Smrt Lernins

Tonight, I was going to write about how the hardest part of homeschooling has been never being away from my kids. I sat down to write, with a cup of coffee on the desk and Babypie in my lap. I thought it was out of her reach, and it wasn’t. Hot coffee splashed all over the desk and all down her body. Thankfully, I always put two ice cubes in my coffee, because I’m too impatient for it to cool off enough to drink it quickly, so she wasn’t badly burned. We put a cool cloth on it and then I used the trick my mother learned for burns, which works so well, putting soy sauce on it.

I’ve suspected Babypie might have an allergy or intolerance to wheat, because she’ll sometimes get a little rash on her face when she eats a nibble of bread. Well, when I put the soy sauce on her burn, the burn turned into hives. Yes, the first ingredient in Kikkoman soy sauce, after water, isn’t soy. It’s wheat. I spent the next 20 minutes alternating cool water, refrigerated aloe vera, and hydrocortisone cream on her burn/rash, feeling like the world’s worst mother. We gave her some Benadryl. She was happy as a clam after we got her calmed down, and carried on like normal until she sacked out a few minutes ago. I’m wallowing in guilt and worry at the moment, because my baby isn’t well and I’m tired of her not being well, and I’m wondering what all I could or should have done to prevent it. Plus, I let her spill coffee all over herself. Freaking awesome mom, right?

Now I’m thinking about what I was going to write. It’s true, I don’t have much time away from my children. I have almost no alone time or “me” time. Honestly, though, it doesn’t bother me as much as it could. I’m a fearful person, much more so since Babypie was born and I developed post-partum anxiety for the second time. Homeschooling gives me an excuse to stay close to home and gives me a stronger sense of protecting them. My kids are where I can watch over them. When I send The Tank to school, I get anxious any time the phone rings, worrying it’s a call that something has happened to him, or he’s sick and I’m not there. I worry about them any time they stay anywhere else other than my mom’s house. Not sending them off for eight hours a day is, on the whole, a relief, not a burden.

I do get a little stir crazy and wish the noise and pawing at me and neediness would just back off for a few minutes so I could think (or tinkle) in peace. Sometimes I claim I want a vacation from my kid. On the whole, though, I am much happier having them here than anywhere else. I don’t want to be rid of them or “free” of them. I didn’t have them to pawn them off on someone else. I didn’t have them because I wanted to have lots of “me” time. I could have stopped at one or two and been at a point where they would be out of the house for the better part of the day, but that isn’t what would make me happy.

I’m not a very crafty parent, which is somewhat incongruous, as I am a crafty person. I sew, knit, crochet, make Waldorf-style dolls, dabble at quilting, but I don’t really do kid crafts. It should come more naturally than it does, because I’m also a 12-year veteran of Girl Scouting, including several years as a camp counselor to 2nd and 3rd graders. I know how to finger weave, make paper bag hand puppets, make my own candles and all of those great crafts, but it just never occurs to me to do them.

I never sit down and think, “Gee! I sure would like to have the kids make their own crayons today!” I don’t make tomato sauce and make that mental leap to, “Wouldn’t it be fun to use this as finger paint on butcher paper?” I seldom, if ever, come up with holiday, seasonal, or weather related craft ideas on the fly. Even things like painting and working with clay don’t pop into my head as an idea for filling time. The Tank came home from preschool yesterday wearing a beautiful necklace made from dyed, dry pasta of different shapes and sizes, and I never, ever would have thought to make something like that.

Why are some parents like that and others aren’t? I have friends who routinely set up seasonal sensory tables for their children, who make their own playdough on a whim, who always have an idea for something like paper pumpkins or turkeys to provide holiday-relevant activities, who festoon their mantels with garlands made from paper leaves colored and cut out by their children. I’m an intelligent person. I daresay that I’m at least a moderately creative one. I like to think I’m even a fairly fun mom at times. Why don’t I even think about making designs from glue and shaking cinnamon and glitter on to them? Why don’t I make felt “paper” dolls with my kids? Why don’t we make and bind our own books?

