Sunday, June 13, 2010

Parental authority

We skipped church this morning (for a number of reasons - no car, overtired Mom, bad weather, no car.  Did I mention no car?  My minivan died and it was going to cost more to repair than to replace, so we got rid of it.   Unfortunately, it hasn't been replaced yet.

Anyway, since I'm divorced from my kidlets' dad, I hate for them to miss.  (Fortunately, he takes them also, so I guess it's not that bad of a thing.)

Mercedes has chosen to spend her morning reading her scriptures.  She's 9, and reading the King James version of the Bible.  I think she's in Genesis, following my explanation of how to tell a story.  "Begin at the beginning, and when you come to the end, stop."  She's also working on some drawings to show our friend Rochelle, who just graduated from UVU with a degree in art.  Rochelle is going to give her some guidance as she fills her sketch pad.

Jared is my cuddle bug.  He's always wanting to snuggle up with me. I'm trying to get him to go play with Legos and toys.  He's quite an engineer, always building me spaceships! 

One of the reasons I started homeschooling was because I wanted more of this closeness with my kids.  Public school undermined my parental authority with my older children - they were taught that if I ever got angry with them, or tried to discipline them in any way, that was "child abuse" and they were to call the police.  As a result, I lost most of the closeness we had previously enjoyed.  How could I be close to kids who were being taught that I was the enemy?  How could they be close to me if they had to watch every move I made?  Natural, normal affection - hugs, squeezes - was suddenly molestation.  Putting them in time-out was abuse.  How could we be normal with each other?

Having my younger kids with me is priceless. 

And you know, if I'm making mistakes, at least I'm making fresh new mistakes.  I sent the three older ones to public school.  That was a mistake.  I'm keeping the younger ones home.

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