Honesty: secret to homeschooling and parenting success

A friend recently wanted to know why I had such nice children – which is the generally accepted view around here! I had no ready answer other than I thought it had something to do with homeschooling, which is true.

However, not all homeschooling children are so nice, or so caring towards their parents and their siblings, the environment, etc.... so it had to be something else.

Honesty has always been big in my life, but I never really consciously knew it until this year. I used to fight hard against hypocrisy, as it was rather prevalent at home during my childhood. It’s hard to recognise one's own hypocrisy: I found I had to be scrupulously honest and very critical with and of myself to reveal it. This is a major focus of my life, and one of the goals underpinning the home education of the children.

From the start I made sure that I told the kids as much as I could about how I felt, what I believed, and pointed out that there are other ways of being that are just as valid as mine. Tolerance seemed to me to be important in the development of honesty.

I tried as best as I could not to lie to the kids, to myself or to others. I tried not to 'hide' anything from them, except surprise presents, of course! If I talked about my children, and I do that all the time, the children know about it and what I say, etc. We didn’t lie to control their behaviour. If we didn’t want them to do something we said so - "I don't want you to do that because it (worries, frightens, annoys...) me, or will endanger yourself or others. Then we might talk about it. Often the children would accept my ‘ruling’ without explanation, far too busy to stop and listen, and confident in my judgement. I know that’s because we’d been careful to trust and respect each other, both dependent on honesty!

Over the years I’ve found that talking to others honestly about how I live, how I feel, how things are like at home, now and in my past, has given them the confidence to talk about themselves. I would never have found out that most of us share the same worries, concerns and fears and that a problem shared is a problem half-solved, if I hadn’t been so honest and revealing in the first place. I’ve made so many wonderful friends I can rely on for support during any kind of crisis, or for simply having a great time together. Life’s too short to miss out on that!

© Beverley Paine

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