Triumphant Chicks
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Bible Talk
    • Jennifer's Jewels
    • Pam's Pearls
    • Charlotte's Crystals
    • Rhonda's Rubies
  • Elizabeth
  • Contact

Homeschooling

Encouragement for women who have been called to nurture, teach and equip the next generation to honor the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Jennifer's daughters in 2009, taking a walk together in Germany

Writer Worker Person

8/17/2014

 
Picture
“So, Little Miss Write a Blog and write for magazines and stuff. How is it that you can do that while also remaining a devoted wife and homeschool five children?”

One might wonder.

1. I do not give anyone my phone number. I have conducted one 45 minute telephone interview for a feature story about a way cool prescription eye glasses ministry. That guy has my phone number. Otherwise, it is all e-mail, all the time. If an editor or source did call me, I would not answer the phone. Dude, I'm at work. I would e-mail him later and write: "Hay, I heard you tried to reach me, what can I do for you?" These are not breaking news stories I am contributing. Conversations about my writing can wait a few hours or even days until I can get around to an e-mail.

I take homeschooling and homemaking seriously as my calling from God and I consider that my Jay Oh Bee (job). I'm not going to be shushing my children left and right so that I can have professional phone conversations, or make everyone late for their lessons because I was on the phone.

Sometimes this creates amusing scenarios. One of my editors is from Arizona and I e-mailed her a link when a newspaper published something I’d written about speaking with a Southern accent. I poke fun at Minnesota a little bit in this column. My editor from Arizona e-mailed me back and said, “Oh that column is so nice. I’m originally from Minnesota.”

D’oh. 

I had no idea. I’ve never heard her speak. I am all e-mail. 

2. Everything I do is from my home. Now when I had a little time over the summer, I did go take a look around the facility of one of the magazines I write for (way cool place by the way, they bring guys on drugs to Christ). But every time I write for a publication, I send off my writing electronically from my home. Any editing, or drama surrounding editing, is done at home. I can't do lunch, I can't do phone, there is only e-mail in my world. If we must do lunch or meetings or parties, then I cannot write for you. 

My two year old is throwing a balloon up in the air to me right now and I'm smiling at her and bonking it back to her. I stopped writing to read her a doggie barking book after that. The writing works around my family. My family does not work around the writing.

3. I don’t watch TV or movies. Probably the time that I could be spending watching a show or movie is the time that I put into my writing. Besides my own ministry’s Facebook page, I do not do Facebook or online games or Pinterest. So my writing is what I do in my extra goof off time. Okay I have seen the movie Frozen 68 times with my daughters. It's our new Sound of Music. Frozen actually isn't bad for Disney by the way. We fast forward through a few intense, creepola parts, but that movie infuriates me only like three times, from a Biblical worldview. Not bad. 

4. I have not accepted payment for my writing, since becoming a mother. I used to get paid for writing back in the day. Once I am getting paid, I’m no longer calling the shots. I could use a few extra bucks like anyone, but at this point my husband needs me to be completely focused on our family and not have my loyalty divided between our family and an employer. When you’re a volunteer, they just don’t quite own you the way they do when you’re on the payroll. I haven't signed any contracts, I haven't given my word that I will crank out two columns per month. I set my own deadlines, or I agree to realistic deadlines that won't stress me out. 

5. I write way ahead of time. Child I got 23 blogs in the can right now. Just waiting to be unleashed upon the eager public. I write when life is normal. Then when something blows up, such as surgeries, military deployments, toddler escapades, teenager escapades, or general maternal weariness, I'm not writing at all. For example, I have three months' worth of time-released Bible commentary brilliance scheduled ahead of time to post on my Facebook page. It's as much of a surprise to me as it is to you what witty snippets of Biblical hilarity are going to appear on that page any given day.

6. I plagiarize myself. If I write an e-mail to, or have a conversation with, a friend or family member and I think, "hey this is kinda interesting and borderline entertaining," then I work it into a blog. I also rework my blogs to be published in magazines. I reduce them to fit a certain style or word count. Those Bible commentary one-liners I post on my Facebook page are actually recycled Twitters from six months ago. Nobody follows me on Twitter so hey, they're essentially brand new. 

I tell you numbers 1 through 6 to inspire you that you can pursue something that God is tugging at your heart to pursue, and not have it come at the expense of homeschooling or your family in general. Family is our number one ministry after all. God told me to homeschool way before He ever said anything to me about wanting me to write. My husband and five children desperately need my love and attention. I don't think anyone out there desperately needs my writing.

Our spiritual enemy will keep each of us hopping all day long every day, even doing "good" things, that will distract us from our family. We have to be deliberate about fiercely guarding our highest calling which is: being the heart of our home. If I can't cook dinner because of my writing, then something is wrong.


The Loveliness of Home

4/24/2014

 
Picture
I spent the first few years of homeschooling apologizing to myself that my home was not as good as a school building. I tried to make up for that and compensate for that. It all seemed so distracting and impossible, to try to learn anything around here with telemarketers calling, the dryer buzzing, and babies crying. I fought against it for a while. I tried to make up for it. It seemed so un-school-ey around here.

