New Research on Raising Grateful Children!→

We had a step-grandmother who used to lecture us about gratitude. The more she lectured, the less we listened. Because she had it all wrong. 

As you and I both know, kids don't learn gratitude from lectures. Nor do they learn gratitude from reading books about how important it is to be grateful. 

The good news is that the gratitude guru, Robert Emmons, who has a new book called Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity, has cracked the code to reaping the benefits of gratitude.

New research shows that the less we focus on the generals of gratitude, and the more we hone in on the particulars of gratitude, the greater the positive effects become. 

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I excerpted the following list from an article he wrote on the benefits of gratitude because there are so many that anyone would be a fool NOT to practice gratitude daily, no matter how tough life became. 

And, speaking of tough times, if you are experiencing one now, Emmons points out that even in the worst of times when we feel less than grateful for our circumstances, practicing gratitude will help us through the difficult periods. 

Here's Emmon's list of the many benefits of practicing daily gratitude:

Physical

• Stronger immune systems

• Less bothered by aches and pains

• Lower blood pressure

• Exercise more and take better care of their health

• Sleep longer and feel more refreshed upon waking

Psychological

• Higher levels of positive emotions

• More alert, alive, and awake

• More joy and pleasure

• More optimism and happiness

Social

• More helpful, generous, and compassionate

• More forgiving

• More outgoing

• Feel less lonely and isolated.

Making general statements about being grateful for one's family, spouse, or friends is helpful but, as Emmons discovered, focusing on the particulars is an even better way to increase the benefits of gratitude 10x over.

You increase the benefits of gratitude by taking one thing you appreciate in your life and then name 5 things about it that make you feel grateful. So instead of focusing on the generals, you are focusing on the particulars of the gratitude. 

For example, I could say that I feel grateful for my work in education, which I do, but that's a very general statement. What I want to reflect on instead is what about the work makes me feel grateful.

So now I'll show you how this works by sharing my 5 particular reasons for why I feel grateful:

1. I feel grateful that I can guide parents to help their children realize their intellectual potential, rather than wasting 12 of a child's best learning years in a dumbed-down school system or even government-funded homeschooling programs. 

2. I feel grateful to be able to contribute to making the world a better place by helping so many families to homeschool their children, so we raise critical thinkers and ethical leaders.

3. I feel grateful that my work has a built-in need for me to read and learn new things because I love to do both.

4. I feel grateful for the creative side of my work which challenges me to come up with new ideas regularly and keeps my brain churning.

5. I feel grateful when a parent tells me how things I taught them had a huge, positive effect on their family because it reminds me that my work is having an impact, rather than effort spent in vain.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

— Marcel Proust

You can see how it works, right? Hone in on the particulars of one thing you feel grateful for, and your list of the objects of your gratitude will not only multiply ten-fold but so will the benefits you reap.

And, in becoming more grateful yourself, your kids will naturally feel grateful,  because you are their role model, and they'll adopt your attitude. 

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”

— Kahill Gibran, The Prophet

One thing you can do is to go through the practice with them every day as part of your homeschool morning routine, so they learn how to focus on all of the good in their lives because no matter how bad things can seem, there is always much to be grateful for. 

I remember this time with my kids when we were driving down the road and I asked them to tell me some things they were grateful for, and do you know what? I had to stop them because we reached our destination before they had exhausted their list! 

The beauty of children. 

Another thing I've noticed throughout my life, and I bet you have to, is that when I am in the company of people who complain a lot, I tend to complain more. It's a reminder for us to be vigilant about the company we keep because people's states do rub off on us. 

And, we naturally want to gear our kids towards keeping good company, which we can do as homeschoolers. In school, not a chance. It's the luck of the draw as to who our kids become friends with on the playground. 

As an example, my childhood best friend of 8 years had a brother who was killed in the Vietnam War just as we were entering adolescence.  I'm not going to go into any details, but suffice it to say that this beautiful Irish, Catholic family lost their faith. 

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

My best friend turned into bad company for me as a result of her brother's death, and she influenced me in extremely negative ways during my teenage years, because peer pressure is real. 

As homeschoolers, if another child becomes a bad influence on our kids, we will catch on to it in time to do something before it's too late. We can steer our kids towards better company without them realizing what we are doing, and before you know it, the bad company is forgotten. 

So, I’m sure you can agree on the importance of keeping our kids in the company of people who bring them up in life, not down.

And if we raise them with the attitude of gratitude, they will reap all of the benefits that Emmons has shared with us. 

And, you can pick up a copy of his book in preparation for the New Year to get started with your gratitude practice today, Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity.

I just ordered one myself!

Join our FREE Masterclass: Top 3 Secrets to Homeschooling for Success (Your kids will thank you when they’re grown!) by Liz Hanson

Don’t miss our free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You

Get a copy of Liz’s homeschooling Bible, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fair to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with Essays by John Taylor Gatto and Dorothy Sayers.