Am I missing a creativity gene? A parenting gene? Am I somehow wrong-thinking and a right-thinking parent would do these things? I feel guilty when I see all the crafts my friends do with their children, because I worry that my kids are missing out on some special part of childhood that a better or more progressive/involved parent would offer them. I don’t remember my mother providing us with endless craft activities as we grew up, at least, not outside of Girl Scouts. I always thought that was what Scouting was for. My boys don’t do Scouting (Captain Science tried, but we quit half a year in, because it was every bit as bad as I’d thought it would be, and then some). I know I’ll want to lead a Girl Scout troop for Babypie at some point, and I’m sure we’ll do make all the milk carton ice candles, clothespin reindeer, and paper plate masks there that a little girl could desire, but what about my boys? Are they going to suffer and be uncreative individuals for a lack of crafting in childhood?

How do I find the motivation for this? Do I even need the motivation for this? Will macaroni jewelry be the dividing line between the wise and the foolish, the enlightened and the worldly, the creative and the dull? Does so much depend upon a tissue paper mosaic of a red wheelbarrow, glazed with homemade finger paint, beside the pipe cleaner chickens?

I hate defining myself by what I’m not, but in the case of secular homeschool curricula, especially science curricula, it often really does come down to finding something that is not-religious. The options for homeschool science are pretty much all either religious or the supposedly neutral curricula that are really anything but. The issue is that there is no such thing as neutrality about science — you should be as impartial (in your methodology and interpretation of data) as possible, you can be avoidant (get around that pesky evolution issue by just not mentioning it) of those issues that are the source of dissent — but you can’t really be neutral when it comes to the issue of scientific theory versus religious doctrine.

If you discuss biology (though many Christian curricula call it “life science” or “zoology”) without mentioning evolution, you’ve made a decidedly un-neutral choice. If you present both the theory of evolution and the doctrine of creationism, you’re still making a choice that isn’t neutral — you’re presenting both as equally valid options, two “beliefs” of equal weight between which to choose, and which involves having made the choice to place religious dogma on the same level as evidence-based science.

Once you’ve made your choice, stick with it. Creationism and evolution are incompatible. Literal 6-day creationism and evolution, even less so. Either God made the Earth and its inhabitants in a divine wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am or not. Either the Earth and its inhabitants evolved over time, or they didn’t. Your science text needs to take a stance one way or the other. Anything less is hypocritical and a little bit condescending. A secular science text shouldn’t even address the topic of creationism (or it’s half-assed, fence-sitting cousin, “intelligent design”). There’s no need to bring it up in order to dispute it, because if your text is evidence-based and scientific, religious doctrine has no bearing on it.

Let your argument for your belief stand on its own merits, instead of basing it on how mine is wrong. There’s a time and place for the refutation of fallacies, but I don’t need to see the points of creationism discredited one by one in my child’s science text. The same should go for the creationists, who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to discredit evolution. The wrongness of someone else’s belief isn’t argument enough for the rightness of yours. What I want is evidence, not faux neutrality. I want rigorous, secular science that addresses real scientific theories, rather than ignoring them to appease both sides. I’d like to have my scientific chocolate peanut butter free of any theological chocolate. That’s decidedly hard to come by in the world of homeschool materials.

Today is just one of those days. You know those days, right? The days where you find yourself leaning into the refrigerator, eating caramel ice cream topping out of a jar with a spoon, praying that your oldest child stops coughing and your middle child stops wailing so they don’t wake up the youngest, who has only just fallen precariously asleep for the first time all day, despite spending most of the night flailing and coughing? Now that we’re all on the same page about what kind of day it is, let’s pretend I never mentioned the caramel thing.

