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Dear Readers,
This month we are privileged to have the advice of a seasoned homeschool mom, Michelle DeLadurantey of Luling, Texas. Here’s what she has to say about raising children after 50 years of marriage, 11 children, 25 grandchildren (and counting), and 37 years of home educating…
What have I gleaned from raising 11 children, now 43-22 years old?
Let me see:
- One wanted to shoe horses and became a lawyer
- Another couldn’t make a decision in her teens and became a nurse practitioner.
- A son who loved cattle and wanted to become a vet and is a builder.
- And the youngest looked into becoming a florist and now has her own flower farm.
Where do you start, how do you encourage, challenge, and open doors and windows to future possibilities?
It all starts with a willingness to expose them to all that is available around them with opportunities to walk alongside their parents as they live out real relationships. Spending time with adults, asking questions, working alongside those who God has in their lives.
We had always challenged our children to take an interest in others and to be willing to be an extra set of hands. We wanted them to not be afraid to fail but to have the freedom to experience all under the watchful eye of their parents. It came with opportunities to think outside the box, where every idea doesn’t require a promise of amazing success to try. Any idea is acceptable, as long as it is not unbiblical or hurtful to others.
Our son who is in construction spent time with our local vet who was honest about what the process, cost and career looked like. During that time, while out purchasing some farm equipment, he met a custom builder who hired him to run miles of fencing. That relationship turned into a job as an assistant supervisor (free truck at 17) giving him the opportunity to understand what that industry looked like with city permitting, contractors, customers and architects, all under the watchful eye of the custom builder. At 22 years old he started his own construction company, built a spec home and sold it. Now 27 with a sweet wife and new baby girl, he employs young men with a hope to start an apprenticeship program for those interested in construction.
Each child has his strengths and weaknesses and as home education parents we can encourage them every step of the way. But it is in modeling how to talk to people, thinking outside the box, being resourceful and taking an interest in others, that helps. Allowing them to fail so that they can learn because it is in our failures that we most often grow. (Don’t let them think failing is the goal, I’ve had some children live that out.)
I find myself so often telling moms what opportunities I see in their children’s talents, I can’t help myself. Open your minds, be creative, it’s all out there. It is how you started this home education journey, “outside the box”, not conforming to the norms. Your children have known strengths, weaknesses to overcome and opportunities that arise. These are just building blocks to create a vision of the future that is possible. Although it might not end in a career, it will give them a chance to become adults.
Here are some examples…
- Muffins at your door (only on paper but we taught the cost analysis)
- Father and son waterless car wash (everyone loves a freckle faced little boy)
- Office cleaning (10 children and paid in ice cream cones)
- Marketing/Sales
- Networking/Social Media
- Cookbooks (way too many 50# bags of oatmeal)
- Natural deodorant, tried mascara but it was not pretty
- Music ensemble groups (turned into a community orchestra!)
- Music teachers
- Custom cabinet work
- Home Improvement company
- Financial planning (worked for a family friend)
- Sales to home schooling families in software product and typing programs (this was back in the 90’s)
- Dog breeding
- Flower farming
We have friends who have modeled it by bringing their son to work as a mechanic and working on his first vehicle at 9. A builder whose daughter is the office manager and a father who is teaching graphic design to his children. Young men at a conference selling vendor’s products just for fun and ended up blessing the vendors and offers of a job when they were older. Selling baked goods to friends and the community, and one young friend getting certified as an event planner because she loved party planning for her mother’s 2nd grade class.
Don’t be afraid of failure, believe in their ideas, cultivate a home that is hopeful for the future, don’t buy into “it’s not worth the effort.” All of life is worth the effort. It is a journey, and we must strengthen our children to think outside the box and embrace creativity in life. Cast a vision for their future, one that does not necessarily require college but don’t be afraid to help them see all the possibilities in this world of ours. You know them best and love them with a zeal no one else can. It has amazed to me to see my children become adults just as it will you. So smile, the best is yet to come as your teens grow in this season of life.
Enjoy these years, they are truly wonderful.
A fellow launcher of arrows
Michelle
