Five Dangerous Homeschool Parenting Stereotypes

If you are like me, you may feel that you have read enough "how to" parenting books to fill several bookshelves. And you have been to enough homeschool conventions and been part of enough homeschool cooperatives that they begin to blur. (But we are always happy to go to or join up with one more!) You may also have noticed that homeschool families can start to fall into certain categories. I wanted to share five dangerous stereotypes we can find ourselves falling into if we don't pay attention:

Attack Parents: These parents want to control everything and live by the philosophy that their children can easily be turned into small miniature robots. These robots will later be used to cure every social ill in the world and will achieve great things simply by recognizing the errors of other generations and applying to correct formula of superior parenting. Often, those of us in this category forget to fix ourselves first.

Surrender Parents: These parents feel sorry that their children will not have the opportunity to live the "high life" that is the American Public School education. They believe that all children must be given as much rope as possible or they will rebel. These parents will usually follow all worldly patterns, lifestyles, and educational philosophies but tattoo on (literally sometimes) a little Jesus sticker to worldly activities and events. Those of us in this categories live in terror that our children will not be "cool" or "relevant."

Overload Parents: These parents have tried to create there own private schools by signing up for every program, co-opt, and extra curricular event that they can find. Their children, and more importantly themselves, can not be allowed to get bored! There is a 50- 50 chance that you will see these parents shortly dropping out and enrolling their children in school because that is what they really wanted anyway. After all, it is hard for us to go to the gym and participate in Rotary the same time you are supposed to teach Chemistry.

Post Modern Parents: These parents live by the philosophy we only do what we like. We only study what we like, show up when we like, participate when we like, believe what we like, go to church when and where we like. Those of us in this category have a deep envy of the Rainbow People and would like to make a living studying Indian Basket Weaving or driving at Nascar depending on our liberal or redneck tendencies.

"Harvard or Bust" Parents: These parents believe that Plato, Jesus, and Mark Zuckerberg are kissing cousins and that success in college, or at least attending the right college, is the ultimate success in homeschooling, life, and pretty much everything else. Those of us in this category  have a Harvard application for admittance stapled to the back of the Bible and a Stanford application tucked in just before Revelation.

Biblical Parenting: These parents try to find the balance of providing correct daily discipleship, good peers and activities, and leading our children in the direction and blessing of our child's design.  Our parenting and our lives should be most marked by Joy despite sometimes very trying circumstances and our own failures. Our Bible is our blue print and our goal is Heaven. Christ is the center and purpose of our lives. Let us repent and move forward toward the goal!

A Cartoon from the Old Days

Here is a cartoon I drew a long time ago with some questionable "artistic" quality, but I believe its message is still very true.

A "Vision" Statement

Awhile back, we did a Family Vision Statement. After all, doesn't Proverbs say that where there is no vision the people perish? This was something to let our Family know what we are supposed to be about. In some ways, this is a futile attempt. A complete Vision Statement would be a Bible with the words Family Vision written on it. But this was our effort to bring out what we want to focus on. I thought I would share it in case someone wanted a template to build on.

Our Family Vision is...


To Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 3:16-18

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.


To Follow all Scripture and not just Pick and Choose what we Like
2 Timothy 3:16

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

To Walk in the SpiritGalatians 5:16-26

16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

To Love Others, Keep Ourselves Unspotted from the World, and Make Disciples
1 John 2:9

9 He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. 10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

James 1:27

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Matthew 28:19

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

To Train our Children Daily
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

To Have our Children Honor Their Parents

Exodus 20:12

12 “ Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

To be Parents that don't Aggrevate Their Children

Ephesians 6:4

4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

To have a Biblical Marriage (and be who we want our children to be)
Ephesians 5:22-33

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body,[d] of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

To be Joyful, Prayerful, and Thankful
1 Thessalonians 5:16

16 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

To have Our Treasure in the Right Place
Matthew 5:19-21

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

A Response to Home Educating Family

Home Educating Family recently published my response to an article they ran painting the Family Integrated Chruch movement in a fairly negative light. I would like to thank them for publishing the below alternative view point.

"I will assume by “Family Integrated Church” you are talking about a church that has searched the scriptures and has determined that they do not see a Biblical model showing churches broken up by age group for separate teaching of the scriptures. And because of this, they have deliberately eliminated the more traditional type of Youth Groups and Sunday Schools (except for care of the youngest children) commonly seen in most churches here in the United States at the moment.

Overall, I think the Family Integrate Church movement is a natural outgrowth of changes we have been seeing among more conservative Christians here in the United States over the last 30 years; when individuals began searching the Bible asking themselves the question, “Now why do we do that and why do we believe that?” This question caused Christians to begin waking up in the 80’s, and they started asking themselves where in the Bible does it show us we should send our children to Government Schools? Maybe Deuteronomy 6:7 really means what it says? Perhaps we should be with our children throughout the day training them? In the 90’s, a lot of these same people began looking at the church and asking themselves, why do we have a humanist educational format for our training and discipleship on Sunday morning also? Christians started to form churches that they felt were more Biblically based in its mode of teaching and discipleship. Mostly, they had to start new churches because as we know traditions are very had to break.

Recently, your magazine ran an article that called these churches more dangerous to homeschool families then the traditional church. Having seen families abandon homeschooling due to influences in their church, I was a bit surprised by this comment. Of course, the author could be right. The individuals in the churches she may have known and visited may have very well been dangerous. I am sure it could be very possible that there are some people out there who claim to be Christians who are isolationistic, preach bad theology, and worship the family over Jesus Christ. (This can be a very popular mode of operation as the Mormon Church has proven.) But just because someone misapplies Biblical principle, doesn’t make the Biblical principle wrong. I believe the principle behind the Family Integrated Movement is very solid and needed in the American church today.

Our personal experience with the Family Integrated Model has been good. Of course, we all know that that there are no perfect or superior churches. I do think these churches will continue to gain a footing as a whole among Christians in the United States. It will take a lot of them awhile to mature and gain more acceptance among the general Christian community at large. But the reality of poorly performing Youth Groups will continue to cause some to seek out a more Biblical approach. We have seen growth recently in the Family Integrated Church we attend from people outside the homeschool movement. Though I think we should be weary of judging success by growth only in numbers. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where Christ judges success in this manner."