We have some kind of crud at the McLernins house. It’s an congested chest crud that is making everyone cough and be irritable. They’re coughing their brains right out, as can be evidenced by Captain Science’s inability to complete his Ancient Greece quiz/activity. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers — he remembered things like perioikoi and hoplite just fine. Ancient Greece has been his favorite topic thus far and we discuss it all the time. He couldn’t figure out what to do with the scrambled letters once he’d answered all the questions. The act of unscrambling was just beyond his ken. Understand, that child has been doing word jumbles and the like since he was three or four, so this isn’t a new concept. He didn’t “get it” today, nor could he (after figuring out the middle word was probably “and”) think of a game he played that had “and” in the title. Finally, he managed to come up with “chutes and ladders,” which didn’t work, and with much coaching, wandered ’round to “hide and seek.” Even knowing something similar to “hide and seek” was what I was looking for, he still couldn’t unscramble “H-A-D-Y-R” into a Greek-related word. In a combination of frustration and pity, I finally just blurted out “hydra and seek,” and he laughed, because it is cheesily funny.

At that point, I decided it was time to fold ‘em and walk away, which was definitely the right call. I called a hiatus on any further learning and instead, am enforcing a nap time for all children, regardless of age. Of course, only the baby is complying (and only after a great deal of coaxing), and the other two are coughing, thrashing about, calling things out to each other, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. As long as they’re pretending to rest, however, and aren’t waking up they’re sister, I’ll play along and pretend I don’t hear them shuffling about up there.

I’ve finally gotten a shower and had a cup of coffee, so I call that a win. We can finish the rest of today’s work on Saturday when we have a better hand.

Hapersmion asks, “Any plans to teach Latin, since you’re going the classical route? Greek? Hebrew? Ancient Etruscan, perhaps?”

I’ve looked for Teaching Ancient Etruscan for Idiots book, but haven’t had any luck with that one. I suppose I’ll have to call that a lost cause.

As for Greek and Latin, well, those would normally be a part of classical education, but we’ve decided not to pursue them as our language(s) at this point. I understand the arguments in favor of Latin, especially, but because it’s an area where neither of us have any interest or passion, I just can’t motivate myself to WANT to include Latin. Captain Science wants to do eastern languages, so we’re starting Japanese in the spring. I think a modern language of that caliber is going to benefit him more in the long run than Latin.

We are, however, doing a vocabulary program called Vocabulary from Classical Roots, which (obviously) introduces Latin and Greek roots to words. If learning classical languages is supposedly to help build a better base of understanding for modern languages, I think a classically-based vocabulary book at least accomplishes that to some degree. Captain Science loves it, because he loves language, and has really taken off with it. If, by the end of this first book, he responds more positively to the idea of learning Latin, I’ll consider adding it.

Sure, maybe this gives me Classical Education Fail, but I only have so much time in a day or week. We have a lot of subjects to cover and I have to prioritize. Learning Latin for the sake of learning Latin just isn’t high on my list of priorities. I also admit that my appreciation of Latin isn’t as high as others’ might be, because I never took it in school. My education was public and traditional, not private and classical, so have a tendency to prioritize things based on that experience.

Now, the various incarnations of English? That we will learn. Old English, Middle English, early Modern English? That’s where my passion lies and where I’m apt to get all het up to teach. Perhaps I can manage to drum up that level of excitement for Latin. I’m trying. I really am. I

My professional background is in writing. I have a master’s degree in professional writing and editing and have been a freelance writer for the last six years. I’m currently teaching a creative writing class at a local homeschool co-op. Despite all of this, however, I still use someone else’s writing curriculum for Captain Science (we use Writing Strands). Why? Because sitting down and mapping out the ideal curriculum for me just seems way too intimidating.

Someone on the WTM forums asked what I’d look for in a writing program, so I sat down and made a list of the things I’d like to include:

