Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged sadness →  View Popular

     Since the children were no longer enrolled in public
school, the three of them were able to fly to the eastern state where he
lived. They spent the next three months caring for him there. The children
were able to get to know their grandpa in a way that, up until then,
geographic distance had never allowed. My friend spent far more time with her
father than she had since leaving for college many years earlier. Those three
months were a tremendous blessing to all of them.

        Sadly, her father passed away shortly after Christmas.
Needless to say, she and her children did not “do school” that spring.
Instead, they grieved together by sharing thoughts and feelings about their
father and grandfather, and reliving the many memories they made during those
precious last three months with him.

        No, they di

do any math that year. But they learned
far more important lessons, and they learned them with their mother. Once
they become adults, they will have a tremendous advantage in that they will
know how to grieve and that it’s ok to do so. Most of the adults our grief
support group works with do not have that knowledge. They come to us
completely bewildered about what they are going through. They are in
tremendous pain, made worse because they’ve bottled up their grief,
encouraged by family and friends who are uncomfortable seeing them cry or
repeat over and over stories about the loved one they lost.

   While locking our children up in the artificial
environment of school prevents them from living in the real world,
homeschooling lets them live a genuine life, complete with love, laughter,
and yes, sometimes grieving. If every child learned at home, maybe someday
there would no longer be a need for grief support groups.