His Treasure Seekers

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 4

“The path, or way, is an analogy for life that almost any child can understand from a very early age, and one that becomes even more meaningful and internalized as they get older.  The power for young children is in the concreteness of the image it evokes.  They can understand in an uncomplicated way that they need to stay on the path God has provided for them in order to be safe from evil and harm…” (page 58).

I love this analogy of the path of life.  It is a beautiful picture of walking in God’s ways, and it helps me see more clearly my role as a parent.  “You walk with your children on the path, and they look to you to be their guide” (page 58). This is something I can do.  Day by day walking in His ways, looking to Him for direction, doing our best to stay on the path.

“As Christian parents, you are the guides that God has appointed for your children.  He trusts you to be able to do the job–there is no heavenly hand-wringing wondering if he has chosen the best guides for your children” (page 59). I know this, but sometimes I really need the reminder.  God knows my failings.  He knows my weaknesses.  He knows where I am prone to stray off the path.  And yet he thought Eric and I were the best guides for Ian, Elijah, Arianna, Nicholas, and any other children with whom He may bless us in the future.

This chapter impressed upon me the importance of showing sympathy to my children.  As I read the Clarksons’ definition of sympathy when it comes to parenting, I realized this was exactly what I felt like I had missed as a child.  “Sympathy was… the willingness to understand and validate a child’s thoughts or feelings, in order to create a channel to the inside of that child’s heart” (page 60).  As soon as I became a mother, I determined that I never wanted my children to feel as alone, misunderstood, and unimportant as I had felt as a child.

Sometimes when Ian goes on and on about motorcycles or monster trucks or other things that bring him great delight I catch myself saying (or at least thinking), “I really don’t care.”  But that’s not the message I want to send to him.  I couldn’t care less about these boyish wonders, but I do care about Ian.  If I want to reach his heart with the things that are important to me, I need to make sure I have opened that channel by listening to the things that are important to him.  When it comes to encouraging him to stay on the path of life, he is much more likely to listen to me if I have made a point of being a willing listener to whatever childish fancies are floating through his mind and heart.
Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page. 

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 3 (Part 2)

As they closed this chapter the Clarksons reminded us that “it all starts in your heart” (page 54) and “it all ends in your child’s heart” (page 56).  Pardon the pun, but I think that really is the heart of the matter.  It is easy for me to think about how I want to shape and guide my children, but I think I get into trouble when I focus on the end product rather than the starting place.

Reflecting on this idea was deeply convicting for me.  I felt the weight of many of Jesus’ words as I realized some of the mistakes of which I am continually guilty.

Clean cups and whitewashed tombs.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for focusing on the outward appearance while neglecting to tend to the inward reality.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.  So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:25-28).

To be perfectly honest, I think sometimes my mentality is that I’ll clean the outside of the cup first, or present a respectable whitewashed tomb, and then everyone can see something pretty while I work on cleaning the inside.  But even if I manage to fool the outside world, I certainly can’t fool God, and really I can’t even fool my children, who spend pretty much every waking hour in my presence.  They know the real me.  They see my weaknesses and my flaws.  They know that what the world might see isn’t the whole picture.

I don’t want my children to think of me as a hypocrite.  I try to be vulnerable with them, to ask them for forgiveness, to share with them when I struggling.

The other day I was leading them in a time of communion, and I was trying to model for them the thought process I go through as I approach the elements.

“What sin have I committed?” I mused out loud, hoping to help them focus their thoughts inward and consider the state of their own hearts.

“You yell,” Ian said frankly.  (I’ve been asking for forgiveness for yelling a lot lately.)

“Um… yes.  So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.  But you’re supposed to be thinking about your own sin.”

Which leads me to the second teaching of Jesus that the end of this chapter made me consider.

The log in my own eye.

Ian may have been overlooking his own sin to point out mine, but he learned that from a master.

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5).

As I try to help guide my children and correct them, I often am pointing out specks that pale in comparison to the log in my own eye.  Now, obviously this passage isn’t addressing parents, and if we waited until we had dealt with all our own imperfections before correcting our children we would turn out some pretty scary offspring.  However, I have sometimes often caught myself speaking to one of them in a tone that I just corrected when I heard them use it toward a sibling, or saying things in a less than encouraging way when I am frequently reminding them to “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

So as I consider the importance of nurturing my children’s hearts and shepherding their spirits to long for God, I want to keep in mind that it all starts in my heart.  I need to be spending time daily in the Word of God.  It gets said over and over, but in the craziness of life with four young children I let it slip far too often.  I have taken to leaving my Bible open so I can catch a snippet in any spare moment.  I often only get to read a few verses a day, but I try to make sure I at least take in a little of the Word daily.  I post verses above my kitchen window and reflect on the same one for weeks at a time.  I am trying to tend my own heart so that what overflows to my children is the kind of spirit-filled life I desire for them.  Only then will I be able to truly nurture the hearts and nourish their spirits in such a way that they will hunger for the true source of life.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page. 

 

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 3

As I started to read through Chapter 3 (“Home Nurture: Shepherding Your Child’s Spirit to Long for God”), one word stood out to me: life.  Here are a few of the quotes I highlighted on the first page:

“A home can be filled with praiseworthy Christian things and activities and yet still seem lifeless.  It just doesn’t seem as though the Spirit of Christ is alive there.”

“…your first responsibility as a parent is to lead your children to the life-giving presence and reality of Christ in your heart and home.”

“You are to be the primary life-giving presence of Christ to your children, through his Spirit living and working in your life as a Christian parent and through his Word, just as Christ imparted life to those who came in contact with him…”

“Children who grow up in a home that is alive with the Spirit of God and whose spirits are nurtures and fed will be coming life-living and life-giving adults.”

When I finished page 45 I realized that every passage I had highlighted contained the word “life.”  I’ve shared over the past few weeks that I find “home nurture” more challenging than “home discipleship” and “home education” (the Clarksons three “biblical priorities” that define a Christian home) (page 20).  However, as I read through these first few pages of Chapter 3 I felt a sense of relief.  (As in, I’m not screwing up my kids quite so much as I thought!)

I do think our home is full of life.  There are a lot of Christian “things and activities,” but there is definitely more than that.  The Clarksons look at Ephesians 6 and talk about Paul’s instructions to bring children up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (To “bring them up” could also be translated as “to nourish” or “to nurture” them).  As I read through their descriptions of what that nurturing looks like, I realized that there is a lot of that going on in our home.

We try to address things on a heart level.  We practice grace.  We talk to our kids and speak life-giving words into them.  We pray with them.  We ask for forgiveness when we’re wrong.  We regularly have other families over for times of fellowship, prayer, worship, encouraging one another, etc.  We are trying to walk out a life of faith in front of them.

I’m not saying we’re perfect or we’ve got it all together, but I’m not beating myself up quite so much either.  I think reading through this book is helping me to take more notice of what I do and how I do it.  It’s showing me not only my weaknesses but also my strengths, and I can see more clearly things I want to work on and areas in which I need to pray that God will help me to grow.  For instance, I loved the Clarksons encouragement about the Word of God: “When you read the Bible, let them know it is God speaking to you as a family” (page 47).  It would be easy to bring this into conversation, but sometimes I forget and Bible time just becomes part of our routine.  I want to make sure my children know that I believe God’s Word is “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12).

I love that we never stop learning and growing.  I am so thankful for God’s grace in my life.  I look back at the growth He has brought about in me over the years that I have followed Him, and I know that He is going to continue to help me become the parent He wants me to be.  And when I mess up, at least I know my children have a Savior they can turn to.  After all, if they had a perfect mother who could make all things right in their life, why would they need Him?  All I can do is turn to Him to fill me with His life, and then let that life pour out of me into my children.  And someday they will learn to go right to the source of true life because they have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

 

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 2 (part 2)

“Here’s the truth: You will never be able to live up to either the real or imagined expectations you place on yourself and your children.  Don’t even try!  Make it your goal to please God in your homeschool, not other people.  If you are truly seeking to please God in all that you do at home, that is the reputation that matters to him and the one that should matter most to you” (page 42).

When I was eleven, my sixth grade teacher sat me down for a conversation that has stuck in my mind ever since.  I was upset over a grade I had received (probably an A-, but for a perfectionist that was just painful), and she felt the need to offer some wisdom.  She told me that someday my perfectionism was going to catch up on me and cause me a lot of heartache if I didn’t learn relax and have a little grace for myself and others.  As I said, her words have stuck with me, and I’m so thankful she took the time to share them, because they have indeed saved me a lot of heartache over the years.  The older I got, the more I learned that I was never going to be perfect, and being able to accept that has been important.  Even more important was learning that God’s expectations for me are sometimes very different than those I set for myself.

Still, I need reminding of this truth every once in a while, especially when it comes to home education.  Not only do I set standards high for myself, but I tend to impose them upon my children as well.  Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with setting the bar high.  It’s just that my tendency is to overlook the things that are truly important as I strive to reach that bar.  I get frustrated by Ian’s lack of perfectionism (for instance, wondering why it doesn’t bother him when carelessness costs him a perfect score in an online lesson).  Then my own perfectionism starts to kick in and our relationship suffers.