1. A Grammar Component: Correct grammar and usage is so important and you can’t be an effective writer without it (e.e. cummings not withstanding). I really like the idea of a grammar program like Editor in Chief, which puts grammar in context through identifying mistakes and correcting them by rewriting the paragraph. Sentence diagramming may seem tedious to some children, but dissecting language helps you learn how to use it better, so definitely include sentence diagramming in your grammar curriculum. My ideal writing program would include the grammar component, rather than treating it like it’s a separate subject.
2. Writing Styles (Formal and Informal): Writing in a variety of contexts helps you grow as a writer. As part of our personal curricula, we do history writing (twice weekly), writing for language arts (once or twice weekly), and creative writing (more sporadically at this point). We plan to add in science writing, as well. My ideal writing curriculum would include a variety of writing types and would teach an overview of writing styles, as well as basics of writing summaries and creative writing.
3. Write Regularly: The best practice is to do a little writing every day. Adult writers should try to meet the “1000 words a day” goal, while youth writers should shoot for around 100 words. My ideal writing curriculum would encourage short, daily writing, as well as once-weekly longer assignments.
4. Creative Writing (and Pre-Writing): Don’t push creative writing too early, but don’t eschew it entirely. Some people discourage expecting creative writing for children under 8-10, but I think making the connection between story telling and writing a story is important. Even very early writers can dictate a story, read back what was written, and expand on that story. Older children should be encouraged to write from prompts, to rewrite stories and include their own original details, and to do things like character development.
5. The Long and Short of It: Some writing programs put the emphasis on florid language, some put in on saying things succinctly. My ideal writing program would include both — sections where the student is to write a long description (perhaps even rewrite a short, succinct sentence) of something and sections where the goal is to summarize an event or long sentence into one simply, precise sentence.
6. No Five-Paragraph Essays: The only purpose of the five-paragraph essay is to develop the idea of thesis sentences, supportive details, and concluding paragraphs. You can accomplish this same goal with a tree/flowchart (thesis sentence as the top, main details coming off, minor supporting details coming off of those, and all of it coming back together at the bottom with the conclusion.
7. Outlines and Key Word Outlines: One thing we did like from IEW was the idea of the key word outline. It’s a good introduction to the concept of detailed note taking. My son reads his section once, get an idea of what his paper will be about, goes back through and does a key word outline, then sets aside the book and does his paper. He’ll be moving on to more formal outlines in the future.
8. Let Writing Be Its Own Reward: The great thing about writing is that it produces something tangible that can be shared for the brag factor. Compile your student’s best works from the year and have them bound (or use a self-publishing company like Lulu). Let your child give the writing as gifts or just keep a copy of his “book” for posterity.

I can’t see myself sitting down and developing a formal program that does all of this, though the bits and pieces are all things we do. Maybe someday, when I’m not actually currently homeschooling, I’ll give it a whirl.

What would YOU like to see in a writing program?

I think we all get this question at some point, as in “Are you qualified to teach your child(ren)?” Variants include, “Are you a teacher?” “Do you have a degree in [subject area]?” and “Will you be able to teach your child(ren) [some higher level subject]?”

These questions are irksome, even insulting, to many of us who choose to homeschool our children. We resist the implications that we leaped into this blindly, that we are in some way ignorant or uneducated, that we are incapable of imparting knowledge to our children, that education must only be done by a trained professional, that we will some how mess up our kids by our horrible lack of knowledge and skills, that we must have highest-level subject knowledge to teach subject basics, that we are incapable of learning more ourselves, that we are unwilling to seek out better resources, that we are unwilling to seek assistance from those with more subject knowledge, or any of the other things people might mean when they ask those questions. Even if the intent behind the questions is not malicious, the premise of the questions is inappropriately boundary-crossing. It really isn’t someone else’s place to question my “qualifications” to teach my child. If you want to know what I’m teaching, why I’m teaching it, and/or how I’m doing it, please ask me, but to interrogate me on whether or not I should be doing it (especially if it’s clear you already think the answer to that is “no”) is rude and intrusive.

Someone should be asking homeschoolers those questions, however, and it’s not our neighbors, our family members, our friends, government officials, the local school board, or random people we meet at the YMCA or in line at the grocery store. It’s not even other homeschoolers who should be asking each other these questions. We need to be asking ourselves if we’re qualified. It’s not up to someone else to determine whether or not you should be educating your children, but if you don’t have the emotional and intellectual honesty to question whether you really know what you need to know to impart education unto your child, have the resources you need to have, have an understanding of what your children need to learn, then perhaps you need to stop and take a good, hard look at the long-term ramifications of what you’re teaching your child.

