Eric Mack On-Line

If you have children, you have to ask yourself if you are home educating them as well.  OK, perhaps that is a misleading statement (See disclaimer #1) but I do want you to think about your role as a parent.

Our family home educates our 4 daughters ages 1 3/4, 3 3/4 and twins at 8 1/2. It has been a fun and stimulating experience thus far. Perhaps most exciting is to see the two younger children learning so much by watching their older siblings. We do not push our children, the 3 year old is learning to read because she wants to be just like her big sisters. The youngest pretends to read along. The older ones help with the teaching of their younger siblings and in turn, learn effective communication skills.

As for family dynamics, I can think of no better way to bring and keep our family close together than the experience that we have had homeschooling our children. I am fortunate to be able to run my consulting practice from home. I'm therefore able to be involved or at least aware of everything that is going on. We are all becoming our own best friends and this strengthens the family.

Now, I must make two disclaimers:

1. Homeschooling as an alternative to public or private school is not for everyone. That does not mean that you cannot have a homeschooling mentality as you approach every event and circumstance with your children as a learning opportunity. It is my personal belief that EVERYONE who has children should be homeschooling them regardless of whether they also choose to have them attend a public, private or parochial school for 5 or 6 hours each day.

2. As the income producer in our family, it should be noted that my wife does most all of the work on the formal classroom training. I cannot take credit for the many hours of classroom and textbook time that she invests with our children. I think that in most homeschooling families you will find this to be true.

I would welcome your comments or questions. We are only in our 4th year of homsechooling and perhaps there are some of you out there who have already graduated your children. I'd love to hear from you.