Values Education

Teaching Respect in a Christian Homeschool

I had the opportunity to meet a very kind, well spoken lady last weekend. When she found out I was a homeschool mom she asked, “How do you get your kids to listen to you?”

Having never been asked this before, I was totally caught off guard and responded, “I don’t know, they just do.”

“Boy, you’re lucky,” she said. “I think I would consider homeschooling IF I could get my kids to listen to me.”

When I was sharing this exhange with my husband, I came to the realization that most kids (mine included) don’t listen “just because.” What was I thinking?!? They listen because they are taught respect.

Respect, obedience, and discipline are hard values education lessons for anyone. When I brought my girls home, they were “sassy”, whining, eye rolling, and basically miserable if they got instruction or didn’t get to do exactly what they wanted to do (and they were only 5 and 7 years old!) We had glimpses of this in the evenings while they were in school, but to be honest, I didn’t have enough time with them between picking them up from school and putting them to bed (by 7:00 – so they could get up at the crack of dawn) to make much of an impact. But boy, when I got them home 24/7, it got old QUICK!

Faced with the nightmare of having two disrespectful, selfish, disobedient girls, I made the commitment to “re-establish” my authority as a parent before starting any academics. This was a critically important decision. I spent hours, over days, over weeks defining expectations and following up to make sure they were being met. Now it seems like “they just do”, but it was a long hard road. Even now, every day is not perfect, BUT the groundwork is there and the “episodes” come much less often and are dealt with swiftly, fairly and effectively.

Learning to come under authority is essential for Christians. We are all are under God’s authority, and He gives authority to others in our lives while we are here on earth. In the case of children, God gives authority to parents to train and teach their children HIS ways. Parents must use the authority God has bestowed on them to teach these lessons. They should not expect the schools (or churches for that matter) to do it. If your child “doesn’t listen” to you, the schools aren’t going to fix it. In fact, school will probably make it worse. The only way to “fix it” is time, patience, consistency and prayer.

I think the lady over the weekend may have had the cause and effect backwards. My answer should have been, “My kids listen to me because I homeschool.”

Just another reason I’m glad we’re home!

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