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 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz 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. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

6 Homeschool Lessons Out of One Unfortunate Event→

Educational experiences and events in real life are how you turn the world into your classroom. It also makes getting an education fun and engaging for your children. Most importantly, the lessons they learn in the real world, they never forget.

The unfortunate event was that my son did not dry the iron skillet and in the morning I found it completely rusted out.

But as a homeschooling mother, I was delighted. A discovery like this becomes a learning opportunity. The kids pile into the kitchen and a discussion of what’s happened to the pan becomes a day of homeschooling, with all subjects covered.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Upon finding the rusty skillet, your conversation might go something like this:

"Hey, kids, come here! I want you to see something interesting."

"What happened to the pan?" they ask.

"Exactly! Does anyone know what this is?" I point to the rust.

"It looks like rust," they reply.

"It is rust, but do you know why the pan is rusty?

"No, how did it get like that?" They are wondering if the pan is now ruined, and one child looks a little guilty.

The Science Lesson

I then send them off to get their science encyclopedias and they look up how rust is formed. They learn that when impure iron (cast iron) meets water and oxygen, the iron gives some of its electrons to the oxygen and the oxidation process begins.

As rust is formed it eats away at the pan, and, if left for a long period of time, will eventually corrode it, which is exactly why we never leave a wet iron skillet to dry by itself. 

And the Learning Continues

We could go on to teach them about the parts of an atom and how molecules are formed and so on.

We could then explain that the study of chemistry is partly about how matter is made up of different atoms and molecular structures and how they react to one another and how they behave in the physical world.

From the rust on the iron skillet, a host of questions will arise and we will go as deep as the children want in helping them to discover the answer to their questions, plus all the additional things they will learn along the way.

“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”

— E.M. Forster

This is the kind of learning that engages children, fosters their interest in the world, and keeps them wanting to know more.

The Writing Lesson

The children can write a few lines or a paragraph, depending upon their age, about their understanding of how rust forms and anything else they learned around this discovery. We could also take them to the library to find books that elaborate more about some of the things they are questioning. 

The History Lesson

We could then move on to history and teach them about the Iron Age. We could also give them a little history about how iron skillets and griddles were the mainstay in a woman's kitchen prior to the 20th century, later to be replaced by non-stick pans with plastic coating.

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates

The Philosophy Lesson

We could venture even further and discuss man’s tendency to NOT leave well enough alone and create problems where there were none before. Instead of a little scrubbing, we now cook with plastic-coated pans that produce off-gassing toxic enough to kill a small bird. Who knows what it will do to our health over the time? And so we ask, was the invention of the plastic-coated pan really such an improvement?

The Theology Lesson

This conversation could lead into a conversation about living more in-tune with God’s creation, rather than polluting it with man-made goods, especially when those man-made goods stem from greed.

The Moral Lesson

But the biggest lesson to be learned is the lesson of doing things right, which brings us back to why there was rust in the skillet in the first place. When you find your children doing a substandard job, here is a poem they can recite to etch the reminder to “do their best” into their conscience.

Work while you work,

Play while you play,

This is the way, 

To be happy each day.

All that you do,

Do with your might,

Things done by halves

Are never done right.

Anon.

Now you can see how a little rust in a skillet becomes fodder for science, writing, history, and even a philosophy lesson. You could go on to include more subjects but this is just a sample of how to approach the art of homeschooling.

Don’t miss our free download, 10 True Facts About Homeschooled Kids That Will Surprise You.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original 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 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz 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. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

Is Thanksgiving a Celebration of Massacre?→

When it comes to the holiday of "Thanks" giving, I hear people spouting rhetoric about how we are celebrating a massacre of innocent people; and I can't help but think we have fallen deeper into the rhetoric of divisiveness generated by political motives that are not in our best interest.

I have celebrated the holiday of "Thanks" giving my entire life, but I have never celebrated the killing of innocent people. 

It was president Lincoln who declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, not to celebrate a massacre but to celebrate a day of gratitude. 

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, …to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving...

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him …,

they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union. ”

— President Lincoln

The divisive rhetoric today pitting this group against the other group is an age-old device going back to Julius Caesar's, "Divide and Conquer."

Division is the tactic. Conquer is the goal.

We have fallen into the trap where we point our fingers at one another, while our civil liberties are being eroded and our tax dollars are funding wars of brutality.

Yet, as the saying goes, there are two sides to every coin. Most of life does not take place in the zones of black and white.

Most of it takes place in the grey zone;  the zone that's up for interpretation. And not one of us has absolute knowledge about everything.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

— Chief Seattle, Duwamish

History is rife with people overcoming one another in the most heinous of ways. "White" is only one of the many colors of men who have committed brutalities throughout history and who continue to commit them today. 

