The past couple of weeks, I have been a little "missing in action." I have 2 reasons for that. Reason #1- I got really sick with a clogged milk duct. No bueno. No fun. Reason #2- because I was sick, I decided to attend a "Homeschool Bootcamp" from a website called www.hecoa.com. So what is HECOA?
HECOA is pronounced heck-oh-uh. It stands for Home Education Council of America. It is a place you can go to watch webinars and all sorts of different resources for either veteran and/or beginner homeschoolers. They have a wealth of information. I have a basic membership, which means that I can only watch the webinars live and sometimes they offer a 24-hour replay window. If I want to go back and see all of them, I'd have to purchase a higher level membership.
They hosted an "Ultimate Homeschool Bootcamp" the past couple weeks. The awesome thing was that I could watch it from my home computer or iPad. I didn't have to get any babysitters, it was all from the comfort of my own home. This bootcamp was mostly geared towards the newbie homeschooling moms/dads. We are almost complete with our 2nd year of homeschool and I still consider myself "new."
One of the ladies who spoke was named Donna Goff. She talked a lot about family life and the Charlotte Mason method of homeschool. I was completely drawn to how she taught. She referred back to the day of when you had to milk your cows every morning, get the eggs from the chickens, grow your own produce, make your own cheese, yogurt, bread and all these things that we take advantage of whenever we go to the grocery store. She said there is a disconnect sometimes between generations. Our generation "lacks" the ability to do family work. Family work is the ability to guide children to do the hard things in the home. Cleaning, chores, WORK. Parents show their kids once, and then expect the child to do it perfectly from that time forward. Children are not mimi-adults. They require time, patience, and a good role model.
When she talked about family work, I said to myself, "that's something I want to do." Many times, and I know I have fallen under this category, we expect our 4 year old to do something that we have only shown them what to do once. For example, put their laundry away. We sort the clothes, we fold them, and then we put them into their drawers. Well, I asked Ferdinand to put his clothes away, expecting him to neatly put them into the drawer. What happened later, he had put his pants in his sister's pants drawer, and put mismatched socks into his sock drawer. What Donna Goff talks about is that we are creatures of habit. Work WITH your children, day after day, week after week, month after month, and they will, out of habit, do things correctly, the way you showed them. It takes consistency, and it may take years for them to get it down, but isn't that was parenting is? It's not just babysitting on a daily basis. Parenting is love, year in and year out, guidance, nurture, cultivating, etc. You're goal is to get them ready for society, for life, and success. And you only have about 18 years to do it. Start when they are young.
I don't know why this was so hard to understand before. I was and am so used to doing things myself. So, starting yesterday, we did laundry together, we cleaned rooms together and we scrubbed toilets together. I love this new way of "homeschool." It's not just academics that I teach. It's teaching my children how to conquer the hard things and enjoy family life. Yes, it was hard to take a few more minutes to guide them through the process, but teaching them now will save me a lot of headache and heartache later on.
So, Donna Goff, thank you for your webinar session. From now on, our "home-ec" class will consist of working together, no matter the age, and creating good habits of cleanliness and a sense of pride and responsibility in our family work.
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