On Early Education

I'd like to share my thoughts today on formally educating at a young age.

My children are typical children, they are not advanced or gifted (except to me). They are just your average children.

There are a some differences in our home and other homes that, I think, facilitate the children wanting to learn. We do not live a life that is deeply rooted in popular culture. My children cannot name SpongeBob, Dora, or whatever else is new. I do not allow toys in our home that are based on TV shows or false ideas about women (Barbies). So our children are pretty much left to their own imaginations.

Unfortunately, the children do not have a vast bank of loving and caring relatives that live nearby. This has caused us to be a little more withdrawn from social life within the family. We've had to turn to each other for support in everything, as a family should naturally do. But this situation has given us all a strong bond. I think and can see that my children will likely be best friends even into their adulthood. I would rather have this than have bad influences from certain relatives, those kinds of influences are hard to undo.

So here we are with this tight knit small, but growing family, with little interest in fads and fashions of the day. We're boring by American standards. Being "boring" gives us the ability to view the world in a different way. The children think that learning is a fun, worthwhile and fulfilling activity. They bring me things and say "Teach me this, Mama." instead of "Do this for me and buy me that."

My oldest was bored playing with his toys, so I decided to teach him. I was happy to do so, as I do not know what God has in store for the future. Our children are all close in age, and I would have liked to have Boo reading before Meenie starts K. As a new homeschooling mother, I was trying to ease myself into things so I could not get burnt out.

The lessons began shortly before the age of 4 and we're completing level K this week. We worked at Boo's pace, reviewing and taking breaks as necessary. So it was not forceful, but it was disciplined. As in, once lessons begin, we're not getting up. Before I knew it, my son was running to sit at his desk or bringing me the reading lesson book.

Some of the greatest saints of the Church, like St. Robert Bellarmine, were young learners. So I take inspiration and encouragement on early learning from the saints. It is my hope that my children will be able to complete college early. I don't know what kind of vocation they will go into but I am hoping to use the high school years to prepare the boys for seminary (logic, philosophy, theology, Latin), married life (maybe some type of skill or specialization in a subject) and for the girls to be a homemaker (home economics study) or perhaps a religious (which could be a whole variety of skills from nursing to teaching). Maybe my children will all stay single and live with me and take care of me in my old age. Who knows! But I believe early education is beneficial and I hope to set them on a path to fulfill God's plans and accomplish much for Him in the earlier part of their life.