Author: Scott and Cathy

Is this click-bait? A bit of controversy to get some traffic to our website? An opinion piece with a dollop of shame thrown in for good measure?

No. None of the above.

How we educate our children is a deeply personal choice. Every family has individual circumstances, convictions, callings – private school, Christian school, state school, or home education are viable options for Christian families.

However, in the UK at least, Christians home educating their children is a relatively undiscussed thing.

So today we’re going to outline 4 reasons why Christians should consider home educating their children. Or in other words, we will debunk 4 commonly held myths about why Christians shouldn’t home educate. We’re not telling you that you have to or ought to – only to consider it.

Under UK law, as a parent, the educational provision of your children is your responsibility (not the State’s).

Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 provides that:

The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive
efficient full-time education suitable –
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have,
either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

So given that your child’s education is your choice and responsibility. Let’s consider some of the benefits of home education:

Socialisation

There is sometimes an assumption (it was there before COVID, but certainly government-mandated lockdown “homeschooling” did nothing to help) that home educated children do not get opportunities to socialise. They are weird, unsocialised, socially inept individuals – kept away from the real world and therefore unable to engage with the world outside their home.

This couldn’t be further from the truth for most home educating families. Their children are learning in the real world – literally – the parks, forests, museums, art galleries, gymnastics club, first aid courses, horse stables, the list could go on.

True, they are not simply mixing in classes of children all of the same age (which is a product of the school system developed during the industrial revolution) instead they are socialising in multi-age settings. But this is no weakness. One of the first things that attracted us to home education was seeing how older children interacted with our small children with respect and inclusivity.

Children are like sponges and have their social skills modelled by those around them; when their peers are the same age, their modellers are immature themselves. A huge benefit of home education is the range of people, including a large number of engaged, respectful parents who can model and coach your children in social interactions.

It’s hard to express in words quite how special home ed meets are. Everyone from babies to teens (and parents) learning, sharing and growing together. If you are interested in home education – connect with others in your local area and experience firsthand what sort of socialisation I’m talking about. Then draw your own conclusions about whether home educated children are socialised. And if the socialisation that you see has a different flavour to school-educated children that you know, ask yourself, is it in a good way?

Salt and Light

Which brings us to our second point, which is the fear that you can’t be a good witness to the world if you are home educating. There can be an assumption that school gate evangelism is a true avenue of outreach, but home education is too inward- looking for evangelism to be a priority.

Being a witness in the school community is a wonderful thing, whether it’s sharing the gospel at the school gate, speaking in assemblies or serving as a school governor and seeking to bring kingdom values there. We are thankful for every Christian presence in schools in the UK.

But the home ed community is ripe for the harvest.

Home educators are by nature thinkers, questioners and explorers. As this is the case, many are open to spirituality and in the absence of Christian witness are are actually being drawn into wiccan, pagan and eastern philosophies. Home ed camps often have these spiritual elements as part of them, and already we are seeing relatively new home educators and their children being drawn in.

But it also means that home educators are often open to the gospel.

The biggest joy of 2021 was a home educating family in our town starting to engage with Christianity. And because home educators have a come-one-come-all mentality to their family life – evangelism is a whole-family-affair. So in contrast to other mums I’ve reached out to in the past at play groups, this time it’s mum, dad and the three kids all engaging in Christianity. I’ll be honest, I doubted that they would be interested in Christianity when I first met them (they are from a wiccan background) and yet they are currently engaged in our church life. Mum was baptised last year. Shame on me for forgetting the transforming power of the gospel!

Notice the difference here. Our children are largely observers of us parents doing the outreach – overhearing conversations, sharing our home with other families etc. Our children aren’t expected to be converted, well rehearsed in apologetics or gospel fluent in conversation with peers. Our children aren’t the primary missionaries, they are our apprentices.

Exposure

There can be concern that home educated children aren’t exposed to hard things or different worldviews.

Let’s be honest, families that send their child to school and home educating families are equally in danger of avoiding talking about hard things. Both can fail to train their child to understand different worldviews and can try to shelter them too much. But equally, both types of family can make apologetics and talking about issues and real, hard things, a part of their family culture. Let’s all aim for the latter.

