These are the daunting voices that, like clockwork, invariably speak up at the start of each new home school year. It is like the rat-a-tat-tat of a loaded weapon that is being fired squarely on your convictions. Each year without fail, just as the history books tell of a fearless General Jackson, there you stand like a “stone wall”!

I recently encountered a well-meaning friend who challenged our family’s convictions concerning youth groups and the age we felt it would be appropriate, if at all, for our children to attend the youth group. My oldest son is turning twelve, and my daughter is ten; both are entering their junior high years of home schooling. The expectation from our friend who challenged us on the issue was that we have spent all these formative years daily discipling our children in our home through family devotions and home education and it was now time to trust God and let the children walk out their own convictions. It was all I could do not to scream at the top of my lungs, “HE IS ONLY TWELVE YEARS OLD!” (I did not think that was the best time to point out that I was not ready for my ten-year-old daughter to be in the same social settings on a regular basis with seventeen- and eighteen-year-old young men either.) Our friend further emphasized that our children were just the kind of kids this youth group needed and that they would be “exceptional leaders.”

My heart kept being drawn to the passage in Psalm 127:4, which says “… As arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior, so are the children of your youth.” I wanted to explain to my friend that an arrow, in and of itself, is practically harmless, but what makes that arrow a mighty weapon is that it is in the hand of a mighty warrior. Adults go to war – not children! I do not think our friend would object if we chose not to send our twelve-year-old son to Iraq to fight on the front lines, but in terms of a spiritual battle, I find that there is much pressure put on families to remove the arrows from the hands of the mighty warriors and place them in settings such as youth groups. These arrows are not trained enough or mature enough to handle the battle into which they are being thrust.

My heart was also drawn to Psalm 1:3. That verse describes a tree that grows strong roots when planted by the water. Our job as parents is to spend these formative years immersing our children in the water of the Word so that their roots are deep. Deep roots will make the way for strong wings. These children will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

Yes, our children are growing older. Junior high is a lot different from the first day of kindergarten. Homeschooling through high school will be far different still. In our hearts, we are convicted. This lifestyle is not just a preference that we choose. For our family, God has told us to build deep roots within the spirits of our children, and He will bless them with strong wings. Home schooling … eight years down and nine more to go … and here we stand like a “stone wall.”

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I remember one Vacation Bible School when my class was singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children;” we got to the part of the song that said “Red and Yellow, BLACK AND WHITE,” and my oldest son jumped to his feet and proudly proclaimed “That’s ME!” I remember smiling as I saw his first glimpses of truly understanding his bi-racial heritage.  I have a unique place as a mother of bi-racial children.  I work hard to make sure they embrace their multicultural heritage.  I do not think there has ever been a time in history, such as exists now, that has been so significant in the harmonious blending of the two cultures represented in my marriage.

Politically, we have seen a growing grassroots movement of conservative minorities.  We have seen people of color, such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, appointed to high government positions.  We can honestly tell our children that their attainment of those positions had nothing to do with affirmative action but rather with hard work, good education, and the determination to do something meaningful with their lives.

Historically, the role models are endless: Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., and myriads of others.  The deepest heritage I long for my children to know is how their mom (a descendant of Jefferson Davis) and their father (a descendant of slaves in Mississippi, where his family received the surname of Irons), through time and the grace of God, were able to come together in a free America and build a family.  Another bit of trivia that we found interesting as we were getting married was that my maid of honor was a descendant of slave owners in Mississippi at the same time my husband’s family was in captivity in Mississippi. We were never able to determine whether there was a possible link there. We just found that an interesting bit of information.   Here we stand, over a century later, sharing the best of times and being the best of friends … all from descendants of the Confederacy — a slave owner and slave family.

I will forever remember my favorite hero of black history—one you may never have heard about.  My husband’s father is JC Irons.  He is one of the wisest men I know.  I sometimes get the feeling that he has absorbed all the wisdom Solomon ever offered … and then some. Some may think that impossible of a man who has only a third grade education, but his life experience and determination to make a greater future for his wife and their fourteen children is a treasure to our collection of family heirlooms.

