Ask Doc Part IX
27 11 2009What is your best piece of advice for homeschoolers?
Don’t compare your children/students to each other, or to other homeschoolers, especially those online. It’s likely that some (many) parents greatly exaggerate their children’s accomplishments. Trust your instincts - YOU know your child best - not an expert, not a relative, not the neighbor, not a random public school teacher, not the clerk at the local Walmart. Trust yourself.
What is your best piece of advice for parents?
Let your children be who they are, not the person you wish YOU were.
Great advice! From a mom of 5 extremely different people!!
Absolutely the best advice I have seen!
I could not agree more whole-heartedly. My (homeschooled/unschooled/whatever) son was slow to “read” and it had my mom and then-husband up in arms and threatening me with jail. Uh, yeah, okay. Love y’all, too. My kid *could read, he just didn’t get that he could, for whatever reason. At 9. Yeah. If I was all subtle about it and asked him to go get me a bag of unbleached, all-purpose flour in a grocery store, he “read” the signs to find the right aisle and would bring back the proper bag each time. Yet he couldn’t read if you gave him a book. He seemingly didn’t know his ABCs, yet he could add the alphabet in his head in seconds. Q+D=U I was not stressed over all this, figuring it would click in place eventually. Everyone else? Was threatening to take him away from me for neglect. One day he excitedly announced he’d learned to read (thank you pokemon.com). Less than 6 months later. at 10 years old, he tested to be reading at college sophomore level. Sorry my comment has wound up being longer than your actual post but man, I feel strongly about this.