I am thankful for the Clarksons’ reminder that there will always be a temptation to judge myself by standards other than God’s.  It is easy to worry about our reputation in other people’s eyes.  How do our kids measure up against the neighbor in public school?  Why can’t we get our act together the way that other homeschooling family does?  We can beat ourselves up over which curriculum we should be using or which subjects we should be covering.  There is no end to the standards we can impose upon ourselves, forgetting that the only one we really need to consider belongs to our Lord.

What do I want to be known for?  Not for my children’s test scores or their breadth of knowledge on the vast array of subjects I hope we’ll be able to cover over the course of our homeschool journey.  I want to known in this way: “Let your reputation be that you are faithful to God, known for ‘good deeds.’ (1 Timothy 5:10), ‘full of the Spirit and of wisdom’ (Acts 6:3), and that you ‘seek first his kingdom and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33)” (page 42). 

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 2

Since our group will still be discussing Chapter 2, “The Christian Homeschool,” into next week, I may take two Mondays to write about some of what I’ve been thinking about as I read through it.  This chapter is essentially an encouragement to parents who have chosen to educate their children at home, helping them to confidently address the common questions critics often raise about homeschooling.

At first I considered just skimming this chapter, because I face very little criticism or opposition regarding homeschooling.  In my everyday life I am surrounded by other families who homeschool.  At church, we probably know more people who educate their kids at home than send them to school.  We spend time each week just hanging out with families from our homeschool support group.  Even when we go to activities like library story time or gymnastics, there are lots of families in our area who homeschool.  So I’ve never felt the pressure of making an “odd” choice.

One of the issues raised in this chapter was a concern about whether parents are “qualified” to teach their children.  I have a teaching credential and a Master of Education degree.  I get a lot of comments about, “Well, of course you’re more than capable of teaching your kids.”  And although I know my paper qualifications are not really that relevant, I don’t really want to get into that with people who think such things are important.  My background shields me from criticism so I usually just nod and smile.

However, as I considered this I realized that my confidence only goes so far.  It usually starts to wobble when people ask, “How long do you plan to homeschool?”  People tend to look rather shocked when I express an intention to educate my children all the way through high school.  My insecurity starts to creep up as I wonder what they’re thinking.  Are they surprised because, after all, my teaching credential is only for elementary school?  Do they think I’m some sort of over-protective nut trying to keep my children in a bubble until they’re old enough to get married?

I realized that when it comes to homeschooling beyond the elementary years, I’m left just as exposed as every other homeschool parent.  And so as I read through the Clarksons’ thoughtful responses to the questions that tend to come up, I realized that I am equally in need of a firm grasp on why homeschooling is the best choice for our family.  I want to be just as confident about being qualified to educate my children through high school as I have been about preschool and the next few years.

“There is no biblical argument for putting your children under the shaping influence of other authorities during the most formative and impressionable years of their lives.  American cultural norms notwithstanding, doing so runs counter to the biblical concept of the family… If family is God’s design for raising children, then a spiritually sensitive parent should not be surprised to feel conflict when faced with the choice to allow others to raise them for half or more of their childhood waking hours” (page 30).

God chose Eric and me to be the primary guiding influences in our children’s lives.  We have been blessed with the responsibility of nurturing, discipling, and educating these precious souls with whom He has entrusted us.  He will give us what we need to faithfully complete the task He has set before us.

“As a loving, committed parent, you are already certified by God to teach your children.  You do not need the state to tell you whether or not you are qualified to train and instruct your children.  You are” (page 38).

I’m looking forward to finishing this chapter, mulling over some of the ideas in it, and hearing what the others in our group have to say about it all.

 

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  I am currently joining in a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Chapter 1

I was really convicted and challenged by the first part of this chapter, which is entitled “The Christian Home”.

“A Christian home is never defined by what the children are doing; it is defined by what the parents are doing.  Your child could study the Bible every day, listen only to Christian music, watch only Christian videos, read missionary biographies, know a zillion memory verses, and never miss Sunday School or Bible Club, yet still not live in a Christian home” (page 20).

It is easy to put on those external trappings and consider our job done.  Obviously none of these things are bad.  It’s just that real faith is the result of a Christ-centered heart.  We must always remember that our “doing” flows out of our “being,” and not the other way around.  If we want to raise Christian children, our focus needs to be on their hearts, rather than on “Christian” activities.

