Here's another gem from the book: "Immigrants who were educated in Europe often became private schoolmasters, advertising in the newspapers that they would teach algebra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, navigation, french, Latin, Greek, rhetoric, English, belles lettres, logic, philosophy, and other subjects. Wow! Does anyone even know anyone who knows all of this today? If we do, they are usually not found teaching children!
Read MoreAre There Times When a Child Should Not Read a Book?→
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As an activist for helping parents raise good readers, you may be surprised to hear me say that there are times when it is wrong for a child to read a book.
You see, there is an etiquette to reading just like there is an etiquette to everything in life: there’s a time to read and a time not to read.
Fortunately, unlike table manners, there are only two reading rules your child needs to learn.
THE RULES
Rule #1.
Books should never come to the dinner table or any other table where food is present. When you eat, you eat; when you read, you read.
It is uncivil to read a book at the dinner table. Meal times are a time for pleasant conversations and showing an interest in what others have to say, which is virtually impossible to do while reading.
Out of respect for books, children (nor adults) should ever eat while reading. You don't want to soil the books with food. It’s also a bad habit to eat while reading because it can lead to unwanted weight gain.
Rule #2.
Children should not read at social gatherings.
I’ve seen children plop themselves and their books in a central position to the other guests as if to holler, "Look, I have something better to do than talk to all of you!"
The accomplishment of raising a good reader, which a parent does deserves to feel proud of, should never justify a display of antisocial behavior from a child.
I’m sure I’m not the only adult who’s had conversations with kids that go something like this:
"Hi, sweety, how are you?"
Child looks up uninterestedly.
“Fine."
Child’s head goes back into book.
"What are you reading?"
"A book."
While it's fabulous, marvelous and awesome that he is reading, his manners leave a lot to be desired.
This sort of behavior is a red flag that the parents are failing to teach their child right from wrong in matters of lasting significance.
“I am always saying “Glad to’ve met you” to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.”
Reading a book should never take precedence over socializing with a guest.
It's not that a child should leave his books at home when he goes out. He can take a book on an airplane, for a long drive, or to the doctor's office. But when it comes to socializing, he should put the book down and practice his social skills.
“Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.”
WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?
Engaging in social activities can be uncomfortable and awkward for young children, especially if they're shy. Hiding their face in a book is one way to avoid the awkwardness.
But it's not the right way.
The right thing to do and the thing most beneficial for your child is to let him face his shyness by engaging in conversation with others. Children do not develop good social skills in a vacuum, they learn them by socializing. In other words, through practice.
As Daniel Goleman demonstrates in his ground-breaking book, Emotional Intelligence, good social skills–which are predicated upon good manners–are the basis for just about everything in life that will make a person happy: a successful marriage, good relationships with one's children, long-term friendships, and a successful career.
And Goleman's research proves that there are even times when a child should not read a book!
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
4 Strategies to Raise Children of Good Character →
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Societal influences can make it easy or difficult to raise a child who is well-mannered, respectful, and resourceful.
In today’s social climate, we face many parenting challenges, but there are strategies you can implement to ensure a better outcome for your family.
When our children are young, we want to train them to do the right thing, so they develop the right habits in childhood and learn to make the right choices.
“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
It begins with little things such as learning to pick up after themselves, doing chores before they play, and learning to be considerate of other people's needs.
Role Models
Good role models in a child’s life are essential. If the parents treat each other courteously, are respectful towards family and friends, and honest and helpful with others, the children are more likely to follow suit.
Discipline
As no child is born a civilized human being, there is also a training through discipline that has to occur, too. In fact, raising our children to become civilized human beings is the essence of our work.
Good parents can produce bad children; there are no guarantees that children turn out well.
Discipline is key to developing the qualities that make up good character, as it takes discipline to do what is demanded of us!
Think of how much discipline it takes to pass up a piece of chocolate cake, to put away the screens, to go the gym.
Discipline is a key trait that most of us never develop. It is what sets the above-average, who reach great heights in their endeavors, from those who never will.
Public School
Public school can undo your hard work, though, because rudeness and crudeness are now the norms. Children sent to school for eight hours a day where the teachers are not allowed to discipline them, are at a disadvantage.
However children who spend their days in a homeschooled environment are with adults who are able to put the time and effort into guiding the kids in the right ways.
At home, we do have authority over our children and can discipline them as needed. The right training in childhood is essential to raising a well-mannered, happy child.
Spare the rod, spoil the child, was an old adage that adults used to repeat before the 60's cultural revolution when sound parenting principles were abandoned for unproven theories.
Multi Media
Another disadvantage to raising children today is the decline in quality films and the introduction of screen activities.
The films are vulgar, the music is ribald, childhood games are on screens, and texting replaces real conversation.
On top of that, social media alone is causing a distortion of the way children see themselves and the world, leading to a host of mental health issues.
Negative influences will unravel any good work you've done to raise your children well, which is why we need to be diligent with the environments that influence our children.
The aforementioned should be a strict NO for every concerned!
The Ancient Greeks knew that bad influences in a child's life would affect their characters. It is really just a matter of common sense, something the Ancient Greeks had plenty of.
We’ve buried our head’s in the sand, though, because we believe we can put our children into these environments and all will be fine.
Our children are telling us a different story, and it’s time we start listening to them.
We have a generation of children, raised on technology, who are becoming active in the movement to protect children from the ill-effects of technology, because they can see the damage it has caused to their generation.
A Dishonest Trend
Dishonesty is a serious character defect, but it is common now. Ninety-seven percent of schoolchildren are dishonest according to statistics gathered by Vickie Abeles, who produced the documentary, Race to Nowhere.