He lives by simple convictions — trust God and be kind to your fellow man … and do not argue with Momma!  He knows adversity. He has a strong and sure faith in Christ.  He took the cards that were dealt him and played the game until he WON.  He took the skills he had in construction and built his own company from the ground up.  He took his third grade addition and subtraction skills and learned to keep a payroll and budget. He had the grace of God, hard work, and determination to see his children do better than himself.  So far, nine of his fourteen children have attended college and are currently working in professional positions.  He has a passion to see his kids do better than he did.

I recently overheard my oldest son tell his father that he wanted to be the first black President of the United States.  My husband said, “No.  I want to be the first black President of the United States — I expect you to do greater!” The possibilities are endless.  As a mother raising bi-racial children, I see that their black heritage is rich and their future strong!

The post A Rich Heritage and a Strong Future appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

The previous school year in our home was the nightmare of all nightmares. If it could go wrong, it did go wrong. I had carefully budgeted for my school expenses and bought the well-thought-out purchases at a book fair. My curriculum purchases were complete for the year, which was a good thing, because I had spent my entire budget! It was not long into the semester that I realized the curriculum I bought and my son’s learning style were on a cataclysmic collision course with disaster! I felt I only had one option – to make the best of a bad situation and continue with what we had purchased. That is some advice I would never offer to another living soul again! Some lessons you just learn the hard way!

We paid a huge price for that decision. It brought much conflict and pain into my relationship with my son. The light that used to shine so brightly in his eyes about learning was now quickly fading. I was beginning to think I had destroyed his love of learning – and that was heavy on my heart. We finished the school year feeling battered, broken, and weary. I even daydreamed of “the little, yellow school bus.” I was heartbroken over the whole experience, as was my son.

I agonized about what we could do to change our whole approach to doing school. I knew I needed a miracle to reclaim the ground we had lost the year before. I was lamenting to a friend over my discouragement at unfulfilled expectations for the year – my experience was not what I had expected when I signed up to homeschool. I was asking her, “Where are all the activities I dreamed of doing with the kids?” and “Where are all the projects and science fairs and family togetherness I longed for??” This had not been my experience for that year. To be honest, I had yet to reach those goals in all my five years. With much wisdom, my friend just challenged me, “Dawn, why don’t you do the unit studies you have always dreamed about?” I knew what she was talking about! I had always longed to dive into the unit study approach, but the thought simply terrified me. Would I be able to accomplish that task well? I took one good look over the unit-study-based curriculum I had sitting on my shelf, and the flood of dreams came back like a wave. My husband and I discussed the option of switching to the unit study approach for the next year, and it was a unanimous decision!

We did a test run of a two-week unit on loyalty to see how the kids would respond to the curriculum. I cannot tell you how dramatic the change was. I saw the light in my son’s eyes return! His eagerness and inquisitiveness have come alive again!

I guess the old adage is true: “With age comes wisdom.” It took me five years to make that leap of faith, cross the “great divide,” and jump with reckless abandon into the very teaching approach I have wanted to do from the beginning yet was afraid to tackle! From the beginning I was convinced that my kids needed a textbook/workbook approach, because that is all I ever knew – but my heart longed for something more.

I now know that there is freedom that comes with following the leading of the Lord for your family and diving in wholeheartedly! Therein lies the fulfillment of dreams – that for which I had longed and wanted to experience with my children and our family as a whole. Having experienced this with my family, I do not know how we would ever go back to the old way of doing things.

The post How to Jump the Great Divide appeared first on Texas Home School Coalition.

When a social worker says, “Who is going to protect the children from their parents?” it goes to the heart of social work education. There is a presupposition that parents do not know anything about what children need.  The Family Outreach agency for which I worked actually sent workers to families’ homes to offer our services free of charge to teach them parenting skills!  (Of course they had to agree to the agency’s “style” of parenting to use their services.)  Most accepted!!

I was so bothered by this occurrence that I did my senior thesis research paper on When Government Intervention Becomes Excessive: The Rights of the State versus the Rights of the Parents.  (I gave a special focus on the parents’ right to educate their own children.)  I had to present this research orally to the entire graduating class of social workers.  It was not very well received!  My professor got up and walked out during my presentation.  It was by doing all the research for this paper that I began to feel convicted about home educating my own children.  I saw too much undermining of parental authority with my work as a social worker in the public school system.

As I said, it appears the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Recently I was watching the evening news and saw a glowing report of this new  program in Texas called Healthy Families. I had to chuckle a bit at the thought of this being a new  program and then chuckle some more at the high praise the program was given by the reporter.  I just shook my head in disbelief at the public acceptance of a program like this and its long-term implications for the families of Texas.