So, what makes a Christian home?  The Clarksons say, “A Christian home is one in which the parents purposefully keep Jesus Christ at the center of every area of family life” (page 20).  They break this down into three biblical priorities:

• home nurture (“Shepherding Your Child’s Spirit to Long for God”)
• home discipleship (“Shaping Your Child’s Heart to Live for God”)
• home education (“Strengthening Your Child’s Mind to Learn for God”).

Of these three, I think the first is the one I find most challenging.  “The heart of home nurture is bringing the living Christ into all that you do through the life of the Holy Spirit and through the living and active Word of God” (page 20).

Why do I find it so hard to expose my children to the living God?  He has done so much for me.  My own faith burns fiercely in my heart.  Surely some of that must overflow into my life.  I pray my children can see it.  Yet I feel like I am sorely lacking in this area.  I feel like I get so caught up in the day to day business of running a home and accomplishing everything that needs to be done when there are four little ones in the house that my children don’t really catch more than a tiny glimpse of who I really am, of who God really is, of how He moves in my life and directs my steps.

More than anything, I want my children to long for God.  As I read what the Clarksons have said about home nurture, I feel a deficit that I pray the Lord will help to fill.  I love this quote by Rev. Andrew Murray in the sidebar on page 20:

“To take charge of an immortal soul, to train a will for God and eternity, surely we ought to shrink from it.  But we cannot.  If we are parents, the duty is laid upon us.  But, thank God!  Sufficient grace is prepared and promised, too.”

Sufficient grace.  I will trust in You, Lord.

Educating the WholeHearted Child: Preface and Introduction

Each Mentoring Monday I share my reflections on what I’ve been learning from my “paper mentors.”  Over the next few months, I’m going to be joining a book discussion of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson (with Sally Clarkson).  If you want to join in, visit our Facebook discussion group page.

Our first reading assignment is the Preface and Introduction, and even just these few pages have whet my appetite for the feast that is to come as we make our way through this rich book.  In them, Clay and Sally describe what homeschooling looks like to them: “In a time when you are faced with a confusing and often frustrating array of educational choices for how to homeschool, we simply want to share our vision of WholeHearted Learning–a biblical, commonsense, discipleship-based lifestyle of home education using real books, real life, and real relationships” (p.x).

I love this.  It describes everything I want our homeschool experience to be.  And yet it is so easy for me to get caught up in the “school” part of homeschooling.  Maybe part of that stems from not only growing up in traditional schools but also being born into a family of teachers (my mom, my aunt, their cousins, my brother, his wife… me).  I only spent 3 years in the classroom myself, but even that short amount of time shaped me as a teacher in a ways that aren’t necessarily compatible with this ideal.

I want our homeschooling to be a lifestyle.  Maybe I need to be more intentional about focusing on “home education” rather than “home school.” I want to “declare [my] independence from conventional schooling and establish a new outpost of spiritual, personal, and academic freedom within the walls of [my] home” (p.13). We’re not trying to do school at home.  While I try to stay away from traditional textbooks, mentally I still tend to get stuck in a school rut.  I’ve caught the vision for what the Clarkson describe, but I need to be constantly reminded in order to actually walk that out.  I’m hoping that reading through this book will help to lay down new grooves to help me break out of those old patterns and start falling into a different kind of lifestyle for our family.

“Home education is not our primary goal–home nurture and discipleship are, and home education is simply the natural extension of those biblical principles” (p.14).  In some ways I think we’ve gotten off to a pretty good start for this and are headed in the right direction, but I want to keep this vision in the forefront of my mind. “Your role as a home-educating parent, then, is to provide a rich and lively living and learning environment in which your children can exercise their God-given drive to learn and then to biblically train and instruct your children within the natural context of your home and family life” (p.15).

Yes.  God, help me to make it so.

 

Tonight I had the pleasure of watching a webinar with Sally Clarkson as she shared about her heart for homeschooling.  Some of the moms watching were chatting and decided to start up a group to go through Clay Clarkson’s book Educating the WholeHearted Child, which I read a few years ago but have been meaning to go through again.  I have been so encouraged and challenged by the Clarksons, both through their MomHeart conferences and their books, and I consider them mentors even though they have no idea who I am.  I decided that in addition to reading through the book with the other moms in the Facebook discussion group, I want to jot down some of my thoughts about each chapter here to help keep myself accountable for actually sticking to the schedule we come up with!  I may or may not write every week, but I want to try to share somewhat regularly what I am learning from the “paper mentors” in my life.