Rejuvenation and Remembrance

by
Marjorie Meyer

Ah, fall is in the air.  The gentle rustle of leaves, the brisk morning freshness, the frosty remnants of the cool night air, the shorter daylight hours.  Colors in the landscape turn from living green to vibrant red, yellow, and orange.  Change is everywhere.  Our hearts and our minds return to the fall rituals so familiar to our childhood-- squeaky new shoes, new sharpened pencils, notebooks, and a ride on the big yellow school bus into the unknown but alluring experiences of a new school year.

Homeschoolers are no different from public schoolers in their need for predictable routines and milestones in the passing of time.  At this time of "new beginnings," I write to remind you to put first in your lives the truly vital and the critically important matters of the family.  Nowhere is this better expressed than in Diane Hopkins remarkable essay:  "The Baby IS the Lesson," reprinted here, with her permission.  (Thanks, Diane!)

I can't remember the first time I read this essay, or even at what stage of my homeschooling journey I read it.  But I can say that its lesson has never been far from my heart.  "The Baby IS the Lesson" is what *every* homeschooler should read, at least once a year.  So, this year, in 2003 we continue the traditional fall reading of this poignant reminder, penned in a moment of inspiration by a life-long homeschooling mother.

And may we, as parents, continue to remind ourselves of what is most important. 

The Baby IS the Lesson
 

One morning on my daily walk, I was fretting and stewing over what I could possibly do with my one-year-old during school time.  I was feeling some despair with a new baby on its way.  I couldn't see any end to the disruption of babies in my home school for many years to come.  I was praying and scheming at the same time:  I could wait until the baby's nap to teach school, I could rotate the children with baby-sitting chore away from our schoolroom, I could get a playpen, etc.:  all solutions that didn't feel right--babies needs their moms!

As I walked and pondered, suddenly the Spirit spoke one sentence to my mind and (as is usually the case with personal revelation) revolutionized my mindset entirely!

"The baby IS the lesson!"

I thought I was trying to teach Math, but in reality I had been teaching, day by day, how an adult values the precious gift of children.  My children, by watching how I deal with the frustration of a crying baby or keep a toddler happy and busy with some of his "own" pieces while we play a math game, are soaking up "the lesson".  Unfortunately, I had occasionally been teaching that the baby interrupts our learning.

How to be a Christ-like person is the most valuable lesson a child could ever learn! 

The lesson is learned moment by moment; watching a parent being patient, handling frustration with kindness, pressing on for the goal in spite of numerous interruptions, valuing each child's needs regardless of inconvenience. That valuable insight--that how Mother handles the baby is "the real lesson"--has dramatically changed how I view my home school.  I am teaching foremost my values:  godly character, kindness, respect for others, individuality, sacrifice and a host of other Christ-like attributes.  Teaching my children reading, writing, math, etc. is very important to me, but my perspective has been altered. 

"Mimic me, follow me, and I will show you the way a Christ-like person acts and what he values."  That is the message well-meaning parents relay to their children, whether they are aware of it or not.  Children try to copy everything anyway (our mannerisms, our daily activities, etc.).  We must be certain that we are providing a correct pattern for them to copy, not only in our daily activities but in our attitude, our tone of voice, and our facial expressions.  We need to conduct our lives so that we can say "follow me".  If our children are to accept our values, what a tremendous responsibility we have to make sure we are living our best, so the lesson is clear and well learned!  What more could you ask for from your homeschool than to produce Christ-like people?

Teaching your children basically means getting your own personal life in order and striving daily to be the leader for them to follow.  Of course, we fall short, and they must look to Christ for the perfect way of being, but they need to see daily how a person striving to follow Him, acts, speaks, lives, solves problems.  We are acting as a proxy, in a sense, for Christ.  Since they can't have his daily role model, then he has given his children earthly parents to be an example, to point the way.  Along with lesson preparations,  we need to prepare ourselves by asking:  "Is the pattern I live the way Christ would act?  Can I say today that I have marked the path for my children to follow?"  Children learn from seeing their parent's role model.  Watching an adult make a simple mistake (such as being too punitive with a child) and go through the process of repenting is a hundred times more effective than an abstract Family Home Evening lesson on repentance.  This means children must be intimately involved with you in your daily life.  A few hours a day after school won't do it.

Children should be involved in the adult's life, rather than daily life rotating around the children.  Research has shown that children who have grown up to be productive well-adjusted adults are those who have been drawn into the parent's world; their daily activities, work, and interests; rather than having parents who centered their world on the child. 

When I began home schooling, I never could find the time to do the things I felt were important for my life;  such as writing in my journal, corresponding with relatives, studying my scriptures, and more.  Somehow, in my busy-ness of trying to teach the kids how to write in their journals, I was neglecting my own journal writing. Thankfully, we now have journal writing time in school daily, and we write letters to relatives together as a family on Sunday. 

Homeschool life should help parents do the daily necessities, rather than usurp the time needed for them.  Home maintenance, chores, food preparation, gardening, food preservation, budgeting, clothing care (mending and sewing), planning family social relationships, caring for small children, record keeping, quilting, wallpapering,  are all wonderful life skills that can be done together that enhance a child's education!

The parent's joyful task is to lead and guide the child into the real world--not to set up a contrived pseudo-world-- to teach skills that the children would easily learn if they spent their time around adults who were striving to live good lives. 

What constitutes an adult trying to live a "good life"?  Following our prophet's counsel alone could be a full-time curriculum!  Plant a garden, read good literature, serve the needy, be politically aware, keep a journal, vote for honest men, develop your talents.  The exciting part about leading a child into the real world is that they are self-motivated.  The moment I sit down to play the piano, all my children want to play and want me to teach them to play something.  No sooner than I begin typing on the computer, I have the whole family "needing to type".  My efforts at writing have, (humorous to me), stimulated the production of "books" from my youngest children.  Modeling is so much more effective than lecturing.

Studies show that the biggest determining factor for a child's success in reading in school is if they have seen a parent reading in the home on a regular basis.  This is especially true for boys if the parent who reads is their father, rather than their mother.  Somehow, the example says far more about the value of reading than endless hours in school reading groups.
 

In every area, it takes instruction to teach skills to little people.  Children need to master the basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic), social manners, music competence, and a host of other abilities, and that does take focused concentration and time from mother/teacher to accomplish.  It isn't realized just by living in a family.  But shared family life practices and contributes to those skills.  Having taught my little girl the numbers and the plus, minus and equal signs and how they worked, she jumped right into figuring out how many plates she needed to set the table using her new skills:  ("We have nine and Mark is on a mission, and the boys are at BYU so that is minus three, so we need six").

When we think of homeschool, sometimes we get tunnel vision, and think "academics," "keeping up to speed" and other worrisome concerns that don't really tell the whole story.  Homeschool is the growing and nurturing of fine, upright people. 

So, how we treat and value the baby really IS the lesson.

Class never dismissed.

 
 

The author of "The Baby IS the Lesson", Diane Hopkins, has written many articles of encouragement for homeschoolers, and is the author of a game-based phonics program.  You can request a catalog of homeschool resources from her family business at (801) 423-9111 or visit their website: www.LDFR.com.