It’s hard to go for long without hearing someone talk about the state of the world. There are those who predict doom because of the spiritual state of our world. Others anticipate a government takeover which will include the abolition of personal rights regarding free speech, gun ownership, owning personal property, and more. The disaster-fearing weigh in with predictions of natural disasters causing global disruption or electro-magnetic pulses (EMP) that would render all of our technical devices unusable and worthless, leaving us vulnerable in numerous ways since we have become dependent to some degree of technology. Still others believe that our economy will collapse and the currency we use will have little or no value once the collapse occurs. Prepping in some form bears consideration.
Whether the extreme predictions come true, or just a facsimile of them, there seems to be a consensus that some degree of change will take place imminently. There are differing opinions on how much “prepping” a family should do, but even if you are just planning on making small changes, homeschooling provides wonderful opportunities to incorporate planning and undertake projects in order to be better prepared for the future.
Personally, my faith remains rock-solid that God is in control of all things and I can trust him to lead and use my family as He sees fit. We are told in Matthew 10:16 to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Given that many people much smarter and wiser than I am are exhorting people to prepare for some of the uncertainties of the future, I want to make the most of my time and resources. I don’t want to become obsessed or anxious about possible future difficulties. At the same time, I really don’t want to die stupidly. So my husband and I have been reading up on ways to survive various doomsday predictions, without becoming overwhelmed by all the possible scenarios. We just want to be responsible to take care of our family and we would like to be in a position to help care for others in need. One of the first things we considered was food supplies.
If the grocery stores ran out of food, we would be in trouble because we know very little about raising plants and gardening. I used to joke that I had a brown thumb since everything I planted died. Those of you who raise crops on farms or who are avid gardeners have an advantage and hold much-needed knowledge about growing food. My family was eager to learn and we had to start somewhere, so we planted a vegetable garden with a variety of vegetables. Most of them grew well but a few did not. We don’t know why some of what we planted thrived in the garden while others never produced anything.
How much space do you want to devote to growing your own food? This would be a great homeschool project, to figure out what kind of soil to use, when to plant different vegetables, how deep to plant the seeds, and how far apart to space the plants. Some plants need thinning, so it would be good to read up on which plants and when the thinning should take place. Your homeschool students could research which plants bear fruit throughout a season, and which ones will only produce a harvest at one time. What is the best time to plant? Should everything you intend to grow be planted at once, or on a staggered schedule?
There are so many things to consider once you delve into gardening. We have learned that some plants do better when placed next to specific other plants. We didn’t worry about watering until days went by with no rain and we realized we needed to figure out when and how much water our plants needed. I made the mistake of watering a plant in the middle of a sunny, scorching hot day and the poor plant just fried up. It was sad but educational, and some of the learning process includes figuring out what not to do.
Being the big city dwellers we are, our mental image of broccoli is a nice clean bunch held together by a strong rubber band and freshly misted in the produce department of the grocery store. With great anticipation, we planted broccoli and waited for the harvest. We waited and waited, but it never really looked like the broccoli in the store and one day we realized it was past the point of harvesting and had gone to seed. Clearly, we have much to learn.
As I was studying up on what plants would be best for the plot of land we could devote to a garden, I came across an article that suggested there are many edible foods growing wild. I took a look at the pictures in the article and realized that I had an abundance of one of the edible plants in my own yard. Think of the money I could save! I read some of the ways people eat the weed, which was something in the nettle family, and decided to try and use some in a green smoothie. I harvested, then used my smoothie maker and added vanilla yogurt and some fruit. In my enthusiasm, I went way overboard with the amount of weeds added, and the result was not impressive. My son said it tasted like grass clippings and my husband gamely stated that if we had to, we could drink it. Another lesson learned.
Even a relatively small project like ours involved learning opportunities with math, science, history, and exploration. Some of our garden was best used as compost, but we learned about the importance of compost and how to best procure it. We measured and observed plant growth, sunlight and water, and even which insects were pests and which could be helpful in a garden. We talked about planning for the future, and how we had the opportunity to hone our skills while still having local markets available if our garden didn’t succeed.
