discover.

Beliefs have a powerful impact on how we perceive life. Next time you
are frustrated, anxious, or depressed, ask yourself, "What would I
have to believe to feel this way?" Recognizing the false beliefs you
allow yourself to hold about people and situations, and then
consciously trying to align those beliefs with God's truth, will
dramatically change the way you approach life. For example, if you
believe your children are "rug rats," you will relate to them totally
differently than if you believe they are "blessings from God."

In The Safest Place on Earth, Larry Crabb says:

We simply do not believe in a God who is so intrinsically good that
His commitment to be fully Himself is equivalent to a commitment to be
very good to us. When He tells us that He is out for His own glory,
and will glorify Himself by making known who He is, we can relax. It's
something like a wealthy, generous father declaring his intention to
display his true character. We know we're in for a bundle. That is, if
we're his heirs.

Spiritual Friendships,
Mentors and Christian Counselors

We are relational beings, and, ultimately, all of our problems are
relational. All of the practical areas discussed so far in this
article have to do with changing how we relate to created things
(like time and our living environment) and changing what we allow to
affect our relationship with ourselves (our thought patterns, our
energy level, etc.). But there are other relationships that contribute
to stress and conflict in our lives. Yes, we may have too much to do
and not enough time to do it, but this time/space problem only reaches
"burn-out" when there are underlying relational problems such as
tension between husband and wife, conflict between parents and
children, or estrangement between fellow Christians. Usually the
largest source of relational stress is in our marriages, because most
of us got married without ever being taught how to make a marriage
work.

Those of us with relational problems don't need time-management
courses or housekeeping seminars, we need spiritual friendships,
mentors, and counselors who help us develop right relationships with
others and with God.

What about spiritual friendships? Unfortunately, many of us hesitate
to share our deepest struggles, because we suspect other Christians
will treat us like a problem that needs to be fixed. Larry Crabb says
in The Safest Place on Earth that all Christians yearn for...

...a community of friends who are hungry for God, who knows what it
means to sense the Spirit moving within them as they speak with you.
You long for brothers and sisters who are intent not on figuring out
how to improve your life, but on being with you wherever your journey
leads.

We would give nearly anything to be part of a community that was
profoundly safe, where people never gave up on one another, where
wisdom about how to live emerged from conversation, where what is
most alive in each of us is touched....where we would feel safe enough
to meaningfully explore who we are with confidence so that the end
point would be a joyful meeting with God.

Scripture tells us that God intends for the Body of Christ to be just
that: a safe place that nourishes the godly in us and brings us to a
"joyful meeting with God." It is worth searching for spiritual
companionship, even if we find only one or two others who befriend us
spiritually.

What about mentors? Within the Body of Christ, godly older women are
specifically intended to help other women be all that they can be as
wives, mothers, and home-makers. But, as I once remarked to a
Christian psychologist, "All of the older Christian women I know are
faking it just as badly as I am!"

Most of us have struggled to become Titus 2 women-keepers at home,
lovers of our children and husband, etc.-but very few of us have had
godly older women to show us the way. Instead, we have been nurtured
and discipled by women who are as unskilled as we are at fulfilling
the Titus 2 mandate. I have always thought of my generation as a
"sandwich generation." We are "sandwiched" between a generation that
never mentored us, and a generation that desperately needs for us to
mentor them.

How do we cope with this dilemma? First, we need to take a good, hard
look at who our primary influencers are. Are these women worthy role
models? Can they provide us with a pattern of beliefs and godly
living as well as with practical skills that we can duplicate in our
own lives? Is their influence causing us to be happier and more
productive, or do we relate to them because "misery loves company?"

Second, we can search for women worthy of modeling. Sometimes this
will mean we have to settle for second-hand modeling, by reading
books or listening to tapes by women who are well-respected and
generally acknowledged as worthy to instruct other women. For example,
most of my role models are women I never knew personally: women like
Corrie Ten Boom, Edith Schaeffer, and others whose lives will
withstand scrutiny.

