Madeline Levine’s book Teach Your Children Well (see Judith Warner’s review, NY Times 7/29/12) includes a startlingly true statement that serves as a call to action. She says, “When apples were sprayed with a chemical at my local supermarket, middle-aged moms turned out, picket signs and all, to protest the possible risks to their children’s health, yet I’ve seen no similar demonstrations about an educational system that has far more research documenting its own toxicity.” A few years ago while I waited for our 12-year-old daughter’s swimming lesson to end, I heard a mother bemoaning her children’s lack of enthusiasm for school. “Each year I hope they’ll realize the…
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A Parent Asks About High School After Home School
A mom recently sent me an email to say that she is thinking about home schooling her son for a year or two to allow for opportunities that aren’t possible because of the cultural pressure to “keep moving fast and forward without much time to reflect and be centered.” She also asked some excellent questions: How is Natalie adjusting to high school? Has she gotten a lot of questions from kids or been viewed negatively? While she was homeschooled, how did you make sure her social skills didn’t get neglected? Did she have opportunities to work and play with kids her age? Here is my answer to her email and…
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Trying Too Hard To Be Lovable? Stop.
“Health isn’t just about the absence of illness or pain, it’s also physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual fitness—in short, it’s about the joy of being alive.” — Richard Louv Richard Louv is the author of wonderful books including “The Nature Principle” and my personal favorite “Last Child in the Woods,” which helped us decide that two years of homeschooling would strengthen not just Natalie’s but our entire family’s physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual fitness. A story Louv includes in “Last Child in the Woods” makes me laugh and gives me a lump in my throat each time I read it. A mother told Louv that her family had…