But then I learned to embrace it. For one thing, all those distractions are an advantage really. If our children live in a college dorm someday and are trying to study, the hollering and shenanigans will seem like a vacation compared to all the hubbub during their years of homeschool. No biggee. Our children are growing accustomed to molding themselves around their atmosphere, rather than the atmosphere's tip toeing around them.

Our school has a soft couch. Although I mildly scold everyone to be selfless and take turns, I secretly think it is absolutely adorable how my children fight over "the Mommy spot." We sit together on our living room couch when we do Bible time and language. Having my teenagers snuggle up to me on the couch is priceless. I have to believe that my children are able to truly love the subject matter, when it is in the comfort of their own living room with their mother.

There's a fireplace in our school. We've had a chilly spring here in Georgia and I've gotten into the habit of firing up our fake gas fireplace while we do composition. I light a candle in the middle of the kitchen table while the children do their writing. We're home. Let's get cozy, shall we? As the weather gets warmer, we sometimes do language on our front porch, while the younger ones
(ages 5 and 2) run and play in the grass.

I have started doing math with my daughters in their bedroom (ages 14 and 12) so that our little ones can play happily nearby. Math seems to go better that way lately, rather than at the kitchen table. One day my 12-year-old was waiting for me to come and do math with her and had already gotten started on a few of her problems. I walked into the room and saw my daughter, curled up in her soft chair, with her gigantic down comforter affectionately named "Buddy" tucked around her, with her feet propped up on a stool. I had seen this a million times before but I saw it for the first time in a way that day. I laughed and said, "Now Claire, that's the way to do math." She said, "Agreed."

When my most affectionate child was age 5, I would do math with her on Mondays and Tuesdays, language on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but Fridays were cuddle day. That was her schoolwork for the day: to cuddle on the couch with Mommy. I think we did that until she was about 8 years old. She still talks about cuddle day.

When it is raining or thundering, or everyone has the sniffles. or we are just plumb wore out, sometimes they ask me to read Richard Scarry in my bed. We pile onto my bed and read a silly book together, laughing and trying to be gracious about the Mommy spot. A friend told me years ago that her children's private school placed great importance on always having a madonna and child painting displayed in the classrooms. There is something very comforting and real about seeing this sacred relationship. My children don't need a painting. They have the real thing because I'm almost always holding a little one on my lap.

Even though we have chaotic distractions to overcome and tiny people under foot, we have learned over the years to make the best use of our home. It is after all very homey.


Right Where I Want to Be

1/19/2014

 
Picture
I was out and about with my five children one school day, and we decided to stop by one of our favorite restaurants for lunch as a special treat. 

Normally we are doing school during school days, but we had some special stuff going on that afternoon. Then we'd finish our school work when we got back home.

As we sat in the restaurant, I looked around mesmerized at what I saw. At least two very long tables full of ladies about my age, were wearing exercise clothes, all having a grand time gabbing and visiting. I stared. My heart sank.

Oh.

That's what people do.

They go to the gym to work out together while their children are in school. Then they meet out for lunch somewhere while their children are in school. I felt a pang of sadness and jealousy for a moment there. I gazed at them longingly. And thought about how the only way I can get a work-out is to do it in the cold and the dark at 6:30 a.m. while everyone in my house is asleep because my children are always home. And the rest of my day is spent teaching them. Then taking them to lessons and activities. Haven't had lunch with a girlfriend in ages.

But my 5 year old looked at me and smiled brightly with her sweet little eyes looking up at me trustingly. She snapped me out of my trance. We talked and hugged while we waited, and she asked me questions such as, "Are baby penguins bad?" She's so happy, I thought. She's with me. Then I went home and had a really fun afternoon my children, with lively and meaningful discussions. We laugh a lot. They're my friends.

I realized that with homeschooling, I'm right where I want to be.

This got me thinking back to all the wonderful and fun things that my children and I have experienced together over the years, during weekday school hours. We would have missed so much of this, probably all of this, if we hadn't been homeschooling. I'll take this list any day, and do lunch with friends when I'm a grandma.