Even without the statistics, we know from experience that we are no longer an honest society. Each of us deals with it every single day.
During the Covid days, my son took a statistics exam online, only to receive an email from the teacher announcing that some of the students had cheated on the exam.
I was told the exam was easy, too. College students cheating on an easy exam?
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Cheating is a habit for many children today.
When cheating on exams is pardoned with no serious repercussions, we are tolerating dishonesty and teaching our kids that it is no big deal.
But it is a big deal. Bad character is a big deal because these people cause harm to others, and they cause harm to themselves.
For sure, they don’t sleep well at night.
These students have learned to become dishonest people, because they are raised in a system that doesn't uphold the values of truth, goodness, and beauty.
It’s difficult to believe now that such values were once so honored in the West, but it is true.
In a Nutshell
Protect your children from the negative influences in society for as long as you can. Raise them in a bubble! Allow them the time to develop in healthy ways; physically, morally, and intellectually, because the bubble will burst.
When it does, you want to feel confident that you did your job well, by giving your children the right kind of start in life.
The rest is up to them.
Don’t miss our free download, 7 Steps to Protect Your Child's Mind and Heart from Negative Influences.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Are We to Blame for the ADHD Epidemic in Our Children?→
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Actually, there is no epidemic of ADHD. It is a phantom disorder with no basis in science according to John Rosemond and Bose Ravenel's eye-opening book, The Diseasing of America's Children.
Their argument is sound.
The real epidemic is an epidemic of the inability to stay focused because we live in the Age of Distraction. A school-age child's inability to focus is not a medical disorder; it is the result of a skill he has never developed; the skill of paying attention and staying focused.
Normal, healthy children raised in wholesome ways don't suffer from the inability to focus. Prior to the 1970s when children ran free, learning and behavioral disorders in school were almost unheard of.
To be precise, only about 1 - 3% of the population in the USA were afflicted with a true disorder. To put this in perspective, during my 1960 / 70s school years, I never had a classmate who was diagnosed with a learning or behavioral disorder.
If a child was amongst the 1 - 3% afflicted with a medical disorder, the disorder was usually too extreme to enter school in the first place.
So now what? If there is no epidemic of ADHD, and if the real problem is that normal, healthy children are not learning how to focus, what can we do to correct this tragic situation?
It is tragic, too, because learning to pay attention is no small matter. Any skill we develop or any subject we study is predicated upon our ability to stay focused.
Therefore, a child who learns to focus well will learn more; a child who learns more will become smarter.
No rocket science here; it's just common sense. The tragedy is that our children are not learning to focus, they are not being well-educated, and, quite frankly, our sinking literacy rates indicate that our kids are not growing up to be as intelligent as they could be either.
First, let's qualify what we mean by "children." It would make sense that the ability to focus for longer periods would run parallel with the development of the long term memory, which begins around the third year of life.
In order to remember something, we have to stay focused on it long enough to remember it.
The idea of expecting a child under the age of three to sustain his focus is preposterous; I’m sure no one is doing this! But as the child matures, his ability to focus should increase as well.
If it is not increasing, it is most likely because the child's environment is not conducive towards learning how to pay attention and stay focused.
Children develop these skills through the practice of doing them. The question we should be asking is not why so many of our children have ADHD, but how we can create environments for our children that are conducive towards developing the skill of paying attention and staying focused.
If we are not providing this kind of an environment for our children, then, yes, the fault lies with us.
4 WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN FROM THE PHANTOM ADHD EPIDEMIC
Expect your children to listen to you without interruption. Much of the problem we are dealing with is that children are confused about who is in charge, thanks to all of the proven-not-to-work parenting theories that have been thrust on us since the 1950s.
Our job is to raise civilized human beings. Civilized human beings in little bodies learn how to focus, because they have parents who train them to listen when they speak, do their chores when they are told to, and generally behave in well-mannered ways.
Create an environment for your children to move around and explore and be independent. Young children have an insatiable curiosity, and this curiosity will lead them to an infinite number of things they will want to pay attention to, all of which will help develop their ability to focus.
This presupposes your children are not in a preschool, not sitting in front of a television, and not playing with your smart phone.
Keep quality literature in every room in your house for your older children to read. Read stories to all of your children and raise them to read quality books for fun. Reading requires focus. Reading, or listening to someone else read, will strengthen the focus muscle.
4. Keep your children away from screens! Keep your children away from screens! I'm sorry to tell you this, but there is no way around it. If you want to raise smarter, happier, well-mannered children, you will need to keep them off of screens. The idea that you can limit their screen time when they are young is rubbish.
If I'm the only one who is telling you this, it is because I have done my research, I am willing to go against the grain to say what is true, even when it is unpopular, and because I have no financial interest in saying the opposite.
The research tells us to keep screens out of our children’s lives.
It's like putting a child who can't swim into the deep end of a pool, and telling him he can have five minutes in the water. A screen-fed child will drown his mind in a dumbed-down world of distraction and action-packed entertainment.
How will such a child ever learn how to think for himself?
Think of it this way: when your children are zoning out in front of a screen, they are not reading, socializing, or playing. And they are certainly not doing their chores!
When your children get older and develop a reading habit, consider introducing a movie on the weekends.
Until then, screens will only be an obstacle to engaging in activities that will help your children develop physically, emotionally, and neurologically, all of which will help to strengthen their ability to focus and pay attention.
Don’t miss our free download, 31 Screen-Free Activities to Support Your Child’s Developing Brain.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