In addition to the lack of godly, older women, there is a dearth of
mature Christian counselors. It is hard to find someone to talk to
whose advice isn't mixed with pop-psychology, or who doesn't try to
superimpose their agenda over your problems. What do I mean by
"agenda?" It's like the old saying: "When you have a new hammer,
everything looks like a nail." We've all had the experience of someone
trying to make our problems fit their doctrine. If they happen to be
into inner healing, then our problem becomes the "nail" to their inner
healing "hammer." If they happen to believe in demons, then our
problem becomes the "nail" to their deliverance "hammer." Don't be
ashamed to seek professional help, but when you do, check the person
out as carefully as you would any other mentor. And don't let anyone
ever treat you like a "nail."

Sin and Unbelief in Our Lives

No discussion of frustration and stress would be complete without
examining whether there is any sin or unbelief in our lives that may
be contributing to our feelings of being overwhelmed and under-
supported. The primary relationship that undergirds all of our other
relationships is the relationship we have with God. If our
relationship with God is out of balance because of sin or unbelief,
all other relationships suffer and no amount of time management,
household organization, self-help, spiritual friendships, mentors, or
counselors will help. These measures may seem to provide temporary
relief, but will never address the root problem, which is our
disobedience to or lack of faith in God.

Let's look at the three most common areas of sin that cause women to
be stressed-out. First, there is the area of proper discipline and
training of children. When we do not "nurture and admonish" our
children in the ways God requires, we are not only creating children
who make our lives miserable, but more importantly, we are sinning
against God. Next is the area of the husband-wife relationship. If
your attitude toward your husband stinks, it will be impossible to
achieve a sense of peace and order in your home no matter how hard
you try. Finally, there is the area of personal sin. Maybe your house
is a wreck because you feel it's unfair for you to have to do so much
work, or you feel cheated of your potential by being a mother and
home-maker. Or maybe you're caught up in some secret sin like over-
eating or sexual fantasies, or whatever. No matter what your personal
sin, it clouds your relationship with God, with others, and with
earthly things like time and money.

The bad news about sin is that it is like a disease that weakens every
part of our lives. The good news is that God freely forgives and heals
us if we confess our sins and turn from our wicked ways.

Unbelief is a form of sin. God has provided everything we need through
many precious promises, and through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
This "everything" includes strength and vision to enjoy the privilege
and endure the demands of home schooling our children and running a
household. The Bible says, "The wise woman builds her house, but the
foolish woman tears it down with her own hands." We are foolish women
when we let our sin and unbelief tear down our houses.

Reaching Ground Zero with God

When you're in the midst of a crisis, when you've reached the end of
your rope, when you can't seem to find the inner resources to keep
going for another day, you often will reach a place of "ground zero"
with God. Ground zero is a term used to designate the immediate blast
area of a nuclear bomb, and sometimes life sends "bombs" that leave
you feeling like you are in nuclear winter. The nuclear winters of
life are times when you must come to terms with Who God really is. So
in one way these times are extreme challenges, but in another way they
are "gifts" from God because they give you a true perspective of what
is valuable and what is not, they show you who your real friends are,
and they force you to accept God on His terms.

Here is the story of one of my "ground zero" experiences. In January,
1994, due to a freak accident, a piece of metal fractured my skull and
destroyed my right eye. Just before the accident occurred, Chris had
resigned from the pastorate and the lease was up on the house we were
renting. This meant we had sixty days to find another place to live
and another source of income. The Elijah Company at that time
certainly was not capable of sustaining us financially.

While I was recovering from surgery for removal of my eye, well-
meaning Christians came and counseled me. Most of their counsel was
variations on five themes: either (1) there must be some sin in my
life for me to have been injured, or (2) I had somehow "come out from
under my covering of authority" for this to have happened, or (3) I
would never have been injured if Chris hadn't decided to leave the
pastorate, or (4) God was teaching me a powerful lesson through this,
or (5) I must be a very special person for God to have let this happen
to me. All of this conflicting counsel further unraveled me
emotionally and I began to feel like I would throw up if I ever heard
Romans 8:28 again.

