p255... There are many methods & texts & curricula, many organizations & approaches & styles, but we think that on methodology or recipe or formula will give you what you really need. The choice to work together with your children to help them learn is one that you need to make for a reason great enough to sustain you even through doubt & fear. .... There simply was no decent school available tous, none that would offer our children the kind of education we wanted them to have-- namely, an education in becoming free, reasoning, truth-seeking human being. .... Moreover, schools probably could not do this if they tried, becasue they are institutions & no institution can offer the one indispensable element of this education: a gift of self.
p255... We found in the course of our homescholing that the most important part of education is a close personal relationship that folds a child in arms of love & deep respect. This is a relationship in which parent makes a perpetual self-gift. It means that the parent never has amoment for herself (or himself), never ever tries to take anything just for "me." This idea now seems as counter cultural as our attachment to freedom. America is all about the self: self-esteem, self-sufficiency, self-improvement, self-service, self-development, self-satisfaction. It seems to be as much about the self as it is about fear & anxiety, & the more time we have spent trying to make a gift of ourselves to our children, the clearer it seems that there is a connection between attachment to selfishness & fear.
p256...Parents canmake it easier or harder for a child to live & choose & love. Many of our social institutions, & especially schools, make it harder to live & choose & love in freedom. We homeschool so that our children will be able to live & choose & love, to seek the truth in freedom.
p257...Basic Principles:
1. Believe: You can do it. You couldn't do it all alone but you won't have to. You should expect to exert all your strength, but if you do you will find others who can offer you a hand now & then when you need it..... Believe, but don't believe only in yourself. There is no tradition of wisdom that regards the self as trustworthy or benevolent, so beware of faith in yourself. Have faith that if you give your children what you have, in love, they will prosper. Have faith in them. If you are fortunate enuf to believe in God, have faith in God & pray.
2. Trust: Messages of fear & uncertainty will come from inside & from outside to discourage you & recommend that you give up. Trust that no matter how implausible your formal credentials, no matter how little money you have, no matter how limited your own education may be, you can do this. If you persevere you will succeed-- provded, of course, that you choose the right metrics to measure success. If you choose as your criterion of success the development of your children as fee & reasoning human beings with a devotion to the truth, & you persever in putting their interest before your own, you will succeed.
3. Love: St. Josemaria Escriva said, "Love is deeds, not sweet words." When we say "love," we do not mean tender feeligns & we do not mean "tough love." We mean self-sacrifice & self-gift. This love that can only come from faith & trust. Give yourself. Sometimes giving yourself means being tender & sometimes it means exercising discipline to help a child grow in strength & character. Always examine yourself to be sure that the choice you are making is not for yourself but for your child, so that your child will grow in freedom & truth. The self is subtle-- selfish motives sometimes conceal themselves in the most benevolent-seeming gestures-- so conduct the self-examination regularly & diligently.
p259... Only a person can give himself to a person, & what a child needs more than anything else is a person to make that gift. Seeing you make that gift is how the child will learn to make
it.
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