Not every child has the same overall educational needs. One of the many glories of homeschooling is being able to customize an education to your child’s specific needs. There are areas, however, where all children need to learn the same set of skills, though how you teach those skills can be customized to suit learning styles and the speed at which a child grasps concepts. Every child needs to know how to read. Every child needs to know how to write (not meaning print or cursive, but how to put words together into a coherent paragraph). Every child needs to know mathematics. Every child should know proper grammar. Every child should know basics of science, including how their bodily systems work. Some children learn best through hands-on materials, others through lecture/narration, others through reading, but every child needs these skills as the groundwork for becoming an intelligent and educated adult. What you (and they) choose to lay on top of that groundwork will vary, but that foundation shouldn’t.

When Captain Science was in public school, I often had a bitter laugh at the grammatical and spelling errors in notes from his teacher, as she routinely marked his papers off (even in non-language arts assignments) for those same issues. By about halfway through the year, I started correcting her notes with copyediting marks and returning them to her. I’d say this didn’t endear me to her, but we were already on her list of least-favorite families, after daring to disagree with her assessment of Captain Science and disagree with her teaching methods, so I could at least hold her accountable to the same rules she applied to her students. Now that I am my son’s teacher, those same rules apply to me. I can’t very well criticize improper use of grammar and punctuation in my son’s work if I don’t demonstrate it in mine. In informal writing, I take a lot of leeway, but in formal writing, I do my best to be grammatically correct. At age 30, I have no excuse for “there/their/they’re” mistakes, for confusing “loose” and “lose,” for not knowing the subjunctive and using “was” where “were” is required. If I didn’t know the difference, I’d have an obligation to myself and to my children to learn. Even the best grammar curriculum won’t help if what I’m modeling day after day is incorrect.

What are you modeling for your children? Are you demonstrating poor grammar? Do you consistently show a dislike for math or history? Are you skipping over a subject because you don’t understand it or care for it? You can be qualified to guide your child through all the subjects, but not if you can’t even be bothered to guide yourself through them. Before jumping to the defensive when someone questions your credentials or qualification, do a quick gut check. Are you uncomfortable because a boundary has been crossed and because the question is rude, nosy, or inappropriate? Or are you uncomfortable because you know (or suspect) you have a weakness in certain academic areas?

The great news is, if a certain area isn’t your strength, you can do the thing that all homeschoolers should do, and model lifelong learning by educating yourself in that area. You can seek out those who are experts in the field. You can find great resources to help you and your children master that subject. You can find ways to rekindle your own passion for learning, thereby igniting that same passion in your children.

And if it does turn out that the only issue is nosy people getting all up in your business, you can model another important life skill, the polite dismissal of unwanted opinions: “I appreciate your well-intentioned concern, but I am the person most qualified to raise and educate my children.”

We think Babypie has rubella. She woke up on Wednesday with slightly rashy cheeks, a runny nose, and a very mild fever, but by lunch time, she had developed a rah over her torso, which started out lacy, but quickly turned to full-coverage. Over the next three days, the red, itchy rash got much worse and began spreading down her arms and finally her legs. We had two trips to the pediatrician, where she had blood work (normal WBC and platelets) and a strep test (negative) and ended up with a vague diagnosis of “viral rash.” Viral rash seems to be the medical term for “I have no idea what I’m looking at, but she’s not dying or anything, and I can’t come up with a solution.”

Because I’m one of those moms (the kind who Googles symptoms), I started doing some research. Now, I’m not a hypochondriac. I am, however, pretty great at accurately diagnosing unusual illnesses. For example, I figured out that the strange circular welts on Captain Science’s back were nummular (discoid) eczema patches, which are quite unusual in a child (they’re common in the elderly, mainly old men) — the pediatrician was impressed and confirmed I was correct. Babypie’s symptoms and her rash are a perfect match for the descriptions and pictures of rubella. I’ve compared her rash to pictures of every other possible type of rash I could think of, from Fifth disease to chicken pox to system thrush to eczema to hives — the only one hers looks like is rubella. It’s also called “three-day measles” because it’s bad for three days and then starts to improve — yesterday, her third day, was miserable, but this morning, she woke up with her rash beginning to fade and feeling much better.