After my release from the hospital, I had to be very careful in
standing, and was not supposed to lift anything or do any physical
work for six weeks. The only comforting aspect of that six weeks was
a tape my sister sent me with the chorus, "I'm going to walk right out
of this valley, lift my hands and praise the Lord!" I don't know the
name of the song, but I played it over and over.

But a remarkable thing happened. Some people I had thought were good
friends vanished, but people I hardly knew started packing up the
house for me. They brought meals and offered to watch the children.
A church group from another part of town came over the day we had to
move, rented the moving van, loaded it, drove it to our new place,
unloaded it, and cleaned up the old house. Then they presented us with
a "love offering" of enough money to help us get started in the new
direction we felt God was leading us.

The challenges continued. Losing an eye meant losing depth
perception and balance, so I had to re-learn how to do many, many
things I had never before realized relied on hand-eye coordination,
balance, and depth perception. This was a very long, fearful process,
but I had to keep going because life didn't slow down just because I
had been injured. Children needed caring for, a household needed
managing, and a business needed me to write catalogs, speak at
conventions, and exhibit at book fairs. There were times during those
first years after the accident when I was hanging on emotionally and
spiritually by the thinnest of threads.

But you know what? As trying as these times were, something "ground
zero" about God was being formed in me. Francis Shaeffer always
described our relationship with God as a series of "bows." Well, I had
to bow to God's god-ness. This meant I had to acknowledge that He is
God and I'm not. It's hard to explain, but I realized that God is God,
so He's always right, no matter what happens and no matter what I
might think about what He does. It may not make sense, but it was very
freeing to know my life was out of my control and in the hands of a
God whose "work is perfect and all His ways are just."

Several months after the surgery, I went for one of my monthly
doctor's appointments and happened to sit in the waiting room next to
a man who had also lost his eye. I asked him what had helped him get
through it and he told me his story. He had been a telephone workman
repairing the line when the pole he was attached to snapped at the
base and fell over on him. The whole right side of his body had been
crushed and he had undergone multiple surgeries to regain limited use
of his limbs and to reconstruct his face. This is what he said, "For
the first few months to a year, all you will be able to think about is
what happened to you and how bad off you are. Then, after about a
year, you'll only think about it a few times a day. After about
another year, you'll only think about it a couple of times a week,
then a couple of times a month, and then you'll get on with your life
and hardly ever think about it anymore." It's been over six years now,
and the man was right.

There is one final "gift" I want to mention. One of my greatest
private griefs in losing an eye was that I found I couldn't ride a
horse anymore because I would get dizzy and lose my balance. I
struggled with feeling like one of the things I loved to do most had
been stripped from me. Then, in the fall of 1999 I went to a Cowboys
for Christ service at the All-American Quarter Horse Congress. One of
the men who spoke at the service (Steve Heckaman) had been a famous
horse trainer who was involved in a horrendous traffic accident that
crushed the right side of his body, killed his wife, and injured his
young son. He had to undergo multiple surgeries and extensive
rehabilitation. On that day in Cowboy Church he shared how the
accident had totally transformed his life and brought him to Christ.
He had learned to walk again, but one of his biggest challenges had
been riding again because he had lost his right eye and no longer had
the balance and depth perception he needed to stay in the saddle. With
the help of friends, he learned to ride again and came back to the
show ring and won at the largest Quarter Horse show in the world.

So guess what? I'm starting to ride again. I'm still scared, and it's
still a struggle, but I'm going to do it.

So what's the point of all this. Well, one point is that your "ground
zero" experience may be the turning point in someone else's life.
Another point is that "ground zero" experiences will eventually enter
the "This too shall pass" phase and life will move on. The third point
is that there will always be someone else whose "ground zero"
experiences make yours look like a piece of cake. The fourth point is
that, after a "ground zero" experience, life's everyday hassles don't
seem so hard to bear. And the final point is that these experiences
can be "gifts" in disguise, gifts that bring you face to face with Who
God really is.

