How to Raise Fantastic Children - Part 1

My Family is Pretty Cool

My favorite people in the world are my children. They are kind, generous, full of life, fun to be around and crazy creative. They are really cool people.

We have four children, Alex, Ashley, Abby and Austin. My wife's idea to name them all "A" names. They are referred to as the "A Team".

We have a close family. We argue very little and maintain open communication. We have treated them like people from early on and they have behaved as such.

An Eye Opening Experience

A few weeks ago I was in Dallas visiting a friend whom I had not seen in many years. There were other people there as well that I had also not seen in a very long time. I struck up a conversation with one of them and the discussion of family ensued. He told me about his children and what it had been like for him to become a father. He has a wonderful family with children that are still very young. When the time came for me to share about my children, I began listing off what each one was doing from the oldest to the youngest. Before I could get to the youngest one, his mouth was gaped open and he burst out, "What are you feeding them!" We had a big laugh as I told him about the youngest and expanded on our philosophy of family.

We have had many compliments on our children throughout their life. Even today, the people with whom they interact; family, friends and the people who work with them in stage productions, make a point of complimenting them. I am around them all the time, and many of their friends are homeschooled as well so sometimes I forget how special they are and the impact they have on others.

Why Am I Sharing

I hope to convey a few things here. First, if you are considering homeschooling and have reservations, may these stories encourage you. If you already homeschool and wonder if it is all worth it, maybe our stories will give you hope and encouragement as well.

And lastly, I am proud of them and want to share their success with you.

Why We Homeschool

My personal experience in public schools was a nightmare. I moved a lot when I was young and changed schools every three to six months. During one stretch of five years, I switched schools nineteen times. I did not build long term relationships and being the new kid all the time often created struggles with teachers.

There is a very long story to my history so I will not get into that here. It is however, the main reason I became excited about homeschooling when my wife suggested it.

Our Oldest Child Alex

Alex has always been intelligent as I believe all children are. He had memorized many of the family members phone numbers and home addresses by the time he was six. We started him off in Montessori school at age four where he attended three years. We would have kept him in Montessori but they did not offer classes above six years old.

At that time my wife was still concerned about her ability to homeschool so we enrolled him in a Christian private school for one year. After that, she had researched enough to build her confidence. She was ready to go. (As the years went by, she found out that she was more than capable. We are guides.)

Pre-Teen

Alex took two years of Latin and one year of Japanese. He acted in plays and did what most children do, play a lot.

Teen Years

Many people will tell you that you will have to deal with the teenage years. "Brace yourself," they will say. "You will become their enemy!" We did not experience this with Alex or our other children. Alex would come to me for advice about issues him and his friends were discussing. When he would share how I reacted to some of our serious conversations, his friends were astonished and would respond with descriptions of their parents exploding if they attempted to have the same discussions with their parents.

Keeping your cool when one of your children comes to you with a confession is a sure way to have them trust you with other issues of concern.

During his teen years, Alex took CLEP tests and earned twelve college hours.

At sixteen, he began to gain interest in programming. I had introduced it to him when he was nine but he wasn't interested. Then again around eleven but still no interest. At sixteen, the interest was all his. Had I forced him to do it earlier, he may have never liked it.

Becoming an Adult

One his eighteenth birthday, he begin working his first job as a software developer. He was hired as an apprentice and was promoted to junior developer after only three months. At that time, he began mentoring two of his friends. Within a few months he had taken on a third person to mentor. Within a year or so, each of them have now changed their path and work as software developers. It has significantly changed their lives. Alex just recently began mentoring another friend. Pretty cool to pass forward. He had received help from some of my co-workers early on which made all the difference in his progression.

He now speaks French and Mandarin and has aspirations to learn many more. He has traveled to seven countries and has an arrangement with his employer to work from anywhere in the world as long as he is at the office for part of the year.

He gives technical talks at local meet ups, plays both acoustic and electric guitar, has never met a stranger and has made no enemies.

He is an inspiration to others, his family and siblings. The bar has been set high but the other children have many interests and accomplishments of their own. I'll share those in subsequent posts.

What was our part?

My wife has worked hard to keep them supplied with good school material, staying compliant with state requirements and providing some structure for learning. We never set up a school room like environment. There are never set hours of study. Homeschooling hours vary depending on the age of the child and what they are working on at that phase of their education. I would say that most of the time they spend less time doing actual school work and the rest of the time exploring, using their imagination and focusing their energy on things they are interested in.

For Alex, that was a foreign language. Other times it was memorizing all the Pokemon cards and building decks and playing in tournaments. Alex said one of the things that has helped him so much in learning new things was the fact that he had memorized so much Pokemon data. He developed the ability to store and retrieve things in his mind.

The simple fact is… we didn't do it. Alex did. He deserves all the credit. He did all the work. We provided the canvas, the paint and the paintbrushes.

Conclusion

I feel we have a pretty cool family. There are many ways to raise your children. The most important thing is to love them unconditionally, give them room to grow and treat them as you would your very best friend. They are people and are smarter than most give them credit.

I hope I have been able to convey how proud we are of Alex. These are but a few highlights of his life as he is only twenty-one. There is so much in store for him.

I am so grateful that as much as possible we have given Alex the opportunity to live life on his own terms and he has flourished.