How Much School Do Kids Need?

There are times when I worry that maybe I’m not teaching my children enough.  The parents around me talk about the hours they spend “doing school” while our family is through before many of them get up.  It doesn’t help when I read about children getting college degrees at the ripe ole age of 10 (my oldest is 11).

The easy way out of this is to send them to real school and let the teachers and administrators figure it all out.  The social acceptable thing to do is to give the power to someone else.  The RIGHT thing for our family is to trust my instincts and not be concerned about what “they” are doing.

All of my children are learning.  Could they be learning more and faster?  They certainly could.  Would they be able to play outside, make up brier clubs, and build weed forts?  There probably wouldn’t be time for all of that non-sense. 

Which way is best?  It all comes back to personal needs and desires.  If the child wants to push and study and graduate college at 10 then more power to her.  If the child wants to learn a little and play a lot then there is nothing wrong with that.

I will continue to give my children a small amount of “school work” and instead focus on the life lessons.  We do our reading, writing, and math first thing in the morning and spend the rest of the day planting a garden, clearing the land, and doing puzzles.

They may not graduate college before they can drive, but they will have amazing memories of the times we spent together and that’s worth more than all the college degrees in the world.