No matter how developed your family’s skill set is, it is a good idea to try gardening even if you only plant a few vegetables in pots. Your students will learn new skills while enjoying the healthy foods they tended throughout the growing season. If your garden really takes off, you might even have enough to share with neighbors. There’s something about homegrown food that just tastes better than store bought. Harvesting from your own garden is a satisfying accomplishment that just may be the beginning of a love of gardening for you and your children.
I’ve met many parents who are pretty sure their child has AD/HD or some other learning challenge but they are hesitant to make it official by having their child evaluated and diagnosed. The fear that a label may limit their child, be inaccurate, or be used in discriminatory ways is valid. When my son, Josh, was approaching school age I thought about the advantages of private schools with smaller class sizes. Several people suggested that I go ahead and enroll him without telling the school personnel about his AD/HD diagnosis so they couldn’t turn him down. That was before we knew he also had an auditory processing disorder. I was assured that once he was enrolled in the school, they couldn’t kick him out just because he had a diagnosis and they would be forced to work with him. Wow! For one thing, Josh was pretty easy to pick out of a group as being different than his peers. I’d give it 5 minutes tops before things became unavoidably noticeable. So basically I would have had to keep him out of sight until school had officially started. Then there was the whole idea of the people he would be spending hours with each day being tricked into having a student that they weren’t prepared for and apparently didn’t feel equipped to deal with in their classroom. That made me feel sorry for Josh and for the teachers, since having someone who was “forced” to work with my child because I had hidden some vital information from them just didn’t sit well with me. I loved that boy, and the thought of sending him somewhere that he might not be wanted didn’t make sense to me. I had the same dilemma when it came time for Sunday School at church. I didn’t want to bias the teachers against Josh by telling them all his struggles, so I coached him on the way there and dropped him off like all the other parents with their children. The Sunday School teachers, bless them all, are volunteers in the church and most don’t have training as educators – and for most kids that’s just fine. But to do the “drop and run” with a special needs or challenging child is not a good idea, as I came to realize. Every week, the other parents would pick up their children and happily leave. When I came to pick up Josh, I inevitably got pulled to the side and told, “I need to talk to you about Josh.” Then I heard, week after week, a full litany of complaints from frustrated and bewildered teachers who were describing things that were not unusual for Josh but were not typical for most children. For example, Josh was not adept at sitting still for long. He was not deliberately disruptive and was never disrespectful, but his need to stand at the table while coloring his page instead of sitting in a chair like everyone else was considered problematic. His sensory issues led him to sit at the back of the group on his carpet square, and everyone else was huddled together and bumping into each other which Josh was carefully trying to avoid. But that meant he wasn’t “with” the group because he had made a row of one – just himself! And the list would go on and on until I was finally allowed to leave with my miserable son who knew that somehow just by being who he was he had screwed up again and people were unhappy with him. Those experiences led me to advocate more and be preemptive with anyone I left Josh with for any length of time. When there was a sub or a new Sunday School teacher, I made a point of telling them a bit about Josh and strategies that would help them, and I was careful not to dwell on the negatives. I shared Josh’s strengths, too, for I found that if I became negative about my son others felt free to share every little thing they saw as being wrong or weird about him. I was well aware of Josh’s struggles and it served no purpose other than to discourage me when others felt the need to complain about him. All this, and he wasn’t even doing anything “bad” on purpose! When someone was going on and on about all the things Josh did or did not do, I learned to quietly point out something that he had done right, or I’d share something that Josh had enjoyed learning in their class previously. This seemed to derail some of the negativity some of the time. Just as with our kids, nothing works all of the time but something will work some of the time. We need strategies for working with those who are in a position to care for our children, and hope that something will work some of the time. Whether you are a natural advocate or a reluctant one, if you have a child with a learning difference or special challenges, you must be an advocate unless and until your child one day develops the skills to advocate for himself. In my experience, being deliberate in my advocacy was hard but preferable to what happened when I just waited and hoped things would work out for the best.