Wind Rose Homeschool Academy Blog

For most of us parents, this question has popped up in our internal monologue at least once, if not countless times. How do I get her to clean her room? How do I get him to remember to take out the trash? How do I get them to do x, y, or z? And for us homeschoolers who don’t unschool: how do I get them to do their math/writing/science/etc.? It wasn’t until I attended Conscious Discipline’s Summer Institute that it really clicked for me.  In a home based on parenting without punishments or rewards, getting them to do something is never the goal.  Neither is convincing them to do something. Rather, the goal is to create an environment and relationship with them in which they choose to do x, y, and z.   They choose to do the task because it is 1) keeping themselves or someone else safe, 2) helpful, or 3) kind. But how? The Safekeeper Ritual The Safekeeper Ritual from Conscious Discipline is key for our home.  It provides our children with...

“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” The question posed by the characters in Haroun and the Sea of Stories leads us into a magical adventure designed to delight as well as to push us to explore the value of fiction, the role of story, the role of narrative, the role of the legacies our oral and written traditions in our lives. Most readers who are familiar with Salman Rushdie think of him as a writer of magical realism for adult readers and associate him most often with his novel Midnight’s Children , which won the Booker Prize, and The Satanic Verses , which is his most controversial book. However, this children’s fable will not fail to captivate you and your children. I first read Haroun and the Sea of Stories in my 20’s and loved it for its craft and exploration of the power of writing, storytelling, and the spoken word. My 12 year old son and I were recently exploring my bookshelves, looking for our next bedtime read aloud. Now that he’s a preteen, we hav...