In Closing

I know this article is way too long, and I've turned it into a
testimonial, but before closing I want to share a recent experience.
My father died unexpectedly in November. Our grief was intense, but
the funeral was a family celebration of his life and faith in God.
Our son James sang one of Papa's favorite hymns, Chris and I both
spoke and shared memories of his life, and his grand-daughter read a
poem she had written.

During the preparations for my father's funeral, I began thinking
about my grandmother, Caroline Blackshear Bridges. When she died
nearly 25 years ago, I drove to Blakely, Georgia for her funeral.
As I looked around me at her children, grandchildren, and great
grandchildren, as well as all the friends who had assembled in the
First Baptist Church to pay their respects to the woman we had all
called "Miss Carrie," I thought about Exodus 20: 5 that says God
visits "the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and
fourth generation." I was suddenly struck with the reality that the
reverse of that scripture is also true. God blesses the children of
the righteous to the third and fourth generation. I knew that Miss
Carrie had been a Christian. Her father died when she was a child,
but her maternal grandfather was a Christian who said he received a
call from God to become a missionary to the then wild and sparsely
settled portions of backwoods Georgia. His name was James C. Bass,
and he would travel to remote lumber camps and stand on a stump to
preach the gospel to the rough lumberjacks. This grandfather had a
powerful impact on Miss Carrie's life.

So there I was at my grandmother's funeral, over half a century after
James C. Bass died, realizing that nearly every one of Miss Carrie's
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were Christians. As
I sat through that funeral, I was overcome with gratitude for my godly
heritage.

Then, this November I was at my father's funeral (Miss Carrie's son).
I again saw children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren: three
generations who had all been affected by my father's belief in God.
My father was not only a Christian, he was a Southern gentleman, who
imparted a legacy of loyalty, integrity, principle, productivity, and
confidence to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as
well as to all those around him. He gave us all a firm belief that
each person's life could count for something.

I spoke at my father's funeral, and what I shared was that God is
faithful to bless righteousness. One righteous person can impact four
generations, and those four generations can each impact four
generations after them, so that the ongoing impact of righteousness
can be never-ending as it passes down into the future. In fact, the
Bible tells us God shows His mercy and steadfast love to a thousand
generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments (Exodus
20:6).

How about that? We can bring mercy and steadfast love to a thousand
generations simply by loving God and keeping His commandments.

So, I guess what I want to tell each of you who reads this article is:
YOUR LIFE CAN AFFECT FOREVER. Maybe you don't have generations of
godliness standing behind you, but you can start where you are and
affect your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren-at least
three generations beyond you. And each of them can affect at least
three generations beyond them. And who knows? If God were once willing
to spare Sodom for only ten righteous men, maybe your presence in your
own city has more of an impact than you could ever imagine.

Disclaimer

I know this article tends to sound like I've got it all together.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's only by God's grace
that I am a fairly sane woman today, so I feel somewhat hypocritical
in writing this article.

What makes me bold enough to write it is that I used to love listening
to John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Fellowships. Wimber's life
impacted thousands, but every time he spoke he freely acknowledged
there was nothing in him of any worth. He would often say, "I'm just
a fat man trying to get to heaven." Well, I'm a lot like that. There's
nothing in me of any worth. I'm just a frazzled, adventurous Mom
trying to get to heaven.

Homeschooling the CM way...

means we write lots of things like recipes, instructions on how to build an ant farm, lists of words that remind us of Thanksgiving, poems by John Ciardi, personal nature journals, Bible verses, favorite sections from Little House on the Prairie, book reviews written on Amazon, dictations from Aesop's Fables and narrations from The Girl of Limberlost. All this practice makes us good writers, spellers, punctuators, and authors.

Math is counting pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters and counting then by ones, twos, fives, tens. We use colored dry beans to add with and also things like seashells, rocks, and anything else that hands can hold. We use textbooks too, but we like to solve problems like: What is 40% off the shirt I want to buy? OR How do I balance my checkbook?

