I guess what I'm feeling is that DS is encountering things that are beyond his years, and to some extent, little pieces of his...innocence are being chipped away. What we feel childhood should be isn't really what it seems some other kids of about the same age are doing. Obviously, what's right for us isn't for everyone else and I don't have a problem with that, but how can I keep my kid from growing up faster than he's ready for if that's where the trend seems to be heading? I don't want him in a box with no exposure to anything, but just the opportunity to be a kid w/o having to worry about things that are beyond his years and that there will be plenty of time for as he grows up.
So, I guess I'm wondering if I'm thinking waaaay out there or if this is something that other people have decided to homeschool for.
Dear JDAx3,
This is certainly one among the reasons we are homeschooling (we have done from the beginning--the lads have never been in school). It is also the primary reason we moved house several years ago: among other interesting happenings in our old neighbourhood, four (very nice, really) little boys on our former street were fond of staging mock executions (blindfolds, kneeling, toy guns to backs of heads) on the boulevard out in front of our house. Their mothers thought this was cute and funny; I did not. This was not our vision of childhood, and we called our realtor and got ourselves out to the country.
I don't want them living in a box, either, and I worry a bit sometimes, because, really, my boys are having a 1940s sort of a childhood in a lot of ways. They read lots of (mostly older) books, they go hiking with their friends, they're interested in fishing, they play board games with each other, they do lots of woodworking and leatherworking projects, they have chores in the garden and with the animals, they participate in our big family singalongs and volunteer at our community hall; they don't watch TV (the odd DVD is OK--maybe one every couple of weeks in the winter), they use the computer hardly at all (Google Earth, Dancemat typing, Word Perfect), nobody has any video games or iPod thingys (I don't even have a cell phone!)....
I dunno. They seem really happy to me the vast majority of the time, and I do feel as though their innocence has been preserved to an appropriate extent for their ages (4, 6, and 8). Things may change a bit as we go along, I guess, but I'm not so sure that they are missing a lot by not being exposed to the amount of crappy pop culture, materialism, vulgarity, whatever, that seemed to constitute quite a bit of what we saw (from the outside, admittedly) as the experience of childhood where we used to live. Sensitivity, thoughtfulness, consideration, moderation, independence, ability to think for oneself, all seem like values worth inculcating to me, and in our own individual circumstances, homeschooling seemed one way to help do this. Of course one can still do those things with kids who go to school, but one doesn't have to spend so much time battling the dominant culture, was our way of thinking.
Thoughts of a washed-up old hippie, I guess....
peace
minnie
