Why do I homeschool

This is a question that gets brought up around my house from time to time and I feel that I really need to work it out. We have a good parochial school system here in this diocese. Cost isn't much of a factor thanks to a very generous stewardship program that allows those that give of their time, talent and treasure as a family the ability to have their children attend the school. We are also in a for the most part in a faithful diocese that presents the faith well.

However, a long time friend of mine that has studied education thinks that we, as a society, are failing our children. It is not enough to just teach the elements of the faith but the children have to learn a relationship with Jesus. By the time children come into the hallways of a formal school the opening in the relationship doorway is often being pushed closed rapidly by society.

One of the things that we, as a family, have done is to minimize the amount of media that our children are exposed too. The biggest thing we have done is to eliminate (for all practical purposes) television from our daily lives. This is a 'negative' thing we have done by eliminating something that has so much harmful content from my children's being.

The harder things to do are the positive steps that have to be taken to form the relationship between Jesus and my kids. This is the place I am called to grow, having to live my faith in front of and with my children. How I treat my children and relate to them forms their idea of God and how they relate to God. My personal growth is formed in my call to holiness inside my vocation is found here, relating to and with my children.

Here is the place that I really begin to feel my call to homeschool. I am able to form my children and have to work to relate to them better and better. I don't have as much luxury in being able to send them away and avoid dealing with problems when they are small or large. I am forced to deal with them, it can be hard but it is something that I have to do.

As a father I feel that I have to protect my daughters, I am their knight and they need to see me protecting them. It is a role that I didn't understand when I became a father but it is clear that I am the primarily responsible for the education of my children. In and how they are educated is one of the biggest places I can protect my daughters but also treat them with knightly chivalry.

So, why do I want my children taught at home? Simply it has to do with my taking responsibility for being directly responsible for their education in knowledge, wisdom, dealing with society, dealing with relationships and meeting them at the place they are at the moment. I can impart the values that I want them to have without interference and work with them in a way that a teacher that has more students at different places can. In doing all this, I can protect their innocence; I can let them enjoy their childhood.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S




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