Home School Help

Q

Help! I have a deep desire to homeschool our children, but my husband is adamantly opposed to the idea. It is really causing stress in our marriage. How can we come to a resolution?

A

Any home schooler will attest that home schooling is such an undertaking that you simply cannot attempt it without both parents being totally committed and united. Mom needs more than Dad's mere acquiescence; she needs his full support. We're sorry to say so, but, at the present time, home schooling does not seem like a viable option for you.

However, if your desire to home school stems from a desire to form your children morally and spiritually, then take heart. You are still the primary educators of your children, no matter where they attend school. There are countless ways to pass on the faith — sitting down with a religion textbook in a classroom setting is but one way. We urge you and your husband to redouble your efforts to teach the faith to your children. Here are some suggestions on how to do so.

• Live out the liturgical year in your home. Buy a good Catholic calendar and discuss and celebrate feast days. Be sure at holiday times your religious decorations are more plentiful than your secular ones.

• Immerse your kids in Catholic and Christian literature, which can capture and sanctify the imagination. Institute a family read-aloud time for all ages. Tom has taken on this task in our home before bedtime, and it is truly one of the highlights of our children's day. Include Bible stories, lots of them, which effortlessly help kids learn about the superheroes of our faith.

• Fill your home with Catholic art, statues, crucifixes and holy-water fonts. Art instructs as it inspires. Children can become familiar with the family of faith even before kindergarten. It's also an important witness to our children (and other visitors to our home) of what's truly important in our lives.

• Be committed to a daily family prayer time. The format is up to you — offering up special intentions after dinner, a decade of the rosary, using a prayer book like Magnificat. Pope John Paul writes that “only by praying together with their children can a father and mother penetrate the innermost depths of their children's hearts and leave an impression that the future events in their lives will not be able to efface” (Familiaris Consortio, The Role of the Family in the Modern World, 1981). Wow! Isn't that what you're after?

• Finally, don't give up entirely on home schooling. Calmly listen to and discuss your husband's objections. Perhaps he has valid concerns about your unique family situation, or perhaps he doesn't have enough information. For the rest of this school year, be committed to exposing your husband to some topnotch material. Not nagging him about it, please (see Proverbs 21:9), but simply making information available. What convinced us was Hahn and Hasson's book, Catholic Education: Homeward Bound.

Pray not that your husband will change his mind but that you can be of “one heart, one mind, one path” on this issue. May God's will be done.

Tom and Caroline McDonald are family-life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.

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