I think the toughest part of parenting in America today is the task of raising responsible, respectful, self-motivated, morally strong people in a world where society won’t take any responsibility or role in helping. I struggle with the idea of sending my children to a school 8 hours a day where these things are not reinforced or taught. In more and more schools these ideals are not part of the curriculum, there is not time for them and they are seen as the “realm of the parent” not the school. Therefore, we as parents are stuck trying to teach our children these important life habits and ways of thinking when we only have them a few of their waking hours a day and most of that is spent on homework.
Sigh. I am more than disillusioned with the public school system in America and even more so with that in our area. If I had my way (and hubby’s approval) I’d probably choose to homeschool for many reasons. I already struggle with having to provide moral guidance to Honeybun when she comes home with problems and have had many arguments with her over things her teacher has said which I don’t agree with. I try to never put down the teacher but do make sure she understands how our family feels about things and try to emphasize our opinion not as right but as different and stress that we expect her to follow our family guidelines (which, by the way, are much stricter than those I see at school).
While Honeybun regularly pushes my buttons and nearly pushes me over the edge sometimes, I know away from home she is a rule follower. She doesn’t like to displease people (other than me…) and often informs me she was the only one listening at school today when they were lining up (which I doubt is true…every child has their moments). I worry that her desire to please other people will lead her to lose sight of what is important to us as a family. Even now she eats up everything her teacher says and I have to discuss numerous times with her to get her to our side and I don’t think it will get any easier when she is out of the house almost three times longer than she is now.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m worried she is going to learn (or forget) but I have this inner struggle with allowing other people to take responsibility for my children when I’m not confident they will reinforce what is important to our family. What I do know is I have lofty expectations for my children. I don’t want my children to ever become submissive or insecure nor do I want them to be selfish or inconsiderate. Of course I want them most importantly to grow up to be happy and healthy adults but I also want them to be responsible for their actions, respectful of others no matter what, confident in themselves and what they believe and self-reliant to make sure they have what they need and what they want.
