How long do we shelter children? home Schooling

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Hi Everyone,

Here’s a question??? In my Opinion, Home Schooling is clearly the best way to insure that Children get the Moral, Ethical and proper Catholic Up-Bringing that we all want for our children. When do issue’s like Society interaction, being part of a game and loosing, Being involved in conversations that challenge our childrens faith and moral’s…especially among friends come into play? These daily and normal issues are indeed part of growing up…are they not??? When or how do we decide that our children are actually grown up…and ready and can live or make it through in this unholy and cruel and competitive world???
 
Do you have any children? I’ve homeschooled our daugher since kindergarten. She’s now in 6th grade. As her maturity level grows we deal with different situations. She’s always had social interaction with a variety of kids both homeschooled and public schooled.She’s always been part of different activities such as games where some tmes she wins and sometimes she doesn’t.

As far as conversations that challange her faith and morals we address those things as issues come up. It’s not our job to decide when our children are “grown up”. Our job is to help them grow up not shelter them until a sudden moment we decide they’re grown up. But it also means protecting them from dealing with things that are beyond their maturity level. Each child is different.

By giving them the tools -educational as well as spiritual and moral ones we are helping grow into healthy adults that will find success in this world. I don’t like defining this world as cold, cruel or unholy. God made this world. There are those they refuse to follow His will or do not know Him. And there is sin in this world -we’re all guilty of that. But God’s grace is sufficient to get through the difficulties. And teaching our children to turn to Him is one of the best things we can give them.
 
rayne89 said:
Do you have any children? I’ve homeschooled our daugher since kindergarten. She’s now in 6th grade. As her maturity level grows we deal with different situations. She’s always had social interaction with a variety of kids both homeschooled and public schooled.She’s always been part of different activities such as games where some tmes she wins and sometimes she doesn’t.

As far as conversations that challange her faith and morals we address those things as issues come up. It’s not our job to decide when our children are “grown up”. Our job is to help them grow up not shelter them until a sudden moment we decide they’re grown up. But it also means protecting them from dealing with things that are beyond their maturity level. Each child is different.

By giving them the tools -educational as well as spiritual and moral ones we are helping grow into healthy adults that will find success in this world. I don’t like defining this world as cold, cruel or unholy. God made this world. There are those they refuse to follow His will or do not know Him. And there is sin in this world -we’re all guilty of that. But God’s grace is sufficient to get through the difficulties. And teaching our children to turn to Him is one of the best things we can give them.
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Amen, well put!!!
 
**I have slowly come to accept that I cannot protect them from everything. But I can arm them for battle!🙂 **
I don’t worry (much) about them hearing or seeing something I’d rather not have them exposed to. It’s happened before and it will certainly happen again. That’s the problem with living in society.
Homeschooling allows me to color everything we do with our faith though and to prepare them to tackle problems with a conscience formed by that faith.
And isn’t that the real worry? Not that they will come into contact with sin, but that they will not be prepared to deal with it as Catholics?
 
I don’t look at homeschooling as sheltering, just a better alternative to the school systems that educate to the lowest common denominator.

Scott
 
I couldn’t tell from the original post if you think homeschooling is sheltering and I don’t want to make assumptions 🙂

I suppose it can be if the family chooses not to get involved in anything outside the home. That’s a decision the parents get to make.

As for situations that challenge us, they come about in all sorts of ways. School is not the only place that happens. —KCT
 
jeff200679 said:
Hi Everyone,

Here’s a question??? In my Opinion, Home Schooling is clearly the best way to insure that Children get the Moral, Ethical and proper Catholic Up-Bringing that we all want for our children. When do issue’s like Society interaction, being part of a game and loosing, Being involved in conversations that challenge our childrens faith and moral’s…especially among friends come into play? These daily and normal issues are indeed part of growing up…are they not??? When or how do we decide that our children are actually grown up…and ready and can live or make it through in this unholy and cruel and competitive world???
Click to expand...
Hello,

Are you a single child?

All the issues you mention appear to happen on a daily basis in my family. Socialization within the family is much more diverse and real than any I have found in a child group or school setting.
 
I’ve homeschooled my son since kindergarten (he’s now in 7th grade) and he’s been in tae kwon do since the age of five. There, he’s met children who attend public schools, private schools, and who are homeschooled. Some are Catholic, most are not (his best friend at the school is not) but from the beginning, we’ve taught him that he should be true to himself and his Faith. For instance, he spent the night at his non-Catholic best friend’s house (a Friday night–during Lent!) and at mealtime, he said his grace quietly and as unobtrusively as possible and politely refused meatballs with his spaghetti. No big show, just “business as usual”, which made an impression on his friend’s parents who said they’d never seen a young boy so confident in his beliefs. His friend didn’t laugh at him or think him weird… my son just said, “I’m Catholic and we don’t eat meat on Fridays” and his friend replied, “At least you can come to my house to eat… I have a Jewish friend who eats kosher, so his mom doesn’t let him stay over at anyone’s house unless they ‘keep kosher’ … and I don’t even know what ‘kosher’ is or where you get it!”

The great thing about homeschooling is that you have some control over whom your child is socializing with… and that can help them when the time comes for them to make their own “socialization” decisions. One of the aforementioned homeschooling families in the martial arts school has a 20-year-old son who went off to college and was not only well-prepared academically, but also morally and spiritually (they’re not Catholic, but Mom just had Baby No. 10, so you’d think…), so my son has great role models within his social sphere we can point to.
 
I was discussing this issue with a friend of mine who was home schooled until she entered high school. The reason for my discussing it with her was because my cousins who are home schooled are socially behind (practically unable to relate to anyone their own age). She explained to me that she thought she should have began attending public school in middle school because the adjustment was very difficult and becoming socially adept was very hard. I agree with her completely. While I do believe home schooling can be a good alternative to public schooling, I think the farthest one should go with it is the elementary level. But this comes from my family’s poor experience with home schooling (observing the maturity and lack of structure in my cousin’s lives).
 
There are loads of people who are socially inept who went to regular school. My daughter is very shy & not social & she’s almost always gone to school. My son was homeschooled the longest & he’s the most outgoing kid around. School had nothing to do with it… they are who they are.

Regarding the previous posted w/ the friend who wished she started public school in middle school? YIKES! Middle school is tough… I don’t know how that would’ve been an easier transition?
 
I was homeschool K-12, back when homeschooling was so not cool. Most people wouldn’t have any idea that I was homeschooling, but I think alot of people expect homeschoolers to be backwoods hicks too.

Sheltering vs. protecting is such a fine line. I was protected, but not sheltered- but my younger sister was very sheltered, and she’s had such a hard time adjusting to life outside of home. She’s 19 now, and is on the maturity level of a 13 or 14 year old. Our parents are overseas now (missionaries in Tanzania)- she’s in college and wants to stay in the States, so she lives with me. I’ve finally quit hiding things about the world (she was shocked by so many things) because she absolutely has to learn that yes, the older guy at school is hitting on her, and no, going to coffee with him is not completely innocent.

Above all? Just make sure that your kids know that you will love them, no matter what they do. That alone is what is between me and my parents. Don’t let mistakes that they make and the expectations you have break the relationship you have with them.
Becka
 
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