5:43 - Facilitating Your Child's Education at Home with Christine Owens

The Family Culture Movement (Archive)

Christine Owens is a mother of four children from ages 6 -16 and has homeschooled for 10 years in five states. She has 14 years experience in various facets of public education. She has traveled to 20 countries , and over 1/2 of the united states. Her family loves to travel and loves traveling to learn. She loves chocolate, old books and hippos.

Christine creates homeschooling resources to help parents learn through classic literature. This would include unit studies based on classic literature and soon to include resources on poetry. She has also written two books: Relaxed Homeschooling: Unlocking the Secrets of books and life to help people find a new way to see homeschooling; and A Year of Poetry Tea Time: The Essential Guide to Everything Poetry and Tea, a collection of poetry and so much more.

Christine and I discussed a dysfunction in our society that children have to learn certain things by a certain age and that ages need to be taught separately. The reality is parents need to realize that schools are designed for the masses. They are not there to accommodate and one child's special interests. If a child is aloud to learn about things that interest them, that they are curious about their level of retention is improved greatly. Letting children learn through curiosity not only increases their retention but also leads to a love for learning. When children fall in love of learning they are also more willing to learn new things. Not only that, but children are very capable of learning, understanding, and discussing things that are considered "to advanced" for them. This is why I started to read poetry and unabridged classics to my children at a young age.

Whether they are homeschooled or public schooled parents can benefit from knowing this information. Parents need to know that even though their children may be attending classes at a school that ultimately it is the parents responsibility to make sure their children receive the education they want them to have. This can include taking action and reading classic literature to children at night, Playing fun trivia games during dinner, teaching adult skills like cooking, finances, and serving others.

The very first classic Christine read to her children was Howard Pyle's Robin Hood. "At first I thought I had lost my mind. Not only was the book in an old english but I had to read it. I had to stop and explain what was happening every sentence. I was wanting to just throw in the towel but at the same time I refused. After a while I got better at reading and I was explaining things every paragraph and then once on a page. To my astonishment, my tiny 4 and 6 year old were starting to understand the book and by half way through I was nearly having to explain anything any more. They were laughing at the jokes and cheering on the characters. This made me realize that it did not have to worry so much about what topics we learned about but just how we experienced it. Since then we have read many books, read poetry, learned about philosophers, history and anything else that struck us as interesting."

Your child's education happens everywhere. Parents can and should lead out in discussions, read aloud to their children of all ages, and encourage their children to develop their learning skills.

Learn more about Christine by going to www.littlerabbittrails.com/

Get more resources for your intentional family culture by joining the Family Success Toolbox at www.homeandfamilyculture.com or Text CULTURE to [phone].