Foundation Father
My kids were playing hide and seek at the park with another boy. A few rounds had gone by, and it was my youngest son’s turn to be “it.” He counted and found the other boy fast. But he had some trouble finding his older sister. After a few minutes, the boy tempted him. “I […]
Sometimes, we have to slow down and remember that our kids are just kids. When we teach them something, we are coming from a position of experience and knowledge. It’s hard to go back to the beginner’s mind and speak from foundational principles. What words do we need to define? What concepts do we need […]
While at lunch, I asked my son about his favorite movies. I had let my kids watch Indian Jones and Last Crusade and Jurassic Park recently, with me skipping a few scenes in each. They seemed to enjoy them. After watching Jurassic Park, my middle son just sat there, shaking his head. Then he said […]
I won’t bury the lede. Reading to your kids every night is one of the best habits to have. Start immediately after they are born, before they can hold their head up, before they can crawl, before they can read. The earlier the better. Always be reading above their own reading level. The dividends are […]
You can start the financial education of your children early. And the earlier the better. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Some parents make things so complicated that they get intimidated by their own plans. They can’t keep up with their own ambitions. But doing a little is better than pretending to do a lot. […]
Your children should understand delegated authority. If you homeschool, you might have to be more intentional about teaching them this concept. They should always obey their teachers. But you should help them understand why they need to obey their teachers, and for this case, “because I said so” is actually a legitimate reason. In fact, […]
Our culture does a terrible job teaching our children history. Even before our attempts to change it or erase the achievements of our heroes, we left children adrift, scrambling for some land they could stand on to view the big picture. Sometimes we have done well with particular eras or moments. But even then, these […]
Death is an inevitable part of life. In the present day, we tend to shy away from it and avoid talking about it with our children. The old trope about Rover going to “live on a farm” betrays our fear and timidity. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go […]
Ever since the Enlightenment, we have fetishized education. It has been touted as the solution to all problems, from poverty to crime to war. For education to be effective, however, it has to be received properly, and in order to be received properly, the student must be virtuous. The fool exists. Scoffers will scoff. The […]
In Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, Socrates is getting a farming lesson from Ischomachus, an estate manager held in high regard. Socrates says that if you don’t know what the soil is capable of growing, how do you know what to plant or sow? Ischomachus gives a straightforward answer. …you can tell by looking at the crops and […]