I Don't Want Well-Rounded Children!

“Children won’t remember what you bought them, taught them or did for them, but they will ALWAYS remember how you made them feel” Michael Pearl

The “2007/2008” school year was an incredible year of GROWTH for our family! It was our first time ever using Time4Learning and all four of my children went up more in math than EVER before. They made great strides in all the subjects, but MATH was definitely our SUPER STAR that year! All five of us walked out of the testers office with big smiles plastered on our faces as we reveled in the success of an amazingly productive school year!

Then just a few short months later along came our state homeschool convention and as I walked the vendor hall, sat in workshops, listened to speakers, talked with friends and fellow homeschooling moms, I began to get sucked into the world of peacelessness. I was no longer focused on all the success we’d had. Instead I now believed that there was something..., BIGGER and if I worked HARDER we could do even BETTER!

We enrolled the oldest in a homeschool program that revolved around higher academics. Everything came to a screeching halt as we realized that “bigger” and “better” takes “LONGER”. Our days started early and went late. Though he learned a lot about goal setting and personal organization, he became bogged down in the day to day requirements and responsibilities that were so very time consuming. Soon he began to forget all those things that had made him unique and special, as I tried to help make him well rounded. (sigh)

Half way through the year my husband and I began to see differences in his personality. Within just a few short months this child went from loving EVERYTHING about life to now becoming very discouraged. I continued to push, thinking “bigger”, “better”, “longer” would show up positively in his test results.

Imagine my surprise when we had his year end testing and though he did fine, he HADN’T made the incredible progress we’d experienced the previous year. I’ll never forget my tester looking me in the eye and asking me why we stopped using Time4Learning. I didn’t have an answer for her. Bigger and better hadn’t given us the hoped for results.

So, as the “2008/2009” school year came to a close I headed off to our state convention once again. From the time the schedule came out I found my heart pulled to a specific workshop called, “Strength’s Defined” which was all about Strength’s Based Living! It was LIFE CHANGING!

The entire message revolved around letting go of the idea that we need to create “well rounded” children. Instead, Linda Werner talked about the unique opportunity we as parents have to help our children find out what their God-given strength’s and passions are and then how to bring them to LIFE! By the time Linda (“Strength’s” speaker) stepped away from the microphone there were over one THOUSAND of us parents on our feet clapping, crying, cheering!

Since we’ve decided to begin living a “Strength’s” based lifestyle I now love the quote even more:

“Children won’t remember what you bought them, taught them or did for them, but they will ALWAYS remember how you made them feel”

You see, I want my children to always remember that I made them feel successful, valued, cherished, important! I never again want to aim for “well rounded”! Instead lets help our children become PASSIONATE, purposeful adults who are going to leave their mark on this world! What makes YOUR child get out of bed with a smile on their face?