One of ten things to do before your child is ten...

I recently ran across this article and was struck by this last portion. I would recommend any homeschooling parent who is attempting a classical academic education for their child read it in it's entirety...there are many helpful insights.

This portion struck home and I wanted to share...

"Play and Exploration

Give the child plenty of time to explore and play. Do not buy "toystore" toys — they are expensive and are usually forgotten after the newness wears off. Invest in real things. Garage sales and auctions are an unending source for things like sewing machines, small tools for working in the garden, hammers, nails, and things for building, some wooden blocks, and dress-up clothes. Buy tools for exploring (a good microscope, telescope, binoculars, dissecting equipment, basic chemistry equipment, etc.), not toys for adoring. Teach your children how to use them responsibly (safe, neat, and orderly — clean up when you are done), and make them readily available for when they want to use them.

It is not only important that you do some things, it is important that you not do some things. It always seems like there are more do not’s than there are do’s. Do not set your child in front of a television screen. Television is bad. We mean the screen itself. It is unhealthy for the body, and especially for the eyes. Visual strain is the number-one problem of frequent computer users. Studies estimate that anywhere from fifty to ninety percent of regular computer users experience visual deterioration.

The material on the screen is also bad. The entertainment method of learning creates a sort of entertainment addiction — the child wants to be entertained all of the time — he wants his visual and auditory senses stimulated (overstimulated.) Every child needs to learn to spell through touch and taste and smell, and through interaction with real human beings who smile and answer back. He needs to learn in submission to the authority of real parents, not the authority of glamorized, always-happy, limitlessly-resourceful, never-tired substitutes who have absolutely no accountability. Need we say more?

Do not let your child waste away. You will have to discover the happy medium between giving your child enough time of his own and giving your child too much time of his own. If he has too little time, he will not develop his own thoughts. If he has too much time, he will pursue mischief, or at least no profitable ends. Give him something to think on when he has nothing to do. Memorization fills the mind with things to teethe his mind on and ponder.

Do not let your child play in a cyber world. He can play in a miniature world. He can play in a pretend world. But it must be made up of objects which exist in the real three-dimensional world, not electrons hitting an opaque, two dimensional phosphorescent screen. Why? Because — though he may learn something from the screen image, there are nevertheless many things which he is not learning precisely because it is only a screen image. Besides the missing sensory experiences (touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing — three dimensionally), there are logical things missing (such as consequences in the real world.)

When the Computer substitutes for the functions and processes which the brain normally supplies, the brain is left to atrophy. It does not develop its brain muscles, as it were. No pain no gain. Do not use it, you lose it.

Excessive use of computers, especially at early ages, will restructure the way the brain processes information, often for the worse. It also causes the underdevelopment of the emotional and social dimensions of the child. Young children are developing many parts of their understanding, and "holes" can occur in their development if they are deprived of certain experiences during critical periods of time. These may not be discovered until much later. For example, a child may test perfect for hearing, yet because of a period of head colds earlier in his life, he was not hearing properly while his discernment of speech sounds was developing, so though he hears speech perfectly, he does not properly discern in his mind what his ears are perfectly hearing. Because you know he can hear well, you think he does not pay careful attention, so you punish him. You do not realize that he cannot pay careful attention, and that you need to train him in a missing skill.

Televisions and computers can be useful tools under the proper circumstances and controls. But they are like fire — a useful servant, but a terrible master. There are many legitimate reasons to doubt their value for children below the age of ten, especially in preparation for classical academic education."

So...real-life skills can be fun for kids. Cooking, sewing, gardening, woodworking, even cleaning can be enjoyable and foster closeness and communication between parents and children. I am chastened by this article...Olivia plays way too many computer games, and has asked me repeatedly to teach her to really sew (using the machine.) To my credit I have purchased the fabric and the pattern...tomorrow we begin!