Sometimes as homeschooling parents we can get caught up in the mindset that academic topics are the most important things to teach our children. And while I agree that it is important for our children to know how to read, write and do arithmetic, academics are not the most important things we teach our children. I love history, see great value in science and even understand how the arts help round out a person, but I would be sad if my children got perfect SAT scores and straight A's through college, and turn out to be lazy and/or rotten people.
Some of the areas Janine and I focus on are: having a relationship with God, knowing how to work and being kind to others.
Recently I've thought of another area that I'll work with my children.
For more than a year part of my planning process is to consider the following questions:
Why am I doing what I am doing?
Is there something more important that I should be working on?
If so, why am I not working on it?
Part of this goes back to a post I wrote: Why do you do what you do?
I try to use these three questions to stay in Quadrant II activities and not get distracted with busy work. Reflecting on these questions helps.
It occurred to me this last week that I haven't encouraged my children to ponder on these questions. They are developing into competent people who love God, can work hard and are kind to others.
I'll now try to encourage them to make sure that when they get busy, they are busy with important tasks and not just busy work.
The job of a parent never ends.
1 comment:
I agree. We are so busy teaching so much that sometimes something that is important to us that is ingrained in us, we forget to teach our kids. And they don't always know that thing by osmosis, it sometimes needs direct teaching and multiple discussions.
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