For history CM style, we read good books aloud like Little Britches, Johhny Tremain, DeAulaire's Abe Lincoln and Greek Myths. We prefer to read whole books for history instead of textbooks so we can learn
"whole history" rather than "snippets of history." If we read a biography about Ben Franklin, we read a whole history about the life and times...included will be other famous people like George Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty. We learn of the hustle and bustle of life on the harbor and in the streets of old New England. We may even cross-stitch a sampler like young colonial girls did back then or make a quill pen to write with!

Geography ...we will learn our states and capitals, but we may also visit there via a good book or via a children's picture atlas. We may "tour" Burma by reading a book about the Judson's who were missionaries there or "visit" Africa by reading about David Livingstone. A video to the Pyramids of Egypt will help us see not just the monuments themselves, but a way of life which a people still live today.

Natural Science... we enjoy many nature walks together. We hunt bird nests in winter when the snow banks are so high we can just reach up and snatch one. We make seed charts from the seed pods that form in our gardens in fall or from wild plants that grow in our pastures. We identify birds, insects, grasses, wildflowers, flower parts, rocks anfd fossils.

We watch our cows and sheep give birth spring and continually observe them caring for their young. We keep nature journals and try to record in them weekly...drawings of leaves, and pressed leaves, drawings of sharptail grouse and feathers. We've found that to get to know nature is much like reading a "living books"...we get the whole picture of God's creation rather than someone else's short analysis. We do use and need good field guides however.

Poems are for Fridays! We gather all the poetry books we own and begin paging through them to our favorites. We take turns reading them aloud to one another...some new and many repeat favorites. Sometimes we memorize one or record one in our nature journal or copybook.

Reading is a love...Chronicles of Narnia, My Friend Flicka, A Girl of Limberlost, On to Oregon, Ping, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, The Real Mother Goose, Aesop's Fables, Just So Stories, Carry On Mr. Bowditch, Little Britches, Rifles for Watie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Very Hungry Caterpillar...and the list goes on.

Singing...we sing songs together...Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Buffalo Gals, Crawdad Song, Shortnin' Bread, Jesus Loves Me, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, Happy Trails. Some of us play piano, some guitar, some play pan lids or sticks. We listen to Handel, Chopin, Beethoven and Bach. Sometimes we listen gladly, sometimes not, but we listen and we know what good music is. We listen to little brother learn to
play the piano (joyful noise?) and big sister play her Moonlight Sonata. We also like to play our Country/Wester loud while working!

Let's not forget that to homeschool in to get along with those in our home and to function as a family. We learn to be patient with little brother's legos while we read aloud. We learn to help another bake a cake for the first time. We try to teach our family something we know well...how to change a flat tire, water the garden seeds without washing them away, how to feed a weak lamb by bottle. We learn to work together . Our life isn't perfect and yes, there are differences and picking and fighting too, but we keep on trying.
We try to have good habits and good manners at home FIRST and other places SECOND. We respect each other and each other's things. Homeschooling is life and we learn best by being a real and active part of this LIFE. What a "good life"; we have.

by Jody Courtney
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
http://members.truepath.com/Jody/index.html