  • As the school bus was taking children to school one weekday, I was on my morning walk and I saw a turtle on the sidewalk. When I got home, I told the children (who were just waking up and still in their pajamas) about the turtle, and we all got in the car and rode to see the turtle.
  • The oldest three children were home those precious days after the birth of their baby sisters. They were home when the baby learned to roll on its back, but then was stuck there like a beetle. They were home for all the exciting milestones.
  • My two-year-old said the following about his baby sister: "Elizabeth's blood vessels seem to be turning into a dull red."
  • We've gone on vacations to very cool places that are normally extremely crowded, but we go in the off season when everyone else is in school, and it's less expensive. Once we were at a popular amusement park that has hour-long lines to go on roller coasters. We had the place to ourselves to the point where the roller coaster employees would let us take another turn around on the ride, without even getting off.
  • My daughter sat in my lap at the piano one day, and as I played she said, "Mommy, your fingers are dancing."
  • When my son was 8 he hugged my leg and said, "I'm so glad I live here with you. You're so sweet."
  • One day I read to the children about archeology during science. The next day at 7:30 a.m. my child was outside in the yard, digging up rocks and even a huge boulder. He came in and hugged me, then told me the big rock was too heavy to lift, so he'd made a lever and "that made it hop up."
  • My 4 year old kissed me on the cheek, told me she loved me and said, "I'm so glad God gave me a mommy."
  • At the park one day I locked my keys in our car. No one else was at this park but us. We were out of water, had no bathrooms, no cell phone in those days. A policeman pulled into the parking lot and got the keys out for us. The children and I marveled that this was no coincidence, but God had sent a policeman to us that day.
  • During a history lesson we got to talking about Joseph from the Bible and his jealous brothers. My young child said, "Joseph's brothers should have been content with the things that they had, for He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" This elementary aged child was quoting scripture and applying it to events in history.
  • And, most recently, just a few days ago actually, during a literature lesson with my 11th grader, our book asked the question: What is the greatest virtue? My son thought about it for a second. "Fear of God," he said. "Everything else falls into place if you have that."


"What I Love About You"

11/2/2013

 
Picture
Homeschooling mothers are hard-working teachers who give their families a lot of love. We don't get a paycheck, or any sort of tangible reward. Our children must be walking around thinking how blessed they are many days, but they don't always know how to express it. 

Our 11-year-old daughter Claire, who is giggling right now playing card games with her sister, wrote the following letter to me a while back. I actually just got up to see what all the fuss was about, thinking they were upset and arguing and needed my help with that, but they were booming with laughter together. It warmed my heart to walk in their bedroom and see them having so much fun.

A drawing of Claire is to the left. I am sure your children are thinking something similar about you, right now.

What I Love About You

by Claire
 
You are so kind, so loving, and I am not worthy to have such a patient mother. When we fight, you stop whatever work you were doing and come help us. You are so hardworking and always there to help. You are raising five children and homeschooling us when you could send us to school. If it weren't for you we wouldn't have relationships with each other or you. Because you are there to guide us we are what we are. I wish I could be more help to you and not be so mean. When I get married and have children, I will use everything that you taught me. You are raising a new generation to follow the Lord. I know you work hard for our family and it's difficult on you when Daddy's working a lot. Your life is dedicated to raise and care for a family, and you do it so well.



Socialization

10/30/2013

 
Picture
Because we homeschool, our family got to live in Germany for two months in 2009 when our Daddy had a military job near Frankfurt. Here we are on a bridge in Heidelberg.

We took our school books with us, and kept up with math and language pretty faithfully, plus we checked out stacks and stacks of library books that we normally would not have had access to in America. But everything else that two months was enriching, soaking-in of the culture. We went ice skating, toured all kinds of castles and amazing places, took walks together in the charming village we lived in, shivered and ate bratwurst at Christmas markets. We spent a weekend at a farm villa in Salzburg, Austria. We toured cathedrals and ate crepes in France. It was a wonderful experience for all of us.

Homeschooling is illegal and criminally prosecuted in Germany. Being an American military family, no one messed with us. Sometimes, if the weather was pretty, we would take walks in our quaint village on a school day. We always walked past a school on our stroll and sometimes heard children's voices out on the playground. I took that opportunity to explain to our children how blessed we are to have the freedom to homeschool in America. They would ask, "Are we going to get in trouble?" And I would say: "Oh no, we're Americans, they can't touch us." Our family appreciates the Homeschool Legal Defense people for fighting to keep that freedom for us. Perhaps someday the Germans will come to their senses and allow homeschooling. Hello? Hitler's long gone. Y'all can walk about the cabin freely.

I had an interesting conversation with a nice elderly gentleman on the airplane back home from Germany. He marveled at how well-behaved our children were but when he found out they were homeschooled, he questioned their socialization. He expressed concern that being homeschooled, they would not be well socialized. I just smiled politely and hoped the clue bulb would turn on with him sometime later that, having just spent two months in Europe interacting with all sorts of people, and behaving well enough on a long overseas flight to be marveled at by total strangers.... I'd say that's a tough socialization situation to top.

I think we're good on the socialization.

Our son, Patrick, is 16 now and has a job at a family-owned clothing store. Lots of very respectful, clean cut young folks work there. He came home one afternoon, after having been employed there a few weeks and told us something that made us laugh. As the young employees were standing around shooting the breeze after work that day, they said to Patrick, "Hey you know what, you're not, like, extremely socially awkward for a homeschooler."

Well that's good to know.



    Author

    Jennifer Houlihan lives triumphantly in Georgia (USA)
    with her husband and their five homeschooled children.

    Testimony

    Click to read Jennifer's
    Christian testimony.

    Categories

    All
    Character
    Curriculum
    Encouragement
    Preschoolers
    Reading
    Socialization

    Archives

    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Waiting For The Word, katerha, Mr Thinktank, Patrick Hoesly, Adam Tinworth, ravas51, { pranav }, russellstreet, MattysFlicks, neil conway, fdecomite