On the third night of her illness, she was rolling around and crying because she itched so badly, and I was holding her and crying because I felt so helpless to make her feel better. Today, my mother said, “Now you understand why, when vaccines were introduced, parents were so eager to immediately start giving them to their children.” I do understand — at 3am, I probably would have given Babypie anything I could have to make her comfortable, without researching or second-guessing, and damn any long term consequences. My motherheart would have overrun my logicmind.

Now, I’m not saying that people vaccinate out of fear or that it’s illogical to vaccinate. I understand why parents would make the choice to vaccinate fully, and I respect that. We are selective vaxxers. Captain Science is almost fully vaccinated, partially due to a prior enrollment in a private school that didn’t allow exemptions. The Tank is on a delayed course, starting at age 2, and has so far had the Hib and the DTaP series. Rubella isn’t one we would have vaccinated against anyway, with the exception of Babypie at puberty if she hadn’t caught it naturally. We’ve based our vaccination choices on research, consultation with our pediatrician, and our children’s reaction to prior vaccines. We’ve been very conscientious about the order in which we give vaccines.

The thing that’s hard about choosing not to vaccinate, though, is having to tell your heart to quiet down when your child is suffering through a potentially preventable illness. The efficacy of preventing that illness may certainly be debatable, a vaccine is no guarantee that your child will not catch the illness, and the immunity from the vaccine may be impermanent or incomplete, or but in theory, you could have prevented the illness and chose not to do so. Some people think that’s a horrible, irresponsible choice, so you have to be prepared for a negative response when people hear your child has chicken pox, rubella, or another vaccine-preventable(ish) disease. Choosing to delay or decline vaccines is so…theoretical. It’s research-based. It’s not based on being IN THE NOW with a sick child. Even if you know the choice was the right one, IN THE NOW you wish you could go back in time and prevent it. Of course, in Babypie’s case, she wouldn’t have been vaccinated against rubella anyway, as she’s only 7.5 months old, but that didn’t really alleviate the worry and guilt at 3am.

Does this have anything to do with homeschooling? Well, there’s the obvious factor of homeschooling being in the home, around illness and other family events. There’s the factor of homeschooling making vaccination a little less relevant — you can continue to educate during illnesses and your child is also less likely to be exposed to them. I also think it’s relevant because both issues are about acting outside the acceptable social norms. Vaccinating your child is a social norm. Sending your child away to school, especially public school, is a social norm. Both are decisions that need to be made, not on a whim and based on a tender motherheart, but through careful research and the use of a logicmind. Plus, “Why we don’t vaccinate against [that disease]” makes a great topic for a discussion about things like science, society, and history.

This is all sort of rambling and odd, but I’ve been up with a rashy, itchy, possibly rubella’d baby for several nights now. Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but something in all of this did feel relevant to me. Maybe you can see it, too? Maybe I’m just seeing spots where there are none.

On this Friday the 13th, we completed our 70th day of school. We only need four more weeks to make my 90-days-before-Christmas goal!

Fractions are trucking right along this week. Captain Science completed chapters 28 and 29 in Life of Fred: Fractions, three of the bridges to Chapter 30 (he’s still having a little bit of difficulty with dividing fractions — he knows how, but just doesn’t quite get why?), and a section of Key to Fractions: Multiplying and Dividing. I’m looking forward to finishing with fractions, because Captain Science is chomping at the bit to start on decimals and percents, which are his real love. I think he’ll enjoy taking these loathsome fractions and converting them into nice, neat decimals.

We’ve finished everything about Ancient Greece but our review (Monday) and some sort of quiz-type-something (Wednesday). I usually try to make the quiz something fun, but I’m not sure what format I’ll use this time. I’m considering having him do some short writing on a few topics as part of it. Our big activity this week was to continue his Pantheon Project, which we also did for the Egyptian gods. He reads about, does keyword outlines about, and then writes a short paragraph about the major gods in each pantheon (he’ll do the same for Rome). At the end of the semester, we’re going to do a comparison project — plus a god vs. god battle royale, letting him match gods by powers and determine who would win in a fight or test of wills. He really enjoys learning about the gods, so why not reward that passion with a really fun activity?

