TOP TEN REASONS FOR EDUCATING MY CHILDREN THE WAY I DO

Why is it that whenever you choose to educate your children differently people feel like they have the right to comment on your choices? It seems like when you home school, choose to be vegetarian/vegan/raw, or educate your children on the reality of drugs and sex some people act like they get to vote on (or worse, tell you) how you do that. I am really having a hard time with this lately. I am trying to keep my children as safe, healthy, and informed as possible. When I explain that I am home schooling my children or that we eat a raw diet people often look at me like I have three heads. I have had many people ask straight out, "why do you even want to do that?" My smart ass answer is "because I do."

However, my real reasons are:

1. I want my children to not only have knowledge, but wisdom. I don't only want them to know how to get an answer, but why they even care about getting an answer. I want them to know the reasons why they chose the answer the did, and the values and beliefs that helped them solve a particular problem.

2. I want them to know that not all people have the same values and beliefs that they do and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

3. I want to have an open and honest age-appropriate relationship with my children. While I want to be friendly with them, I do not want to be their best friend. I want them to know that people wear many different hats and none of those hats completely define them as a person.

4. I want them to know that all people make mistakes and all people fail at one point or another. Failure and mistakes are part of what helps us grow and learn, and we should view them as such.

5. I want them to realize that life is filled with temptations, whether they be food, sex, drugs, pornography, gambling, etc., and that even "good" people can be tempted by bad things and that does not make them bad. I want them to have as much information as possible so that when they are tempted (and they will be) they have all of the information they need to make good decisions.

6. I want them to know they, and the people they love, will not always make good decisions, but that one bad decision does not prevent them from making better ones in the future.

7. I want my children to feel good about themselves and their bodies. Their bodies are gifts and they need to treat them with great care and loving attention.

8. I want my children to learn empathy, understanding, the value of different points of view. I want them to learn how to honor their intuition, listen to others, and make up their own minds about difficult issues instead of just following the crowd.

9. I want my children to honor themselves as individuals, and individuals as they would themselves.

10. I want my children to be thankful, considerate of others, and willing to lend a helping hand to those in need.

I feel better now. Let me also say, I do not believe that home schooling, eating a raw food diet, and educating children on sex and drugs is the ONLY way to accomplish these things, but it is OUR way of accomplishing these things, and I feel very good about it.

Nice to see my little brother

My little brother, Ed, is in town on business this week and this evening the kids and I got to spend a little bit of time with him. It was so nice to see him! I think he was surprised to actually see "in person" how much weight I have lost (about 35 pounds now) and how much healthier I look. He came back to the house with me and we went through my pantry so I could show him all of the foods I have on hand every day compared to what I had when I was eating a SAD diet.

One common misperception is that eating raw is hard. It is not. Granted, some things can be complicated to prepare, but only because they are different than what we are accustomed to preparing. However, I would never have made mom's home made lasagna on a school night when I ate a SAD diet; likewise, I don't make a difficult raw dish on a busy school night either. The biggest and hardest change that one has to make on a raw food diet is to change their mind about what they are putting in their body. The rest is easy! What could be easier than fruits and veggies? I find that green smoothies are one of the easiest things in the world to make -- throw it all in the Vita Mix and presto, 15 seconds later I have dinner. Last night I spent 15 minutes I would have spent waiting for water to boil julienning zucchini and dicing tomatoes. I literally had dinner on the table in 15 minutes -- that was almost unheard of on a SAD diet!

Anyway, my brother looked really good and it was nice to be around someone in my family. Sometimes I feel so far away from them all and I truly miss them. It was fun to sit around the kitchen table and have the kids want to tell him everything they are learning in school, show him all of their pets (we have 2 birds, 3 hermit crabs, 2 frogs, and 2 dogs so that takes a while), and want him to play with all of their toys. The kitchen table can truly be a magical place!

They were eager to tell Uncle Ed everything about their lives while we were at the table. Since I home school and I am a "type A" personality I sometimes wonder how much the kids are really digesting what they learn. I worry about whether or not I am getting through to them, or if they really get what we are studying. It was wonderful to hear them so excited about the things they have been working on in school. They were reciting latin words and derivatives, commenting on the geography of the Middle East, and asking him if he wanted to try one of their Raw Revolution Bars. It made me feel really good about teaching them and about being home with them. I am so glad we were able to spend some time together. It was good for my soul!