However, the advantage of home education is that you can be the doorkeeper to what comes into your home and line of sight of your children. You can have the upper hand when it comes to what they are exposed to and critically, when. Don’t underestimate the secular agenda which is pervasive in schools from the early years – if you send your children to school they are being exposed to an aggressive worldview at odds with your own. You must have a game plan for how to undo the work that the school does in worldview training. Mamabear Apologetics is an excellent place to start.

Inferior education

It is often believed that an education at home is inferior. In the home setting, there aren’t numerous experts in their subject area with a teaching qualification, specially designed classrooms and a lot of free resources. But it’s comparing two completely separate experiences. It’s like comparing a meal made by a chef, who may have extensive training and an industrial sized kitchen designed to feed a restaurant full of customers; to granny’s delicious home made roast dinner with all the trimmings. She knows just how you like it and adds a spoonful of love to the the mash (a very corny illustration, but hopefully it shows the point). The point is granny’s dinner is delicious, meaningful and personal. It doesn’t compare, but it doesn’t have to – it is an entirely different experience.

Home education is like granny’s dinner. It is personalised, relies heavily on close relationships and is an absolute delight. And just because it includes English lessons on the sofa, P.E in the garden and times tables memorisation while counting and eating cheerios, doesn’t mean that it’s less effective or robust.

Many Christians are drawn to a Charlotte Mason philosophy of home education – a philosophy based on a biblical understanding of personhood and education, which encourages children to study a wide breadth of subjects. Shakespeare, nature study, classical music and artist study are all components that are encouraged in this educational philosophy. I’ve started teaching our young children these subject areas, without being taught myself (having been through the school system). By learning alongside my children, I am being reeducated, and they are getting to feast on the best and most beautiful ideas throughout time. In my opinion they are not getting an inferior education, they are getting a fantastic one.

The question is not, — how much does the youth know when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? And, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”

― Charlotte Mason, 

Closing thoughts

So there you have it. Four reasons why Christians should consider home educating their children.

We’ve pondered whether to write about home education for a long time. In fact, this post has been in the drafts section for over a year! This is is a blog about being a gospel-centred parent, not a how-to blog. And we are not suggesting that you have to home educate to be a gospel-centred parent, certainly not! And equally, you can home educate and be a raging legalist!

The gospel says that our external behaviour can do nothing to make our standing before God secure, only the righteousness of Jesus, who shed his blood on the cross for us can do that. Being a gospel centred family then, is to be a family who loves the gospel and tries to keep it central in family life. Wonderfully, that can and should look different in different families as they live that out according to their own circumstances, opportunities and giftings. That will encompass different education choices for different families.

But the more we adventure into our own home education journey as a family and the more aggressive the secular worldview becomes in society (it is far more aggressive than it was when we started this blog 8 years ago), the more we felt we ought to say that home education can be a great option for Christian families. It can be a positive choice for discipling our children, for reaching out with the gospel, for providing a rich and varied education and for fostering positive social skills.

If you are interested in learning more about Christian home education then here are some helpful resources:

Awaking Wonder

Educating the Wholehearted Child

The Call of the Wild and Free

For the Children’s Sake

A Charlotte Mason Education – Podcast with Jennifer Pepito

Pod of the Gaps Podcast – Should you be homeschooling your kids?

Right now, I’m really into creating memories with our children. They are 9, 7 and 4 years old, and the memories that they make now have the potential to be remembered into adulthood.

Human beings make memories as a matter of course – but have you ever thought about intentionally cultivating happy and significant memories with your children, so that they have them to draw upon when they are older?

My husband, Scott, is a domiciliary optician and frequently tests the eyes of patients who suffer with dementia. As a result he’s done some training in dementia and Alzheimer’s. Did you know that people with dementia lose their short term memories first, but it is their detailed childhood memories that stick the longest?

Think of the human brain like a bookcase made of memories – on the bottom shelf are the earliest memories and at the top are the most recent. With dementia, imagine that the bookcase is being rocked from side to side; it loses the books on the higher shelves first, the most secure books are at the very bottom, they are the ones that stay on the shelves.

That is the significance of childhood memories.

And you, as your child’s parent, have an exciting opportunity to help them create beautiful and lasting memories. Memories that will outlive you. Memories that will serve them well into adulthood, perhaps even into old age.

