Home And School Education - Your Kids Can Benefit From Both!

Once, as a Learning Support Teacher, I made my way down to the annexe that housed the school's History Department.

The annexe was about 100 metres from the main schoolbuilding, down an attractive, leafy hill.

On the way I was irked by two girls in front of mecomplaining about the hill, the wind ruffling their hair, the distance from one classroom to another, and so on.

I joined the History class with the moans and groans still ringing in my ears. However, the topic of the lesson soon gripped me:

Life in Thirteenth Century Scotland.

The ordinary people in those days lived in squalid huts,unlike the nobles with their heavily fortified castles. But even they faced many challenges. Fighting was a way of lifeand the fear of attack preoccupied everyone.

In the cold, draughty, disease-ridden castles people who lived to forty were considered old.

Not much scope for personal development and parenting projects there!

Bumpy dirt tracks served as roads and the trees that coveredmost of the land made travel difficult. Schools and child education did not exist.

After the lesson I made my way back up to the mainbuilding. This time I overheard another conversation - or tobe more precise, one side of a conversation.

A girl behind me chatted to her mum, many miles away on the outskirts of the city. The small cellphone clamped tothe girl's ear made it possible.

Times had certainly changed since the 13th century!

Not only could this girl travel many miles by comfortable transport every day, but at the touch of a button she couldchat with her mum.

This made me think again of the two I'd overheard on the waydown. Unlike their 13th century counterparts, they couldwalk safely on a dry, tarmac surface and enjoy the benefitsof a good education. Yet they moaned and groaned . . .

Yes, teaching - and parenting - teenagers brings itschallenges!

But if raising confident children is our goal,why not start early, and help them develop a sense of aweand wonder. Help them realise how far we've progressed.

Stress the benefits growing families enjoy today - benefitsunavailable to our predecessors, for whom life was hell.

Make your kids aware of the changes even since they wereinfants:

iPods, mp3s, DVDs, multiplex cinemas, online bookings, videocellphones - when you think about it, the list isimpressive!

And the downside: in a world saturated with resources and abundance, millions starve. Yet all could be put right so easily!

Your children are young and impressionable, so true-lifestories will absorb their insatiable interest. Make thispart of your home education program, working hand-in-hand with their special school projects.

And it will pay dividends. Informed, appreciative children become confident, tolerant, fair-minded and determined young people.

Personal development all round . . .

Happy parenting!

Why do some parents and children succeed, while othersfail?Frank McGinty is an internationally published author andteacher. If you want to develop your parentingskills and encourage your kids to be all they can be, visit his web pages, http://www.frank-mcginty.com/peace-formula.htmlAND http://www.frank-mcginty.com/for-parents.html