The Well-adjusted Child

My kids have always learned at home, so with my oldest being 12 I feel like we have been at this for awhile. Whenever someone new to homelearning has asked me about it I always suggest that the first thing they read is Marty Layne's treasure of a book. Reading it really gave me a sense of how I wanted our life of learning to look and, more importantly, how I wanted it to feel. When I read her book I felt as though I was sitting down for coffee at the kitchen table of a wise friend, someone who was able to gently guide me to where I wanted to go...even though I didn't even know that place existed yet. She gave me a real insight to how gentle, loving, fulfilling and natural learning at home could be...for my kids and for myself.

A couple weeks ago I ordered The Well-adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling from our library and now, whenever someone new to learning at home asks me for some book recommendations, I will tell them about this one as well. What a fantastic book for someone new to learning at home... and also for someone who has been at it for years. I think it covers every cause for concern someone (or someone's relative) could ever have. It is a very empowering book, it gives all kinds of supportive information in a very straight-forward, clear manner as well as lots of stories from homelearners themselves.

One of my favourite parts is the story the author tells in the introduction, it starts out "Once upon a time, all children were homeschooled." Something that our society seems to have forgotten.