Monday Q&A (with my mom, not with me!)

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

A while back, a number of you had submitted a little pile of questions for my mom. I compiled them, sent 'em over to her, and she recently sent me all of her answers. There are more questions than we can fit into one Q&A post, so I'll run another Ask Frugal Girl's Mom Q&A post in a few weeks. 🙂

How have you maintained your marriage for so long?

-Missy

I have been blessed with a husband who is pretty much a "kindred spirit", as Anne of Green Gables would say. He is my best friend, and he is a particularly kind man. We approach life much the same way, enjoy many of the same things, share our faith in Christ, and have fairly even-keeled temperaments.

So I haven't felt that maintaining our marriage has been a lot of work or that I can take much credit for our relationship. We do have our differences and can frustrate each other at times. I think calmly talking things out is really important.

It is also good to remember that many of the irritants of daily life are just not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things and a bit of grace about those goes a long way.

What's your best advice about mothering? Do you have any good parenting book recommendations?

-Lauren

My best advice has to do with my spiritual outlook on life which not all of you may share. I would encourage parents to do their best to deal with the heart issues their children have and to try to show them what glorious good news the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. Along that vein, I would recommend the book, Shepherding a Child's Heart, by Ted Tripp.Take every opportunity you have to teach and train your children from the Bible.

In a more general vein, I would recommend spending lots of good quality time with your children. It is a wonderful investment of time. They are gone from your home in what seems like a flash. (I know that when they are small it does not seem like that could be true, but it is.)

You will never regret reading books, going to the park, playing a game, or working along side of them teaching them a skill. Hug them; tell them you love them; encourage them honestly (don't flatter them).

What was it like to homeschool back before it was as prevalent as it is now? What was different back then?

When we started homeschooling it was not nearly so popular as it is now. As a result, it was also more misunderstood than it is now, and less accepted. There was less available initially in the way of support from other homeschoolers and co-op groups, etc.

I did not find this particularly difficult though, as one reason I homeschooled was to get away from being tied to a lot of activities and an outside schedule. I personally did not experience opposition or social pressure regarding our choice to homeschool, though some people did and some probably still do.

How did you feel confident you were teaching your kids enough? I'm going to begin homeschooling in the next year and I am terrified!

-Angela M

It is not hard to come up with a list of subjects normally taught in the public schools. So, if you choose curriculum that covers those subjects, you can be fairly sure that you are covering what you need. It is not like you have to think up yourself what they need to learn. Initially I chose one curriculum company which, upon examination, seemed to do a good job of covering things, and we just went with that. As time went on, I did branch out some and substituted other books in for some subjects. I would suggest talking to others in your community who homeschool and ask them how they chose their curriculum and why. You will probably get some good ideas.

Kristen and her older brother had attended kindergarten at a local Christian school, so I had a pretty good idea about what went on there. I just tried to duplicate that for the two youngest, which gave me a pretty simple approach to kindergarten, which Kristen has also adopted and blogged about.

I also had my kids take some standardized tests occasionally and those seemed to bear out the fact that they were doing just fine in their educational development.

What technique did you use to teach Kristen such good writing skills?

I don't think I can take great credit for Kristen's writing skills. I believe reading profusely is one of the best ways to learn to write well and Kristen has always been an avid reader, reading pretty much everything in her path. I think that greatly aided her in becoming a good writer.

Writing regularly also makes good writers. I did make our kids write regularly, and I did spend a fair amount of time with them editing what they wrote. I don't have any magic curriculum to recommend.

I think learning about English grammar is helpful too, but much of what we know about English grammar comes from reading. We probably learn the most about English grammar by having to learn another language, where you can't rely anymore on your instincts for grammar.

So... primarily, read a lot, write a lot, and edit your writing. Secondarily, learn about grammar and try learning another language.

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Today's 365 post: Caroling, caroling, now we go...