We have been homeschooling for over 27 years. We have eight children that we have homeschooled from the start. We've graduated 7 from high school and one from college. When I started this journey with our kids, the internet wasn't in existence. We didn't have cell phones and homeschool curriculum availability was limited.

As the years have passed, I've watched the internet, cell phones, and curriculum companies give us access to unlimited amounts of information. Although these can be helpful, I am also realizing how detrimental this seems to be, especially for those who are just beginning their homeschool journeys. 

For hundreds of years, children have been allowed to have plenty of playtime, spending hours building forts, making bows and arrows, collecting bruises and bloody knees, and loving every minute of it! They were engrossed in childhood. Our world has changed, but our children have NOT! 

They arrive in this world with many, many stages of development that they must walk through before becoming healthy, well-adjusted adults. Our job as parents is to provide an environment that allows them to do that well. Their health and wellbeing are dependent on it. 

The trouble is, as homeschooling parents, we are terrified that our children are going to fall behind "educationally."
I am here to tell you that that IS THE LEAST OF YOUR PROBLEMS.

In just three years, the greatest teacher of all time impacted the world more than anyone else. How was that possible? Jesus Christ was both human and divine. What did He say about financial literacy? A lot! He taught about money matters more than heaven and hell combined. Many of His parables were filled with financial overtones.

What did he say? Before I get into specifics let me say emphatically that if our government gurus studied Jesus' teachings on the proper use of money, we would not be in today's financial mess. Sometimes I think senior finance bureaucrats need a Dave Ramsay course or counsel from Mary Hunt!

First, a little about me. My family came to Canada from communist Europe when I was four, and we settled in Toronto. My dad was an accountant in Poland, but in Canada he got a job in a bakery as an oven man. It was hot and hard work. He did not have to speak much English, be employed year-round, and buy fresh baked goods for his four children. He often worked nights to earn more. My mom worked during the daytime in the Sears steno pool. Both parents toiled and were especially frugal. 

 "I made everyone a mailbox, put it on their bedroom doors, and sent them all mail, but no one has the time to send me any mail!" my 10-year-old daughter moaned, "no one has time to play!"

"Play?" My mind fought to come up with a reasonable excuse. "She doesn't realize Grandpa's just come through open heart surgery, a number of bills need paid, we're down to one vehicle, her sister-in-law has gone through a devasting late miscarriage, and look what's happening in the world…!"

I call it "mind chaos." Webster defines chaos as, "...a confused mass or jumble of things, a state of utter confusion."

"But she's right. Why can't I play her game for a while? Why is my mind in chaos? How am I ever going to be of the right "mindset" to homeschool this fall? I sent up a prayer. A verse came to mind. "...Let us lay aside every weight... (weight meaning: worry, concern, debt, mass, burden, encumbrance…) and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." Hebrews 12:1. God then reminded me that I needed to keep the most important thing first for me not to have a chaotic mind.

When I get a handbook alongside an item, a car for example, it is meant to help me understand and appreciate the thing I've invested in. You could say that its intent is to continue to encourage support for the choice the consumer has made. What I don't find in my handbook is encouragement to make a different choice, undermining my decision. If only the drafted update to the home education handbook seemed to work the same way.

10 years is a long time to wait between updates. The home education community and stakeholders have felt impatient as the old 'current' handbook is missing so many vital changes that have taken place after the last few years of advocacy. AHEA contributed to this resource for parents who go to the government website because it has importance. It is a bridge for those who don't know yet of other places to go for information or previously helped them know who the stakeholders representing their interests are. Parents should be able to find a goodly amount of help here.

This draft that the Department of Education finally shared in July can not exactly be described as 'helpful.' The last discussion on it and draft, a year ago and with different staff, left us a bit more hopeful. Now one could say this draft of the handbook is factual but dissuading and even discouraging for those who have already chosen or do want to consider home education, leaving the purpose of it a question. That purpose needs clarification if this version is going to exceed the old.

Critically, the underlying philosophical difference between the bureaucracy and home education families is captured in the second sentence, stating that, "Parents or guardians choosing a home education program for their children assume the primary responsibility for their child's education." (italics mine) Actually, parents that choose to home educate retain their responsibility to educate their child, they do not assume it from the government. We believe and have defended this as a God given, not government given, right and an essential pairing with the responsibilities they have.