"A puppy thrown to the wolves will either be eaten or learn to be a wolf"...

In my life as a mother of 8 children (3 married) and grandmother of 8 children, I have learned so very much. Below is part of an article by Rachel Starr Thomson who has articulated some of what I have been pondering during these 33 years of home discipling. Our youngest is now almost 14 years old and we are still teaching her at home. As far as I am concerned, what I have been doing IS home DISCIPLING : teaching our children The Word of The LORD JESUS CHRIST, The Son of The LIVING God and inviting The Holy Spirit to teach them as they grow in knowing Him for themselves as their Savior and Lord.

The word "homeschooling" is misleading, and I'm not especially fond of it. Homeschooling is not primarily about school at all. Homeschooling is a lifestyle. It encompasses nearly every aspect of life and family, and its influence is far greater than anything found in the pages of Saxon math or Charlotte Mason-approved novels. It's that lifestyle I have loved, its foundations I am so grateful for, its inherent ideas about life I'm still living out. If I have children, I mean to homeschool them.

Sheltered at Home

Homeschooling is sharply distinct from the lifestyles of those who "go to" school, first because homeschooled kids don't "go" anywhere. They stay home. What does that mean to a child? It means shelter, security and greater ability to be children in a world that wants people to grow up too fast.
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Many homeschool parents like to use the greenhouse analogy. A plant that is tenderly nurtured in a greenhouse, protected from predators and the elements, can later be transplanted to live a healthy, thriving life. One that is always outside may simply be eaten, or stunted and destroyed by wind, sun and snow it's not ready to encounter.

I like to say that a puppy thrown to the wolves will either be eaten or learn to be a wolf. A fully grown dog stands a fighting chance.

Our home was sheltered. I remember realizing at a very young age that many of my friends were scarred and jaded by their experiences at school — and I'm talking about children under the age of 10! They were already cynical, already hurt, already worldly-wise.

In many ways my siblings and I were naïve and innocent, and we knew it — and were glad of it. We did encounter evil. We learned about sin and consequences, hell and heaven, cold hard reality and the need for grace. But we didn't learn about these things by falling prey, nor were we left to figure things out for ourselves. We learned by our parents' side.

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Many homeschooling parents choose to bring their children home because they believe it is their God-given responsibility to disciple them.

Discipleship extends beyond spiritual concerns to character and life training. My mom practiced discipleship when she spent hours teaching us to scrub a bathtub properly, to cook a pot of spaghetti sauce from scratch and to wash our socks with homemade soap. We learned practical and business skills at home from our parents. We spent serious time with them, watching them in action, gleaning from their character and experience. And we learned how all these things related to who we were in God.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001998.cfm

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