I heard of homeschooling for the first time in a 1989 issue
of Mothering Magazine. I never even knew
it existed before then. When we decided
to “try” homeschooling (which would morph into unschooling in our lives after
about 3 weeks), I had never met, let alone spoken to, another
homeschooler. Eventually, after 5
months, my family would become connected with the local Christian homeschool
support group, and so began our journey with other Christian homeschoolers.
I was a newbie, both to homeschooling and
to the politics that sometimes surrounds being a Christian. Perhaps as a result of the behavior of my
children?!, I was either given or had recommended to me a few different
parenting books. One in particular
stands out in my mind as being quite disturbing to me at the time. My husband and I would later have a
“ceremonial burning” of that book in our campfire ring . . . ; )
The authors recommended ways of discipline that my husband and I were
absolutely not comfortable embracing.
But the most disturbing part was the narrative put forth that if Christian
parents DIDN’T embrace those ways of discipline that they were going against
scripture. We rejected that narrative
then, and we still reject it now. I felt brave back then (albeit PRIVATELY brave), as we were definitely going against the tide of parenting/discipline beliefs of many of our closest homeschooling friends. Back then, I wasn't necessarily completely honest about what I thought for fear of not "belonging". What I know as truth now is that I shouldn't have been trying to belong . . .
I’ve read many different Christian parenting books and
articles on biblical parenting and discipline since then, and I am happy to say
that my husband and I were not and are not the only Christians to reject the
narrative found in that book all those years ago. I’ve been parenting for nearly 24 years now
and unschooling for over 17, and I still love to read books and articles on
parenting, which leads me to one of the purposes of this post . . .
I had heard of the book “Parenting Wild Things: Embracing the Rumpus” (www.parentingwildthings.com) by Jessica Bowman (https://www.facebook.com/BohemianBowmans?ref=ts) several months ago and most recently read a review
of the book by my friend, Tammy Metz. I
finally downloaded it onto my Kindle app today and read the entire thing while
relaxing in hot bath . . . It’s a great
book on gentle and respectful parenting and is available today from Amazon for
just $3.00 on pdf and $4.14 for Kindle. Check it out!
You won’t be disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment