My daughter is very social and craves having a playmate all the time. She is very intelligent and easily a grade or two ahead because of homeschool, but she complains nearly constantly about feeling lonely, wishing for friend to play with, wanting to talk to someone, even on the phone. My other children are younger and do not satisfy her social need. She is pretty unhappy. What do I do? [Read more…]
I just started homeschooling my 5 year old boy who loves math. I bought the Calvert Kindergarten curriculum because I had no idea what I was doing and thought I needed a lot of structure (which is what I got). It seems to be too slow for him and sometimes boring. He already knows how to do simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication in his head because he is always asking us math questions (especially related to money). He carries around a calculator all day and comes to tell me what 572 plus 12 is. He wants to know about millions and billions and beyond. We have never done addition or beyond on paper but it seems he is ready for that. Should I continue on with these lesson plans as they are outlined or let him go on ahead as he wants to do? [Read more…]
My son is making goals. It gives him a lot of satisfaction to think and plan about the goals he wants to set. It almost makes one feel the satisfaction of accomplishing something, doesn’t it?—just to dream and plan about it.
But planning to do something is not doing it! It is just thinking about doing it!
Julianna
When I was a little girl, I used to dream about living in the south during the Gone with the Wind era, when belles wore full, swishy dresses and used southern hospitality. It seemed ladies were sweet and genteel, and courtesy was the order of the day. Now that I’ve grown up (and studied the Civil War and got accustomed to air conditioning), I don’t think of living then so longingly, but I do still wish that ultra-courtesy was our culture’s style of interaction.
I think as moms we often live in the zone of “tomorrow”. There is just so much to do today and we are getting tired. Tomorrow is always there, promising more time and new energy. Like Annie, it seems we bank our hopes that the “sun will come out tomorrow”.
The bad news is that tomorrow just keeps hopping ahead one more day, and some very important things keep getting scheduled for “tomorrow”.
The world is getting rude.
Sometimes my ears yearn for those soft and fluid words that show our humanity: our belief in Christ and the worth of a soul. The virtues of unselfishness and patience. Ah, words of kindness . . .
Print them out and post them on your bathroom mirror. Practice saying them while you are in the shower, until they sound convincingly polite and loving. Use them all day long, as much as you can. Embrace them and make them part of your vocabulary. Expect your children to do the same. Teach your littlest toddler to say, “You go first” instead of “me first”.
Old Brother Higgins built a shelf
For the family Bible to rest itself
Lest a sticky finger or grimy thumb
Might injure the delicate pages some.
He cautioned his children to touch it not,
And it rests there still with never a blot . . .
And the Higgins tribe are a careless lot.
His neighbor, Miggins, built a shelf.
“Come, children,” he said, “and help yourself.”
Now his book is old and ragged and worn,
With some of the choicest pages torn
Where children have fingered and thumbed and read;
But of Miggins’ children I’ve heard it said
That each carries a Bible in his head.
No Children!
No children in the house to play—
It must be hard to live that way!
I wonder what the people do
When night comes on and the work is through,
With no glad little folks to shout,
No eager feet to race about,
No youthful tongues to chatter on
About the joy that’s been and gone?
The house might be a castle fine,
But what a lonely place to dine!
Self-control is so sorely lacking in our society! Troubles caused by lack of self-discipline range from littering to illegitimate babies to college shootings. We must start very young in teaching our little children to master themselves. They can never call God “Master” until they can call themselves the “King of Me”.
