Thursday, July 18, 2013

Starting to Dream

I love mid-July. The frantic spring (think: recitals, tee ball, standardized testing, graduation parties) and early summer (VBS) pace slows to a crawl and the days feel long and full. There's time for the pool and the neighborhood games, time to read aloud and to just relax.

This is the time of year I read whatever I can get my hands on for inspiration and insight in training up the troops. Home education is more than just academics; it's discipleship and discipline happening right in the middle of the daily grind. (Which can be amazingly beautiful on the best days and downright overwhelming on the ones that don't go so well).

So it's always nice to pick up a book that speaks to my heart and encourages me in the journey. Right now it's Anthony Esolen's latest work entitled, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of your Child.  It  bemoans "the paltry thing that childhood has become" because of our current over-schooled, over-scheduled, over-parented way of raising children.

I love that my own still prefer to run wild and free on these long summer days, leaving me notes as to their whereabouts:



Currently, my boys are building some complex, labor intensive track for their remote control cars in the back woods.  While Esolen argues this generation of children may be the first to spend more time indoors than out, we're not caving yet.