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Grief and Homeschooling

A very good article about how grief is mishandled in our society and how the natural losses of a family can really be beautifully incorporated into homeschooling. This is an excellent essay!

Tags: grief, death, sadness on 2008-11-04 -All Annotations (5) -About

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Grief is normal and natural. If we weren’t deeply
affected by the loss of someone we loved, how much could we really have loved
them? It would be weird if we could go about our lives as if nothing had
happened. And yet to children, that’s often how it appears, because they are
separated from their families on a daily basis by school. They don’t see the
grieving that goes on while they are gone.
Contrast this with the experience of a friend of mine.
After several years of hemming and hawing over homeschooling, she finally bit
the bullet one August and pulled her 3rd and 5th grade children out of
school. Only a few weeks into their new life as homeschoolers, she received
terrible news: her father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
     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.

Rocks In My Dryer: What I'd Like For You To Know: The Mother Of a Stillborn Child

This would be useful in a little booklet to that grieving parents could hand out, or hospitals and funeral homes could give. Very insightful and helpful!

Tags: grief, death, sadness, stillbirth on 2008-07-22 -All Annotations (0) -About

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