From Checklists to Heart Change: What Christian Homeschool Parents Can Miss

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

What Defines “Success” for Christian Parents?

No Christian parent will argue that our ultimate calling in raising up children is teaching them about who God is.

Yet, we’ve made our kids’ academic achievements badges of great parenting … and therefore the apex of child-rearing.

Problem? I don’t see anything about academic excellence in this Deuteronomy 6 command.

And while homeschool families do have more time and freedom to disciple our kids that other families, many of us still can, and do, succumb to the expectations of society and its definition of what raising and educating kids should look like (brains filled with knowledge, good grades, college-ready).

In the process, intentional discipleship within the home can be sacrificed (or outsourced). Between ensuring our kids stay on top of their math, reading, writing, history, science … and keeping up with the home … and caring for babes … and possibly even jetting off to extra-curricular activities several times a week … there isn’t enough margin in the day to fit in spiritual development.

Or – maybe even worse – bible time IS scheduled but has become rote and just another thing to check off; just another subject to puff up knowledge without truly penetrating the heart. Parents can be easily contented (nay, filled with pride) if their kids can recite a whole book of the bible or know the order of each king’s reign … and feel no further need to be intentional outside of that. Bible time box: check.

Rethinking the Apex of Christian Parenting

We burden ourselves with ensuring our kids are “on track” or “not falling behind” yet can be lackadaisical with things that can’t be easily measured (character, faith walk, heart posture). In fact, even as organic discipleship opportunities prop up in the day (which can be often!), we push them aside to deal with later (maybe), lest our days get even more derailed than they already do.

But what if those messy, organic discipleship opportunities ARE the curriculum, and us helping our kids understand the gospel and cultivating a love for God’s unceasing mercy and grace in those moments ARE the main objective of Christian parenting?

We surely won’t teach or model this perfectly, and there aren’t tidy boxes to check off when navigating everyday, real-life situations that don’t fit into our plans: kids throwing tantrums, siblings fighting, illness in the home, mamas losing their ish in the midst of it all.

But that’s why it’s called FAITH. It’s something we CAN’T do on our own, and requires us crying out and clinging on to the one who is the perfecter of our faith.

And here’s the thing: a lot more is caught than taught. Our kids SEE when we take time to pause from our agendas and messily press into those kinds of moments. They SEE when we screw up along the way but then apologize and ask forgiveness. They SEE first-hand how utterly we all need Jesus – yes, even dad and mom – as we stumble along grasping for His hem and try to exercise our muscles in obedience. Most importantly, they SEE just what a dynamic relationship with our Lord and Savior looks like, gaining deeper understanding of why He had to come in the first place as a result.

There’s no time blocking or lesson planning for this kind of stuff, but when we value these moments as highly as teaching any other academic and take the time to slow down and press in, God will bless and multiple our feeble efforts.