learning & parenting

I'm still trying to read up more on homeschooling, about parenting, about learning.

Many thoughts that i can't seem to know where to start. So in random fashion:
These are a few inspirations:

1.
http://parenting-works.com/?p=370

2.
"However, academics may not be the developmentally appropriate way to provide stimulation for the young child.

More than a hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher and founder of the Waldorf school, stressed that early academics do not strengthen the young child’s development, but instead undermines it.

This has been echoed by Jane Healy, a leading authority on brain development and learning, who warned that early pressure on preschoolers was a prescription for trouble, resulting in problems in motivation and achievement that could create learning disabilities.

In contrast, what the young child needs for his intellectual maturation is nurturing relationships; in particular, he needs the security of an unconditional bond with a primary caregiver, preferably his mother, from which he can confidently reach out to explore his world.

“Children’s emotional experience, how they feel about themselves and the world around them, has a tremendous impact on their growth and development. It’s the foundation on which all learning, memory, health and well-being are based,” says Pearce.

“When we make children afraid we stop their learning dead in its tracks,” Holt says. “It is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning.”

3.
" Always keep your word. If you promise your children ice cream at McDonald’s then be sure to deliver. I have a 40-year old friend who still remembers that her father failed to fulfill his promise of taking her to the movies when she was 10.

Never lie to your children. If mum and dad have a fight, explain that to them. It’s pointless hiding away in a room when they can hear the yelling through the door. Children sense dissonances and inconsistencies in the household better than they let on." Eileen Lian

4.
"It’s not hard to see why R.C. Sproul Jr said in his thoughtful book ‘When You Rise Up’ that all ‘education is inherently religious‘. He quotes Robert Louis Dabney:

True education is, in one sense, a spiritual process. It is the nurture of the soul. Education is the nurture of a spirit that is rational and moral, in which conscience is the regulative and imperative faculty. The proper purpose of conscience, even in this world, is moral.

But God is the only Lord of the conscience; this soul is his miniature likeness. His will is the source of its obligations. Likeness to him is its perfection, and religion is the science of the soul’s relations to God. Let these statements be placed together, and the theological and educational processes appear so related they cannot be separated.

It is for this reason that the common sense of mankind has always invoked the guidance of the minister of religion in the education of youth……….Every line of true knowledge must find its completeness as it converges on God, just as every beam of daylight leads the eye to the sun.

In my previous post, I argued that the question of what you want your child to be comes before your education choice, whether homeschool or conventional school. Figure this out, and then decide what’s the best route to get there. Sproul also quotes the poet Milton who wrote: “The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge, to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him.”

I happen to be in Milton’s corner here. I like the way he has articulated well a model for education that works for my family. And so we have embraced homeschool because we believe it offers our children the best opportunity to nurture soul and spirit holistically. By doing so, we believe they are better placed to love God, to imitate Him, and make a positive difference in our world.

What about you? What’s the reason for your education choice?"
~ David BC Tan

5.
"Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning. Early instruction miseducates, not because it attempts to teach, but because it attempts to teach the wrong things at the wrong time. When we ignore what the child has to learn and instead impose what we want to teach, we put infants and young children at risk for no purpose.
David Elkind (Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk)"

I know i'm reading a lot of materials that's veered towards one direction. but i've also read books that veer towards the usual direction (and a lot of marketing by a lot of pre-schools and enrichment centres).

So which direction to choose? for now i'll just play with Eliza. It's fun :) and she amazes me with her creativity and curiousity everyday, though there's always the usual guiding and disciplining & dealing with her whinings or impatience. she's only a 2yr old toddler. God made her. It's amazing how God wired us.