Bissmillahir Rahmanir Raheem

"Understanding Islamic Education" is the title of a tape by Imam Hamza Yusuf
that I have been listening to recently. Interestingly, just last week,
an article came to me via the internet called "The Impact of Western Hegemony
on Muslim Thought" by Prof. Yusuf Progler. First of all, I had to look
up "hegemony" in the dictionary. According to the dictionary, it means,
"predominance of one state over others". As I had hoped, the article was
a link to understanding the differences between Islamic and Western Education.
In both articles, the authors spoke about the contradiction of Western
education and Islamic education, the effects of Western education on the
Ummah in recent history, and most importantly, the effects on us and the
next generation of Muslims, our children.
In my family, this has recently become a predominent topic of study and
conversation as my 3 1/2 year old daughter is rapidly becoming the human
sponge that Allah Subhanahu wa ta 'ala created children to be. The important
thing about this phenomenon is the way that children learn from watching
and imitating what is around them. I did not realize this fully until one
day during Maghrib prayer she recited the Fatiha and two other surahs .
Just like that. I was pretty surprised and upon coaxing, I found out that
she also knew two more surahs and could call the Iqama. Subhana Allah !
The need for formal education for her in another year and a half has led
me to investigate different avenues available to us; private Islamic school,
homeschooling, or public school.
In Prof. Yusuf Progler's paper, he warns against Muslims participating in
the Western educational system. He says that by using it, one adopts Western
assumptions on the nature of existence. "Most Western practices of education
have institutionalized (their) one version of what it means to be a human
being...Muslims ought to re-evaluate their situation because the Western
understanding of existence is quite different than the teachings of Islam.
Islam has its own explanation..."
Western colonizers of Muslim countries knew the importance of taking Islam
out of the minds of Muslims, and achieved this by secularizing schools
and teaching Islam only in an historic context at the end of the school
day when the student's concentration was at its lowest. Results of this
can be seen in many immigrant Muslims in America. When someone suggested
to an immigrant sister that she should not let her children watch so much
TV, and instead, teach them about their deen, she said that only Allah
made people Muslims and she prayed that Allah would make her children Muslims.
She honestly didn't understand the concept of educating her children about Islam.
On the internet, a sister raised in a Muslim country was writing about the
wonderful freedoms of living in the US. Some Muslims seem to take the influence
of an Islamic atmosphere for granted ; adhan being called at each prayer
time, modestly dressed people, halal food the norm, everyone greeting with
salaams, lack of crime, availability of Qur'anic teachers and people treating
one another as brothers and sisters in Islam, as being an influence in
their upbringing. The importance of this environment on a young Muslims's
mind can not be replaced by the material advantages of living in a western
country. The Western society teaches children by exposure that the norm
of society is high crime, alcohol, fornication, high divorce rate, teenage
pregnancies, deviant sexual practices, immodest clothing, putting individual
desires over societal needs, lack of morals and charity, etc. According
to Dr. Shahid Athar in "Sex Education: An Islamic Perspective", children
in America are exposed to 9,000 sexual scenes per year through the media
and on television . Even now in public schools children are taught that
homosexuality is an acceptable alternative form of family life.
Homeschooling can help Muslim families veer away from Western influences
not only physically, but by allowing the family to choose it's curriculum.
There are many Muslim homeschooling resources, and one comprehensive program
is ArabesQ Academy which is overseen by writer and educator Umm Sulaiman.
She offers many solutions for Muslim families including lesson plans ranging
from complete daily plans to monthly overviews. Also offered are on and
offline correspondance courses with secular education taught via classic
Islamic viewpoints, again with curriculum designed for each families needs.
Another family has fought the battle of raising their children in an Islamic
household and then sending them to local public schools. They seemed to
be a good example of how the two opposite institutions could coexist. After
many years of this apparently good mixture of two worlds, things began
to fall apart. The peer pressure of participating in Western culture raises
it's ugly head during the teen years. A typical problem is teenage daughters
refusing to wear hijab unless praying or attending Islamic functions.
Prof. Progler also says that "...it's not enough for Muslims to say that
the West is bad without an understanding and development of what may be
an alternative. This requires a delicate balance. Imbalance will lead to
teaching religion without any understanding of how the modern world is
affecting the practice and understanding of religion". Many Islamic schools
