For the Children's Sake

At the park one day , another Catholic homeschooler and I and a group of children ( ours and those of friends) went for a long walk.

My friend is a more structured homeschooler. We are pretty loose and relaxed with our unschooling style. But we both talked about why we choose to live without school.

Now, this post is not a tirade against schools.It is, however, a post on freedom.

We live without school because we can.

We can take time to pursue interests.

To build relationships.

To just take time.

We can hang out in the wider community - life and learning and the adult world are not separate entities for my sons.

Are the children learning? Do they know their Faith?

More importantly, to me, - is their learning and their experience and knowledge of the Faith living ? Real? Meaningful?

My children, like me, are far from perfect.

Some positive things that we do share, though, are a love of music, of books, of movies.We enjoy talking about these things.

We pray together.

We go to Mass and to Confession together.

And, for the most part, we enjoy hanging out together.

Dh comes home not to angst filled evenings of homework but to family time.

School encroaches on a child's time - even after school hours are filled with homework. When does the family gather time to really know each other, to become friends?

This aspect of family life is so much easier and natural with homeschooling. Families with children in school can and do have super family relationships , I know - and homeschoolers are not immune to difficulties and problems - but family relationship in the long term seems to be more easily built via homeschooling.

And specifically by the experience of mindful parenting and unschooling.

Perhaps it is this idea of family relationship that really describes why we live without school.

We live without school for the family's sake.