All Things Hold Together

In my experience reading homeschooling/parenting blogs of the Christian and the avidly not Christian sort, there seems to be one point of disagreement when it comes to parenting: obedience.

Sure, when it comes down to it, I think all parents want their kids to do what they are told when it really matters, but decidedly non-religious parents tend to look at the Christian parenting goal of obedience as a bad thing.

First, to clear up some misconceptions that I have come across, this is my take on what I will call, for lack of a better phrase, Christian parenting. That is not to say it is definitively what one must do if they are to be called a Christian, but what is the typical advice given by Christian parenting experts.

Christian parenting, from what I have gleaned (and I am by no means an expert), is focused on three (cumulative) stages: obedience, responsibility, and gradual freedom. Here I am going to focus on obedience.

With our young children, first time obedience is often the focal point. We want to teach our children to obey the sound of our voice when we first speak, not after we have nagged repeatedly, or convinced them that we have a good reason for our command.

This is often misrepresented by secular parents (for lack, again, of a better phrase) as Christian parents teach their children to have unquestioning obedience to authority, at all times, with no thoughtful consideration given to what that authority figure is telling them to do.

This is not the case. As a child ages, we teach them to reason, we teach them to think for themselves, and we gradually give them freedom, while they are still under our roofs, so they do not fall on their faces when they get out into the real world. We are not raising our children to fail, but to succeed.

The obvious reason for a Christian parent to teach her child obedience is so that child learns that there are authorities above him that he must obey, namely, the Lord.

But this model can be just as useful to non-Christian parents, for their children will also encounter authority figures in their lifetime - teachers, the government, employers, to name a few. To function in society, one must learn to obey authority.

Think about the last time you had to tell your child to do something - repeatedly. Go on, think about it.

Now, fast-forward 20 years. How many employers do you think would appreciate having to tell your adult child to do something - repeatedly?

Parenting with an expectation of first-time obedience provides the groundwork for important self-discipline that one must have to be successful in life. As an adult, that child will be expected to follow orders given the first time they are given. We are helping our children by teaching them to obey.

There is another element to obedience. It is common in the secular parenting advice that I have read (in books, magazines, etc.), to promote the idea that a parent should allow the child to require an explanation before compliance with an order and that the parent should take the time to reason through it with the child. That has got to be the worst advice I have ever followed. (And, yes, when I was a young, non-Christian parent, I did follow that advice. My kids are still recovering from it.)

Don’t misunderstand me, I explain things to my children - after they have complied. They need to learn from my guidance in order to be able to apply it to other similar situations that will arise in their future.

Believe me, I have met children who are expected to obey with no explanation ever given, and they do not know how to apply their parents’ boundaries independently. That is a bad situation. It should be no one’s goal to raise children that cannot function but under their parents’ direction.

The problem I see with encouraging your child to always expect an explanation before compliance is that the child will not be able to discern when it is imperative to obey first and ask questions later. When those situations arise, it is usually an emergency or other situation where compliance is paramount. In such a scenario, there is often not the time to discuss the rationale behind your request, but if a child has been conditioned to require an explanation before compliance (and every time we give a child an explanation before they comply, we are conditioning him to expect an explanation as a prerequisite for compliance), there is little chance that the child will comply quickly without the need for a discussion.

Imagine a classroom where every child demands an explanation, and its following discussion, before doing what the teacher says.

Obedience is an essential skill to develop and, as parents, who know more about the world than our children, we will encounter times when our children must obey immediately, for safety or other reasons. Teaching our children how to reason, think for themselves, and respectfully question authority is also important when they are mature enough to apply it properly. In the meantime, we are not benefiting anyone by raising children who do not know how to do what they are told.

On Sundays that I miss church, which I did this past Sunday because my husband and I were both sick, I usually have Not-So-Crafty Daddy pick up a CD when he goes to Bible study on Monday night.

Until now.

Last night I learned that my church now offers the weekly messages on iTunes. I have it set up to automatically download so I can throw it on my iPod.

Cool.

Technology is so awesome.