As I write, I'm sitting at my desk on the soil where the Persians conquered the kingdoms of the Medes and Lydians. 

I'm sitting at my desk on the soil where the Turks massacred the Greeks, Armenians, and the Kurds. 

And I'm sitting at my desk on the continent where Pol Pot committed genocide against the people of Cambodia. 

“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.”

— Dakota Tribe

To the North of me, the Russians and the Ukrainians are fighting; to the south of me, the Arabs and the Israelis wage war against one another.

This is man's nature - no skin color has a monopoly on brutality. Nonsense!

All men share the same human nature; we are all made up of the same parts, including arrogance and greed. We also share qualities of mercy and generosity.

We are complex beings and life is full of complexities.

So instead of attacking the character of the "white" man on this day, spend it as President Lincoln intended it to be spent, by giving thanks to the Divine for all that we have. 

No matter what difficulties befall us, as long as we are breathing we have something to be grateful for. And as long as we remember this, we'll raise kids who do the same. 

Along with thanks to the Divine, let's celebrate the Native Americans and their beautiful legacy of wisdom on how to live with reverence and respect for all living things. It's a philosophy that we could all reflect on more. 

“Honor the sacred. Honor the Earth, our Mother. Honor the Elders. Honor all with whom we share the Earth:-Four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones, Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people. Walk in balance and beauty.”

— Native American Elder

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Thoughts on Gratitude to Brighten Your Day.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original 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 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz 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. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.

6 Ways Public Schools Cause More Harm Than Good→

Public school is toxic for a child’s heart and mind. When we understand the agenda behind it, we’ll do everything in our power to protect our kids, just like we do when we put medicine out of their reach.

Below is an excerpt from an essay by John Taylor Gatto which explains why public schools are such unhealthy places for our kids. It’s an essay no parent will want to miss.

The Short, Angry History of Compulsory  Schooling

Theorists from Plato to Rousseau knew well, and explicitly taught, that if children could be kept childish beyond the natural term, if they could be cloistered in a society of children, if they could be stripped of responsibility, if their inner lives could be starved by removing the insights of historians, philosophers, economists, novelists, and religious figures, if the inevitability of suffering and death could be removed from daily consciousness and replaced with the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear then young people would grow older but they would never grow up.

In this way a great enduring problem of supervision would be decisively minimized, for who can argue against the truth that childish and childlike people are far easier to manage than accomplished critical thinkers.

With this thought in mind, you're ready to hear the six purposes of modern schooling I found in Dr. Inglis' book. The principles are his, just as he stated them nearly 100 years ago, some of the interpretive material is my own.

1st Function

The first function of schooling is adjustive. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority.

Fixed habits.

Of course this precludes critical judgement completely. If you were to devise a reliable test of whether someone had achieved fixed habits of reaction to authority, notice that requiring obedience to stupid orders would measure this better than requiring obedience to sensible orders ever could.

You can't know whether someone is reflexively obedient until you can make them do foolish things.

2nd  Function

Second is the diagnostic function. School is to determine each student's proper social role, logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records.

3rd Function

Third is the sorting function. Schools sort children by training individuals only so far as their likely destination in the social machine and not one step further. So much for making boys and girls their personal best.

4th Function

The fourth function is conformity. As much as possible, kids are to be made alike. As egalitarian as this sounds, its purpose is to assist market and government research, people who conform are predictable.

5th Function

The fifth function Inglis calls "the hygienic function”. It has nothing to do with bodily health. It concerns what Darwin, Galton, Inglis, and many important names from the past and present would call, "the health of the race."

Hygiene is a polite way of saying that school is expected to accelerate natural selection by tagging the unfit so clearly they will drop from the reproduction sweepstakes.

That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward, and all the posted lists of ranked grades are really about. The unfit will either drop out from anger, despair, or because their likely mates will accept the school's judgement of their inferiority.

6th Function

And last is the propaedeutic function. A fancy Greek term meaning that a small fraction of kids will quietly be taught how to take over management of this continuing project, made guardians of a population deliberately dumbed down and rendered childish in order that government and economic life can be managed with a minimum of hassle.”

What Will You Do?

And there you have it, in a nutshell, so how will you educate your children?

There was a time when the government schooling agenda was obscure  but that time has passed.

From the incompetency in key subjects to our severely low literacy rates, we have to face the truth.

Our tumbling literacy rates reflect the dumbed-down minds of our people.

If we want to raise children who are not dumbed-down, children who are not lacking in common decency, then we need to do something about it.

And that something is not school.

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework for homeschooling brighter, happier, engaged kids who can get into the top 20 colleges and excel in their personal and professional lives.

Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Liz's unique course to raise a serious reader, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.

For parents of younger children, who are concerned that their children develop well physically, emotionally, neurologically (brain), and intellectually, start with Liz’s original 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 23 years of experience working in education.

Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

Liz 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. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.