Captain Science is doing great with identifying and diagramming the parts of speech we’ve covered so far. He’d initially struggled with direct objects vs. predicate nouns, but now he can easily differentiate. He covered chapters 7.1-7.3 in Growing With Grammar this week, which were about prepositions and prepositional phrases. He identified them in sentences and we’ll work on diagramming them next week. After prepositions, we have only one more chapter before we’re done with Growing With Grammar Grade 4! I already have Editor in Chief A1 ready to start as soon as we’ve wrapped up GWG. The Captain is looking forward to a slightly different approach to grammar, as am I. Growing With Grammar is great for what it is, a means of instilling necessary technical skills, but it’s as dry as old bones.

Eclectic Girl and Captain Science finished several more activities in their color and light science kit, but Patchfire and I remain unimpressed by this particular set of materials. I’m eager to move on to something new. I think that’s the theme of this week, in fact — can we finish this up and move on? MOVE ON!

Captain Science also completed several pages in Logic Countdown and began research on his blue jay paper, writing his list of questions he wants to answer in the paper, looking for sources, and researching the answers to his questions. I finally picked up the theory book for Spencerian Penmanship, so we’ll start that next week! To round out our week nicely, Captain Science, The Tank, and Officer Daddyman painted with watercolors this afternoon while I took Babypie to the doctor for an awful viral rash.

The Tank also had an excellent week, bringing home lots of Thanksgiving-themed art. He also made a paper turkey at the homeschool co-op, which is sitting on our piano between the two paper pumpkins he made during the week of Halloween. I’m a bit distressed by the preschools insistence on “Indian crafts” for Thanksgiving, and the “Indian headbands with feathers, red, blue, and yellow!” that the children are making, but this is a nice teaching opportunity for us at home — plus, the kid is only three, and we have plenty of time to teach him about man’s inhumanity to man and the white man’s oppression of native peoples. For now, I’ll just bring in the pan of tater tots they’ve requested we contribute to the Thanksgiving feast and be glad he has sweet teachers and a class of little friends to visit with a few days a week.

As mentioned, Babypie’s accomplishment this week has been to sprout an impressive rash over her entire body. We’ve been to the doctor twice as it has slowly creeped from her torso down her limbs, but blood work and throat cultures don’t turn up anything, so it seems to just be the lingering effects of an otherwise mild virus. She’s miserable, itchy, and uncomfortable, and neither of us are sleeping well as a result. I’m amazed that this has been such a productive and positive homeschool week, considering my nerves are shot and I’m running on fumes, both physically and emotionally. I raise a mug with my Lutheran friends this week in praise of coffee which, far more than beer, I feel might be proof that there is in fact a God out there that wants us to be happy.

As we wrap up this beautiful Friday, having managed to squeeze in a Costco trip, painting, some Wii (for Daddyman and The Tank), and several hours of outdoor play along with our regular school work, I’m thankful for feeling back on track with homeschooling. I’ve had many more happy moments than stressful ones this week.

This was sent in as a question for “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler,” but I felt it would be more appropriate for Secular Thursday, as abstinence only vs. comprehensive sex education has long been a battleground between the religious and the secular.

“How will you teach sex education?”

For starters, I won’t be using this or anything like it. I don’t believe in abstinence-only education*. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t stop teenagers from having sex and when they do have sex, teens taught only abstinence are less likely to use birth control properly, if at all. Comprehensive sex education is not only more effective at stopping the spread of STDs like HIV, it may actually lead to fewer teen pregnancies, while the CDC’s Task Force on Community Preventive Services was unable to find sufficient evidence of the efficacy of abstinence-only programs.

In other words, even if you and Jesus don’t want kids having sex, they’re going to do it, so you’d better arm them with the information they need to avoid disease and pregnancy.

I really like the way they break this down at AVERT.org’s page on sex education. They stress the importance of sex education being an ongoing conversation.

