Thank you. He has always liked books with really good quotes. I think one of the reasons he likes Call of Duty type video games is the memorable quotes. He often shares his favorites with me. I know that he looks up the authors of his favorite quotes and learns more about them. Of course he also likes the feeling of interacting with history. He wants to understand why things happened. He wants to understand why people behaved the way they did which leads to reading about psychology and sociology. I know a lot of people don't like video games and especially those having to do with war but his dad is a retired first sergeant who worked in military intelligence and also enjoys these games.
I would like for him to read more science fiction instead of things that I find sad and depressing especially now that he will have to go back to wearing a very uncomfortable full time brace that means we will be staying home more than we are now. The things he reads and understands and wants to talk about are very different from what the other kids here want to talk about. He says he can be a social chameleon like his dad but he would rather stay home. Recently, I saw him acting happy and interacting with other kids in his musical theater group at a Halloween party and I thought all was well until he came home and was depressed because it was all just an act. He says he can't be himself around other kids in our town even though they are not as judgmental as their parents. Sports and obedience are more important than anything else to some of the parents here. I see their posts on facebook about their "consequences" for being disobedient. Like cutting off a daughter's hair because she didn't fix it as nice as they wanted. Spanking is also a common consequence and I never spanked my child. We rarely had behavior issues because he understood that he would have to give up doing something he enjoyed if there was any misbehavior. I see all the homeschooling parents in our homeschool group "liking" the parent's consequences. My son sees it also. Maybe facebook is something we need to stop reading.
I let my child read and learn things the people in our homeschool would probably not approve of. The homeschool group's newsletter this month says we should stop worrying about how smart are children are and worry about their obedience. I think it has something to do with recent earthquakes and tornadoes. Some people in my family don't even support letting my son learn what he is learning. My sister says a liberal studies kind of education which I would like for my son is a waste of time but I disagree. My husband who recently read War and Peace encourages our son to keep learning what he is interested in and to ignore what other people think about it.