When I was an intern, I was told that our agency serviced families strictly on a voluntary basis.  Families could decline our services if they felt the services were not needed. It sounded all nice, neat, and tidy!  As I got more acquainted with how the agencies worked, however, I learned that our client base was fed to us straight from CPS.  CPS would get a referral from the hotline for child abuse or neglect.  Then the intake social worker would determine if the case was suitable for a full-blown CPS investigation.  If they determined that it was not serious enough to investigate, they would refer the family to Family Outreach or Healthy Families.  From there another social worker, not related to the state, would make contact with the family in a very non-threatening way, offering all sorts of free services.  To the many low income, minority families with whom we had contact, this offer was very appealing and inviting.  We were invited into their homes and welcomed with open arms.  The only problem was that the agency never fully stated its intentions for offering all these wonderful, free services.

If we had been up-front and honest with the client families, we would have told them that we were a monitoring agency for the state of Texas.  We were there to make judgment calls and enforce our brand of parenting and discipline in their homes.  We never told them that was our purpose for being there.  Instead, we had seduced these families with all kinds of incentives such as free medical services and transportation to appointments, a mom’s fellowship (really a state-appropriate parenting class), and much more.

With the seduction under way, we worked our way into the hearts of these families and gained their trust.  We had weekly get-togethers at their homes, met with their children and played, and just had fellowship with these moms.  The families agreed to sign contracts and release forms with our agency that allowed us access to any medical information, school records, and psychological evaluations. They also gave us permission to report abuse or neglect, should any be found.  They signed this freely, without a second thought, because they were isolated, alone, and very hungry for fellowship.

As an intern, I had investigated a number of families by recommendation of CPS.  My immediate supervisor was an employee of Texas CPS, so in essence, I was reporting directly to the state about these families. CPS was an ever-present shadow over our work.  There were many instances in which I differed in opinion with my supervisor over what constituted true abuse and neglect within these families.

One case in particular had a seven-year-old boy who walked daily to the corner convenience store by his house to buy gum and candy.  Occasionally he got caught stealing.  The store owner contacted CPS, which referred the case to Family Outreach.  I was assigned the case.  The family eagerly wanted my help (rather, my companionship) and invited me into their home and their lives.  By my observations, there was no abuse or neglect of the children—just extreme poverty.  They made parenting decisions that I personally would not make for my own children, but that in itself is not abuse or neglect.  My supervisor, on the other hand, felt that the parents’ “slow” mental abilities, poverty, and the fact their seven-year-old walked less than a block from the house to the store constituted neglect.  I did not.  I did not think it was the wisest or most prudent decision by a parent, and I shared that with the parents, but emphatically it was not  neglect!  My supervisor referred this case back to CPS.  I was off the case, and the mother was truly hurt that I was no longer able to come by for our weekly visits.

Thus began my understanding concerning the ambiguity of what constitutes abuse and neglect.  Each social worker and each supervisor has his own basis of what he personally considers abuse.  Some think spanking is fine; others feel it is abuse.  Some believe poverty is unfortunate; others feel it is abuse, and children should be removed from homes.  It is never easy to tell what the values of any individual social worker will be. They vary vastly among the profession.

These agencies are trained to locate the “at-risk” families.  Those “at risk” are supposedly more prone to abuse or neglect their children.  Have you ever read a list of the criteria that makes a family “at risk”? These are just a few:

• more than two children in the family
• claim a religious preference
• single-income family
• single-parent family
• home schoolers

The list is so broad that I have never met anyone who was not  an “at-risk” family!!  The agenda of the state is rather hidden.  If CPS refers a case to a sister agency like Family Outreach or Healthy Families, its goal is still accomplished.  Families are monitored, and reports are made to the state concerning private family matters.

I strongly encourage and admonish each home school family to hold fast to its freedoms.  Never give an inch.  If you find yourself in need of support or outside intervention, I strongly encourage you to seek out your local home school support group.  If you are not able to have fellowship with a support group, seek out an older woman in your church to spend time with and mentor you. Be alert and aware that there are agencies out there that will want to “help” and support you, but this help comes with the hefty price tag of your freedom.  Guard your hearts—and your freedoms—with all diligence.

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