Charlotte Mason, a brilliant British educational reformer of the last century, taught that parents must have a fully thought out method of education or they will fail to fulfill all the promise that is within their children.
What is this promise? Just this: To grow to maturity in full possession of their innate abilities and be able to use those abilities in the service of God, family and community. Does that seem like a tall order to you? It is possible to bring this picture to reality by creating a road map for yourself made up of two things:
Create a clear picture of what you want your child to be at the end of their learning.
Find a homeschool method that best matches the picture to help you bring it to reality.
An important exercise
Do this: Picture in vivid detail what your child is like grown.What are the qualities, the character traits, the activities you would like to see your child doing? Write all this down in as much detail as you can. Yes, it will take effort, but you will only need to do this once. When I did it, it produced a radical readjustment of my thinking. Good thing, as I was locked into traditional educational methods and could only imagine my daughter doing well in college. When I got the full Technicolor picture of character, life skills, enjoyments, spiritual growth, and, yes, doing well in college.
Finding a method?
Once you have done the above exercise you have a much clearer idea of what you and your child need for a homeschool curriculum in order to bring that picture to reality. Do you see your child doing outdoors activities most of the time? Does your child work best with things read aloud or does he like to work independently? Study the internet for the different methods of homeschooling. You will see that there are several different approaches: Charlotte Mason, classical, unschooling, eclectic and traditional are the main styles. Some methods, such as the Charlotte Mason method, work well with all learning styles. Keep the written description of your child as a grown up in a special place. Read it once in awhile to make sure your still on the right track. You will find after a few years that your child will have gone a long ways towards fulfilling the promise that is within him.
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