We have already started the sex education process with Captain Science. He’s seen me go through two pregnancies, and I’ve never danced around when he asked me questions about reproduction. I did answer age appropriately, scientifically, and only exactly what he was asking, however. For instance, when he asked how the baby got in there, I explained about eggs and sperm. We watched some kid-friendly videos from HowStuffWorks, like Where do babies come from?, Will the baby be a boy or girl?, and How does the baby come out? Because I had The Tank and Babypie at home, we talked extensively about how the baby was growing and how it could come out, including the names of the parts involved. He was there when Babypie was born. I feel that treating pregnancy and birth as the normal part of life that it is lays a positive foundation for sex education.

Another important thing is normalizing a child’s interest in his or her own body, but placing appropriate boundaries on it. Our kids are free to explore their bodies, as long as they do so in a privacy in the bathroom or their own rooms. They know they no one should touch them without their permission and parental approval (for situations like doctor’s visits). The know they shouldn’t touch others without permission. Teaching children that their bodies are their own is another important foundation for sex education. Sexuality isn’t shameful, but it is personal and completely voluntary.

We’re also very open about the various sexual orientations and gender identities people can have. When Captain Science, throughout childhood, has said things like, “You can’t be born a sister and grow up to be a brother,” we’ve talked about transgendered people and how some people look different outside than they are inside, and that’s just another perfectly fine way to be. When he said, “A girl can’t have a girlfriend,” we talked about how some people are attracted to people of the same sex, and that being gay is just another perfectly fine way to be. Whether my kids grow up straight, gay, or with any other sexual identity, they’ll know that they will be loved and accepted for who they are.

Now that he’s older, we’ve had the first of what will probably be many (though his dad will probably be taking over soon, since I’m reaching the limits of Things Moms Know, lacking first hand experience as a penis-owning citizen) conversations about sex. He was initially repulsed that anyone would want to do that. He wanted to know if it hurt. I only answered the questions he asked and didn’t overwhelm him. I used correct terminology (“testicles, not balls”) and stressed that it is something adults do, and that he has many years before his body will be ready for anything like that.

As he’s approaching puberty, we’ll talk more about birth control and protecting himself from STDs. We’ll talk about the emotional ramifications of sex and reasons why one might want to hold off until one is of a more rational mind than, say, a fifteen year old might possess.I imagine we’ll buy some books, since Captain Science is such a text-based learner, and we’ll make sure he knows he can ask questions. If he doesn’t ask questions, though, we’ll start asking him some. I will never tell my kids to wait until marriage to have sex — as my mom once told me, you wouldn’t buy a car without test-driving it first. I will, however, tell them how important it is to not be a dumbass about sex. Don’t treat it frivolously or you’ll risk your health or your heart. And ywhile I will be the parent with the bowl of condoms under the sink, it won’t be because I’m cool (because I most decidedly am not) or like the idea of my teenagers having sex (because I most decidedly DO not) or trying to be their friends (because that’s not my job), but because, in the end, I can’t stop them from having sex unless I’m willing to lock them up and keep them under constant supervision until they reach the age of majority. I can, however, do my best to make sure they don’t catch a disease or make me a grandmother before they’ve reached adulthood.

Talking to kids about sex definitely crosses into the realm of the uncomfortable. I won’t lie about that. The idea of my sweet babies growing up to become sexually active adult-sized people is terrifying! I’m not going to shame, guilt, threaten, lie, or keep them ignorant, though. They deserve better than that. They need better than that.

I guess that’s how I’m going to teach sex ed: as comprehensively as possible, over as long a time period as possible, so we aren’t sitting down to have an awkward “The Talk” after that particular horse has already left the barn.

*I don’t mean I don’t believe in it like someone might say “I don’t believe in fairies.” Though come to think of it, how cool would it be if, every time I said, “I don’t believe in abstinence-only education,” an abstinence-only program dies? Now, nobody clap, y’all.

ETA: Since someone just asked, no, I won’t buy “sex aids” for my children, nor will I give them or condone them having pornographic magazines or movies. I want them to develop a normal, health view of sex with realistic expectations.