While I was away from the computer, I knitted hats for everyone in the family. I also made a little shoulder bag for Little E with the yarn left over from his hat. (He picked the yarn out himself.) The yarn is Jiffy Thick and Quick (a bulky weight yarn).

I made the bag on the small (blue) knifty knitter loom. (I think) I used ten pegs and knitted back and forth until the piece was long enough to fold over for the length of bag I wanted, plus extra for a flap.

After I removed the piece from the loom, I folded it over and stitched up the sides.

I also did a row of single crochet across the edge of the flap to make it lay flat.

I added a strap long enough so Little E could wear the bag across his chest, which I made with a simple crochet chain.

I also crocheted a yarn button and attached it to the base of the bag, and then looped a piece of yarn at the end of the flap to fasten the button to.

The bag is just the right size to hold a few Hot Wheels-type cars or other little treasures.

We were hit with a monster of a blizzard on Valentine’s Day. They are still digging out today. We saw a bucket loader clearing one area and a snow blower clearing another, all on a two-block drive.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids enjoying the snow last weekend.

I have more, but I don’t have any good face shots. My photo taking ability was limited by the fact that I remained in the warm comfort of the house.

I just received a pair of snow pants for myself today that I found on clearance, so this weekend we will be having a snow-filled family outing with lots more pictures, I’m sure.

I know that Valentine’s Day was over a week ago, but I had to post this picture of a valentine that Big E made for my sister Samantha.

This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling is being held over at Homeschool Hacks.

And, since I didn’t post last week’s, that one was hosted over at Nerd Family.

I have not been blog reading much lately, so I have not even had a chance to read either carnival. Hopefully, I will get a chance to catch up soon.

I am still working on getting up a post about my recent knitting projects and I have a parenting post in the works, too. I have been keeping my computer off until my husband gets a chance to replace the power supply, which has a sick-sounding fan. The part arrived today, but he said he will probably not get to it until this weekend.

I do hope to get a post up tomorrow, though, regardless. I might not be able to post any pictures, though, if I blog from his computer. It does not have the software I need. (It is the computer he uses to learn Linux on.)

Thanks for stopping by.

Hi blog readers,

I have not been at the computer much this week because we need to replace a part in it that is acting up.

I will have a surprising number of crafty posts when I get back on-line, though. It is amazing how much knitting and other stuff one can accomplish when one is not on the computer all of the time!

I’ll also have lots of pictures of our 25 inches of snow that we got yesterday!

Have a good weekend, in case I don’t get a chance to post before then.

And thanks for reading.

I do really poorly with homeschool planners. I am really good at making them and my post on the old Crafty Mama about making your own planner is still visited (thanks to Google) almost daily.

Once I get my planner all set up, I only use it for about a week and stop. Then, when I decide to get organized again, I use it for a week and stop, again!

I said in January that I wanted to get more structured, so again, I have been through my planner use and non-use cycle. How useless!

I decided that I do not need to have a lesson plan to be structured. If I am using a book or other pre-planned curriculum, I only need to pick up where we left off. If I am planning my own lessons, I just need to have them planned out, but not penciled in on a specific day in a planner.

This way, I can set a time when we will do school every day, but the kids and I can still have the freedom to choose which subject to do, in what order, and how much. Sometimes, they do a few days worth on one subject and then skip a few days. I am flexible enough for that, which is partly why a planner does not work well for me.

My problem is in knowing how much we have done and whether or not we have enough time to finish everything before the school year is over and I need to submit my paperwork to the state.

My solution is the reverse planner. Instead of writing out what we will do on each day, something that we never end up following, I write in what we did do each day. This way, I have a record of what we did. This will help me with my report to the state at the end of the year and I can use it to figure out, at any point, where we are with respect to our curriculum for the year.

I am using a Mary Engelbreit lesson planner that I picked up at the Scholastic Warehouse sale for 50% off. On the weekly planner pages, I write the seven areas of study that are required for the state and list what we did each day under the proper heading. If we do anything additional, I list it in a separate category, for my own knowledge.

Now I have a record of what we did and where we are at, without being tied down to a written plan.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at About Homeschooling.