Training Your Child Part 2 - The Coffeeshop

While I'm waiting for Vicki to complete the questionnaire from the viewpoint of a careers' advisor, I decided to take my 9th grader to coffee and talk about his future as Part 2 of my exploration of careers for my teens.

You may recall in Part 1, my eldest who's in 11th grade was inspired by a book to decide her career with no further discussion.

The last time I had a chat with "Killer", my number 2, he said he was thinking of going into animation for NASA. That was in 2015 as we hiked for 10 miles for my Moon Walk training.

London Moon Walk: with Kim and Jenny

I thought it was time - now that he's 14 - to re-visit the topic, and it's interesting how differently the discussion went this time around.

Killer has done a lot of growing up in the past two years. He has been accepted onto the youth group's leadership training course and completed its first year of it; he volunteers weekly for the library, trains in our swim club's highest squad, and recently was promoted to First Officer in his Trail Life troop.

The highest "boy" office in a TL group

We had some time to kill after his dermatology appointment today, so I took him to the local cafe for a chat.

I did not order a large latte - it was a mistake by the waiter!

We first brainstormed about things that interested him: guitar, animation, computer programming, building computers, careers associated with his lovely voice and English accent such as radio DJ, event announcer, director of films, lighting specialist. Some of these, he thought, were hobbies and not careers. Some of these might be his job. Which ones for a career? He wasn't yet sure.

Then I wanted to establish some ground rules. Given his academic strengths, I wanted him to consider a degree in something "solid" like English, math, science, history, etc. It's best, I said, to be sure to make good grades and to finish, not necessarily to worry about which subject you do it in as long as, at least at this stage when you're not really sure what to do, it's a broad and traditional one.

Next we talked about the God-oriented view: God has made us with certain strengths. He knit us in our mother's wombs to do something. There are seven mountains of influence, one of which we are probably gifted to work in.

And then we had a revelation together: Killer feels called to the mountain of arts and entertainment. This is a complete shock to me: a child who just loves electronics, who can hug a computer to make it work, who knows which buttons of a thousand to press to get the right responses from a machine, an introvert of introverts, and he wants to produce things that make people happy and bring them joy.

For an introvert, he can be quite the comedian!

So with this in mind, I have suggested to him that he has a great opportunity as a 9th grader to spend the next four years in exploration, but not just random exploration: intentional exploration; otherwise, there's a likelihood of frittering away these opportunities by time-consuming use of electronics.

He's a checklist kind of guy, so we'll be looking into creating a checklist of careers to look into this year, and in the meantime, keeping our spiritual ears attuned to what circumstantial opportunities that God might put in our path.

When was the last time you had a "date" with your high schooler to talk about their future? Why not put one on your calendar right now?

In the meantime, put your best guess in the comment box about what you THINK your child wants to do, then update with what he or she ended up surprising you with! We will all enjoy the broad opportunities available to our children.

One Kind of Daily Schedule

I have been home-educating my children for over seven years now, and though I have dabbled in various curricula from unit study to biblically based, they all have one general thing in common: a sympathy to the methods espoused by Charlotte Mason over a hundred years ago.

If you want to know more about the Charlotte Mason method, you can Google the name, or start off with this website.

In the meantime, I thought I would share with you the kind of schedule that my son, Killer, has responded to so well over the past year.

I have made it myself using the "table" function in Word, printing it out, and then laminating it.  That way, he can use a water soluble pen to mark through his work every day, then wipe it all off for the next day, to start over again.

To reproduce it here, I had to save it as a JPEG in "Paint", so it's got a bit garbled in translation.  I think you can get the gist of it, though.

Homeschooling 101 -- Three Steps for the Start

Are you thinking about homeschooling?  Or, are you just starting out?

Either way, you're probably full of questions right now: what curriculum should I use? what kind of schedule should I have? what equipment do I need? how do I convince my friends/family that it's a good idea? should I go see a psychiatrist?

As a homeschooling veteran of seven years, I have three simple pieces of advice for newbies: first, don't rush into anything, especially not curriculum purchases.  Mistakes on this front can be expensive, and it's also likely you'll change your mind a lot as you get more informed and get to know your children better.  If you're desperate to get started, then just use the library for a while.

Second, read anything you can get your hands on with regard to homeschooling.  Terrie Lynn Bittner's book, "Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath -- You Can Do This", has a lot to recommend for itself as a good beginner's book.  Its reviews on Amazon are outstanding.

But don't just limit yourself to books.  Blogs and Yahoo! groups (like Homeschooling Boys) offer a wealth of up-to-date, hands-on information.  Some of my favourites are listed in the sidebar to the right.

Finally, sit down with a pencil and paper so that you can brainstorm what your aim is for homeschooling your children.  This step may seem a bit underwhelming, but I believe it's one of the most important stages in a homeschooling journey.  Times will come when learning at home gets a bit bumpy, or diversions arise, or distractions appear, and then you'll be glad to have a sort of philosophical satnav to keep you on course.

Some possible aims are: providing an atmosphere without bullying, focusing on character-building traits, strengthening family ties, seeking flexibility, letting a child enjoy innocent freedoms for longer, providing an appropriate environment for a child with special needs, accelerating your child's learning, or any number of other goals.

Setting goals will help you decide what method or style of homeschooling you'll adopt for your home: unit study, lapbooking, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, principled, classical, unschooling, or a combination of these (called "eclectic").  This will, in turn, lead you to make wise curriculum choices, that is, those that support your goals rather than something that just looks slick, is popular, or is on sale.

Setting goals will also keep you from straying when "the grass looks greener".  Last year, for example, a friend of mine was looking into a school that specializes in foreign languages for her daughter who's the same age as my #3.  I feel I'm particularly weak in this area, so I was tempted to enrol my children in the same school.  However, as I investigated its total package more carefully, I realised it was far more restrictive and generic than I wanted in the individualized, child-led system I've adopted as my goal.

Of course, your goals may change over time, but don't let that stop you from defining what you're wanting right now.  So get that cup of coffee or tea or can of Coke or whatever, grab a pencil and some paper or your journal or your calendar, and start making some notes about why -- right now and this minute -- you want to homeschool.

When you've reached the stage where you sort of like what you've written, then why not tell me in a comment?  I'd love to hear from you about the goal you've set for your own home-learning journey.