But memories don’t just create anchors to the past, but they can also create a collective sense of identity. If you have multiple children – cultivating special times for them to be together and create memories will help them feel a sense of togetherness. We want our three children to know that they have a place to belong. They are the Thomsons – they belong to each other. No matter what life brings their way, their relationships with each other will most likely be the longest and some of the most significant relationships in their lives. We want them to recollect together in the future (and possibly/probably when Scott and I are long gone) of the antics that they got up to when they were young.

Anything that can give our children a deep sense of their identity and of being loved and belonging, will serve them well in the future. Happy childhoods create secure adults, who can be launched into the world to be a blessing to others.

But this isn’t just a post about pop psychology, God knows the significance of making memories; of collective/ group identity and traditions that embed remembering in the life of his people. We see it throughout the Bible.

Think about the Passover in Exodus 12. Pharaoh has repeatedly ignored Moses’ request to let the Israelites go. In one last and terrible plague, God is going to strike down the first born sons of the Egyptians  – a severe judgement on them, in part to avenge the Israelites for the mass infanticide of Hebrew boys. To escape the plague, the Israelites must paint their door frames with the blood of a lamb – in this way the plague will pass over their homes.  

But if you read Exodus 12 – as well as God giving instructions for what the Israelites are to do during the first Passover – God is remarkably interested in how this event is to be remembered and commemorated in the years to come. In chapter 12 alone, God commands the Israelites to celebrate the Passover, in the future, 5 times. Why? Mainly for the benefit of the Israelite children who did not witness the miracle for themselves…

“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. ²⁵ When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. ²⁶ And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²⁷ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” 

The Bible is full of traditions and celebrations like that – like the festival of shelters whereby the Israelites who inherit the promised land, are to live in wooden tents for a week each year, to remember God’s faithfulness to his people during the forty years in the wilderness. Or in more recent history, Jesus has given us the tradition of communion. As he gave his disciples this new tradition, notice how remembering is embedded into it – it is the very purpose of it.

19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

Luke 22:19-20

So, God knows that memories are important – we need to remember who he is and what he has done for his people.

Collective identity is important – without knowing who we are and where we’ve come from, it’s hard to imagine where we are going – that was true of the Israelites, and it’s true for us today as God’s church (and our families as mini expressions of his church).

Traditions help us to remember who he is and who we are – and without them we are prone to forgetting.

So what does this practically mean?

We’re going to have a new series all about creating memories with your children. I’ve been helped in my thinking and practices by two books in particular:

Memory-making mom by Jessica Smartt

The life-giving table by Sally Clarkson

In the series I’ll discuss the following traditions that we have started in our home:

Annual Thomson Family Day

Light Party

Shepherd’s Supper

Boys/Girls weekend away

It’s not an exhaustive list of ideas – but hopefully it will encourage you as you prayerfully consider ways that you can create lasting memories with your own children.

It occurred to us recently that we are at the end of the little years in our family. We have a 9, 6 and 4 year old and for what simultaneously felt like a lifetime and a blink of an eye, we were doing the little years stuff.

For years, life centred around night feeds, weaning, first steps, potty training, naptime, dummies and baby carrying.

But our smallest baby had the audacity to grow into a confident, kind, articulate and yes, some-what strong willed 4-year-old girl.

There is a grief that comes with that.

But there is also rejoicing.

Because at the end of the little years, things start to get a bit easier. More sleep, less fear about imminent death by choking, fewer tantrums.

And there’s the really fun stuff too – family bike rides, hearing deep questions from your little philosophers, belly laughs at silly jokes, cinema trips and boardgames.

So are the little years the lost years, where we lose:

• our concentration
• our sense of personal identity
• our pre-baby body
• our spiritual disciplines
• our sanity
• our sleep
• our tidy home
• our time for friendships
• our career progression
• our engagement with church
• our fondness for our spouse
• our freedom
• ourselves?

We’d love to encourage you that the little years are not the lost years. There is sacrifice in abundance. There is a high daily personal cost. There will be bucketfuls of tears (yours and there’s). But it is not a waste.

There is loss, you will lose far more than you realise when you first look at the two lines on the pregnancy test, or have your adoption match approved at panel – but the years are not lost.

The little years are not the years that we count down in order for life to resume or actually start.

They are real life. They are an honourable season. Everything that Jesus wishes to accomplish in you and through you can happen right in the days in which you are living through – sleep deprived, milk stained, limited, sinful and all.

Jesus uses every situation and especially the hard ones to draw us to his son and make us more like him.