in America try to create this balance within their curriculums. The Islamic
School of Seattle, for instance, commits to "...provide children with an
atmosphere as close to the Islamic ideal as possible...strenghten them
to meet and deal effectively with the challenges of living in the modern
American society, and...to instill in them a pride in their heritage by
enabling them to approach knowledge from an Islamic point of view."
According to Imam Yusuf in "Understanding Islamic Education", Arabic has
to be a foundation for Islamic education. Knowledge is obtained by first
learning the tools of knowledge; language, reasoning and the ability to
articulate. The Arabic language has been preserved since the time of the
Qur'anic revelations. This allows one to perceive the meanings of the Quran
as it was intended and revealed to the people of that time, which is crucial
as the Qur'an is not interpreted through conjecture, but through knowledge.
That is why The Prophet, may peace be upon him, said that whoever interprets
the Qur'an from his own opinion is mistaken, even if he is correct. Also,
traditional Islamic education teaches children to memorize the whole Qur'an
between the ages of 7 and 9. This, Yusuf says, "...develops a memory in
a child that will surpass others in any school system." From a purely academic
point of view, "the idea is to empower a child with the ability to absorb
information, as a good deal of learning is based on that ability."
The next step after Arabic and Qur'an according to Imam Yusuf, is the study
of Hadith, followed by fiqh. He then commented that at least one or two
people in every family should dedicate themselves to this learning, or
we will seriously decrease our knowledge in the future. We need to produce
scholars to lead the future ummah. The Prophet, may peace be upon him,
said that the two parents of a child who memorizes the whole Qur'an will
be given crowns of light on Yauma Qiyauma. Why would we rather teach our
children to be engineers or doctors? Imam Yusuf and Prof. Progler both
quoted the following hadith in their works: The Prophet, upon whom be peace,
walked into a mosque where there was a group of people surrounding a man.
The Prophet inquired, "Who is that?" He was told, "That is a very learned
man." The Prophet asked, "What is a learned man?" They told him, "He is
the most learned man regarding Arab genealogies, past heroic episodes,
the days of Jahiliyyah, and Arabic poetry." The Prophet said, "That is
knowledge whose ignorance does not harm one nor is its possession of any
benefit to one ."
We know the history of the Islamic state since the time of the Prophet,
may peace be upon him. We have had successes and failures. The Prophet,
may peace be upon him, said that the believers are a mirror to each other.
It is imperative that we look in the mirror of history and see that the
successes were achieved through seeking Allah. To do this, we must ask
ourselves some serious questions. What are we living this life for? What
do we want to teach our children to live their lives for? To work for Microsoft,
or to work for the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu wa t'ala ?
Many warnings about this life are given by Allah throughout the Qur'an,
as in surah 31:33; "...Indeed, the promise of Allah is truth, so let not
the worldly life delude you and be not decieved about Allah by the Deciever
(i.e.,Satan)."
This ayat appears again in surah 35:5. To ignore this would be to participate
in the deception of our children. It is our responsibility as parents to
give them the education they need in order to not be deluded by this worldly
life. What this is ascribing us to is an ideal Islamic life. There are
difficulties, but it is our responsibility to build ourselves and our children
up to the Islamic excellence that Allah and His Messenger, may peace be
upon him, have provided us with the guidance to achieve.
We seek Allah's guidance and help, for indeed. He is the
Generous, the Magnanimous, and the Most Merciful of all merciful

If it's boring...

1) snazzle up homework assignments

2) make it goofy or humorous

3) take breaks (5 minues of something active before, during and after studying)

4) try to finish homework by a certain time

5) play music (or Quran...my suggestion) if able to concentrate on homework, too, especially when doing easy worksheets

6) pretend you're someone or something else while you do your homework

If you have too much to do in too little time...

1) write a time line for doing the work and do one step at a time

2) cut out things that suck up your time (phone, TV, too mahy extra activities/clubs, INTERNET!)

Need to memorize?

1) make up mnemonics (silly sentences or tricks) to remember facts, eg. My Very Elegant Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets is a nmenonic for the nine planet names.

2) use rhymes

3) link it to something in yoru life

4) picture your facts or vocabular

5) make up songs

6) use vocabulary or facts when talking...even make up jokes or use exaggeration

7) write facts down over and over again

8) flashcards

9) post notes around house reminding you of facts, etc. so you read them all over

10) move around while studying if this helps

See book for more tricks to break writer's block, cure book report pain, stop spacing out, plan projects, escape from homework fog and confusion, and tame test jitters.