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Catholic Home Schooling: A Handbook for Parents

Catholic Home Schooling: A Handbook for Parents

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AuthorsClark, Mary Kay, Ph.D.
TagsChristian education -- Home training, Catholic Church -- Education -- United States, Home schooling -- United States
PublisherSeton Home Study School Press
Published01 gen 2008
Date13 gen 2024
Languageseng
Identifiersgoogle: kDjVswEACAAJ, Amazon.com, uri: https://archive.org/details/catholichomescho0000mary, url: https://www.setonhome.org/, lcc: 93-60757, isbn: 9781607041603

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by Seton Homeschool director Dr. Mary Kay Clark (šŸŽ©-tip MaterDominici)

Thomas Nelson's preface lists 8 advantages of homeschooling (pp. xvii-xx):

  1. "You do not waste the studentsā€™ time."
  2. "You do not re-teach what the student already knows."
  3. "You can give your own children more individualized attention."
  4. "You can gear the work to a pace your children can handle and that will keep them interested."
  5. "You can (and should) eliminate the option to fail!"
  6. "You can build in automatic consequences for failure to perform."
  7. "You can emphasize reading."
  8. "Home schooling eliminates the silliness and nonsense picked up from peers."

Dr. Clark's ch. 1 (pp. 1-22) argues homeschooling's advantages:

  1. no sex-ed (indoctrination into homosexuality; cf. Fr. John F. O'Connor, O.P., "The State of [']Catholic['] Education"; he told parents not to send their children to "Catholic" schools)
  2. character formation
  3. academics
  4. public (& "Catholic") schools "the training camps of the enemies of Jesus Christ and His Church." (p. 9)
  5. raising "cradle Catholics"
  6. benefits for the
    1. student: socialization
    2. mother
    3. father
    4. family
    5. community
    6. Church
    7. nation

also references Home Schooling Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) (great state-by-state legal resources, which I'd heard of before) and Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) (which I'd not heard of before).

p. 93 (PDF p. 123) says "Some states, such as Virginia, have official lists of approved home schools." I can't find such lists onlineā€¦

Chapters 7-8, pp. 164-213 (PDF pp. 194-243), are on the father's role in homeschooling and discipline. It emphasizes the father's need to discipline (not boost self-esteem, though that's a byproduct of good manners and discipline). Makes a good point that children should be self-disciplined by the age of 10-12 years, and that teen rebellion issues are due to not having disciplined when they were toddlers; homeschooling families note that their teens are pleasant and a big blessing!

p. 200 (PDF p. 230) recommend some books on disciplining children (by James Stenson, an experienced principal, and Steve Wood, a pro-lifer who argues that parents use contraception to avoid having more children because they think disciplining fewer is easier than having more who can help with disciplining the younger ones).

pp. 266-7 (PDF pp. 296-7) cite the article on the long-term effects of ostracism of children on their adult lives.