And God uses having children as a major way of sanctifying us. It was his good idea to command humanity to “be fruitful and multiply” so we can be certain that he has good purposes for us in the process of becoming and being parents.

This passage from 1 Peter 1 is hugely comforting. Notice that it is God who does the saving, the shielding and the sustaining. He holds fast to us like a safety harness as we ride on the roller coaster of parenting – eyes streaming, noses running, knees knocking, stomach churning. But while the ride may be unpleasant at times, we will reach our destination. He guarantees it and makes us ready for it.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9

So if you are in the thick of the little years please be encouraged. They matter. They count. They are refining you and making you fit for your eternal destiny with God.

And in contrast to eternity; even though the little years can feel never ending, they do come to an end.

Our babies don’t stay small forever.

So kiss their squidgy cheeks, cling tight to those dimply hands, take a deep breath and a shot of coffee and video their tiny, cherub-like sweetness to capture that squeaky voice and button noise for a future day.

Because while the little years are seriously hard work, they are the days that nostalgia are made of.

Until recently we have resided in the little years. The years of dummies, potty training and cots. Of tantrums, milestones and far too little sleep. Of second guessing ourselves, stressing over minor things and if we’re honest neglecting our own self-care.

Maybe you relate. Maybe you are in the thick of the little years.

For us the little years simultaneously lasted an absolute age, and went by in the blink of an eye.

We had 3 babies in 4 years – when our eldest was 4, we had a 2 year old and a newborn.

What a blessing! But life was a crazy, wonderful blur.

And now we find ourselves in a different stage of parenting.

Our kids are now 9, 6 and 4 and we’ve ditched the dummy, cot and potty.

Our baby isn’t really a baby anymore, she’s a big girl. And wow, doesn’t she like you to know it! She scooters alongside her brothers, has long hair that she can nearly sit on, and has strong opinions which she can and will articulate!

The baby and toddler stages are beautiful in their own way, and there’s a certain grief in leaving them behind (who doesn’t love snuggling a new born and feeling their entire fist grasp your finger) but, these middle years are pretty incredible too.

It’s so fun seeing their personalities develop, to hear their genuinely funny jokes and their insightful observations of the world. To see how the thing you spotted in infancy has grown (ie. the obsession with superheroes) and has been outgrown (snatching the toy in rage). Seeing them try and then master new things – like swimming their first length, finishing their first chapter book or having the courage to invite their friend to kid’s club at church.

The middle years (which we’re going to count as anything after the little years and before the tween years) are years when our children are so receptive to our investment in them. They know us well enough to know that we are for them, that boundaries are put in place for their good and when it boils down to it – that they can trust us.

So here’s a word of encouragement to those who are still in the thick of the little years. All the things that you are doing are making a difference. It may not feel like it – it may feel tempting to give up or to grow disillusioned. But the discipline, words of encouragement, consistency, rhythms and routines that you are putting in place (whether hygiene, spiritual disciplines or expectations for behaviour) will eventually start to bear fruit.

We’re not saying that things will ever be perfect. There will always be sin – both from you and your kids, and that’s why we need the good news of the Gospel to encourage us daily. But please don’t give up, your hard, selfless investment in your kids during these little years will bear fruit in the years to come.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

So now we’re in these wonderful middle years – and yes there’s still challenges galore. But there’s also an ease compared to those early days. Our kids still run to us to hold our hands, tell us about their day and eagerly show us their work; they still confide in us with their worries, they still want to be cuddled and affirmed and to be seen with us, but there’s no more nappy changes!

So our challenge to you who are in the middle years (and to ourselves) is to stick at it. To keep working hard at this parenting gig, don’t take your foot off the gas now. Instead use these days where are children are so receptive to us parents to engage with them, love them, disciple them and point them to Jesus.

What a privilege, and what an absolute joy.

We started this blog back in 2016 to help us think through the highs and lows of parenting through the liberating lens of the gospel.

It was to serve us in our parenting, and hopefully to serve other parents in theirs.

It was to come second to the actual parenting of our children – at the time that was just one little guy aged 1!

But with the passing of time came the addition of 2 other precious children and a whole lot of extra mess, noise and along with it – joy.

Our children have had the audacity to grow bigger, and since those early days of writing gospel-centred parenting, our then rambunctious toddler has morphed into a comic-writing, book-loving, spiderman acrobat- impersonating 7 year old.

Our sleepy little rainbow baby is still dinky for his age, but he makes up for it in speed, agility and competitive spirit – think roadrunner and you can picture him! He’s 5 now and has a belly laugh which infects a room.

Our youngest didn’t exist when we started this blog – not even in utero. But God added her into the mix of our family. She’s been delighting us with her humour, her unbridled enjoyment of life and her affectionate nature ever since. Our baby isn’t really a baby anymore – she’s a big girl of 3.

Our family has grown. God’s been so merciful and gracious to us by entrusting these precious little people to us to parent.

There’s been countless moments of laughter and joy, and along with it frustrations, pain and sin.

But the good news of the Gospel still remains true and good.

God meets us in our family’s brokenness, he has died for our sin, he has given us his Holy Spirit to live new lives for him. He enables us to confess our sin and walk in the path of forgiveness, freedom and renewal. He gives us the exciting task of teaching the gospel story to our children and showing them how to work that our in real life.

We’ve been busy parenting, but we haven’t been busy writing about it for the blog.

While we remain excited about and desirous of blogging for gospel centred parenting, we’ve also just been a bit busy!

So we wanted to update you on what’s been going on.

Like lots of families the pandemic caused us to rethink our priorities and seek God’s guidance for future decisions.

In the last couple of years we’ve;

• Moved house
• Deregistered our children to home educate them
• Scott’s reduced his days doing domiciliary optometry in care homes to set up his own company testing children’s eyes in Special schools – Had numerous sources of stress and suffering with family members from the extended family (bereavement, cancer and other challenging situations)
• Continue to enjoy leading and serving in our local church, figuring out what that looks like post-pandemic
• Developed new interests – including gardening and writing. It looks like a published children’s book is in the pipeline for Scott, and Cathy has been contributing to a family travel blog in exchange for some fun outings.

We’re so grateful for God’s sustaining hand in our lives through the transitions and times of stress and heartache.

We’re grateful to him for the glorious gift of his son Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself up for us.

We’re thankful to you for following us in our journey of blogging and walking with Jesus through this season of parenting.

Thank you so much for sticking around, even though it’s been a bit quiet on here recently…

Here’s a simple way to round of the day with your children – I read about it somewhere years ago, and it genuinely works a treat.

Bless your children – or as we refer to it in our home, give them a goodnight “whisper.”

By the end of the day, it can be tempting to cart of the children to bed and get some much needed and well-deserved free time. We could be frustrated, disappointed, stressed, hoarse with shouting “teeth!,” “PJs!”, “Stop chasing each other around the house or we’ll get cross!” (maybe the last one is just us?!) It can take a marathon effort to get children into bed at night and we may not be keen to linger anymore than absolutely necessary.

Enter the “whisper”.

The whisper is the way to bring some closure to the day, to make sure we part on good terms, to help the children wind down, to make lasting memories and to recall the ways in which your children haven’t simply been little terrors throughout the day.

The whisper is very simple.

You simply whisper a blessing in the child’s ear before they go to sleep. It’s a moment between just you and them (that’s kind of important in our home where we have three children with large egos and small age gaps) – for them to know that they are individually valued.

It doesn’t take long.

We usually recall some funny/kind/brave/hardworking things that they have done during the day, some good things that we see in their character, we tell them we love them, God loves them and we’re so glad that Jesus made them and put them in our family. And the jobs a good’un.

And it’s not the reason why we do it – but the reward is SO great.

As we say encouraging, kind things to our children (which let’s be honest is very much needed given that we’re British, and parents and therefore spend much of our communication time in instruction and gentle correction) our children almost always want to give us a whisper too. Our little 3 year old girl gave me the most special whisper the other day “Mummy, I love you too, and I like whispers.”

Which is why I decided to write this post.

Because the words of affirmation, the little rituals that we make with our children, those moments of connection and recalling areas of progress, add up.

They can become the voice inside our children’s head, and the disposition that they feel we have towards them. As we bless them we mirror what God the Father is like towards his children.

So give it a go. It will only take 30 seconds, but as a habit, those affirming words in your child’s childhood will last them a lifetime.

They will recall those whispers once you’ve gone to meet your saviour.

They will remember that you loved them for you stooped down to whisper so in their ear. And one day they may just stoop down to whisper in your grandchild’s ear “I love you so much, I’m so glad Jesus made you and put you in our family.”