Florida Catholic | Catholic home-schoolers find support in group

Catholic home–schoolers find support in group

Catholic Homeschoolers of North Palm Beach County provides a community forum to help Catholic families who choose at-home education.

COURTNEY C. MCKAY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 08.15.08

For more information about home schooling support groups, call Catholic Homeschoolers of North Palm Beach County at 561-775-9253
or St. Thérèse de Lisieux
at 561-784-0689.
E-mail the group at vanbog7@comcast.net.

NORTH PALM BEACH | When Claudia Johnston started home schooling her three children in 2004, she found no support groups for Catholic home-schoolers in the central Diocese of Palm Beach. So, she began her own.

Catholic Homeschoolers of North Palm Beach County, which is affiliated with the Catholic home schooling ministry of St. Ignatius Loyola in Palm Beach Gardens, is now two years old and meets the fourth Friday of the month in various locations.

“Membership is fluid, but there is a core of 15 families,” Johnston said.

Johnston said that the advantages of home schooling “outweigh any frustrations” she might have had about giving up a successful career in the news business to teach her children at home.

But those frustrations are something parents can talk about at the group’s Friday gatherings. Parents also discuss the challenges and successes encountered along their home schooling journey and share advice and company.

While the children participate in activities from canoeing to leatherworking, parents – who often spend days isolated from other grownups, said home-schooler Kathy Doggett – spend time getting out with other adults

“When you are teaching at home, you easily can feel isolated without support,” said Doggett, who decided to home school her four children seven years ago when she read the book, “Catholic Home Schooling,” by Mary Kay Clark.

She sought out a support group to help in her home schooling journey, but found that, although there were many secular and Christian home schooling groups in her area, none embraced her Catholic faith.

Doggett did not want to sacrifice the crucial element of her faith when choosing a support group, so when the Catholic Homeschoolers of North Palm Beach County began, she knew her prayers had been answered.

“With this group, we parents not only can share suggestions on lessons, but we also can share our Catholic traditions,” Doggett pointed out.

She said that many home schooling parents she knows question whether they are “doing enough” for their children; however, she said the parents get the affirmation they need from others in the support group.

“Home schooling is not only about academics,” Johnston pointed out. “It is about values and, most importantly, love.”

According to Johnston, families decide to home school for a number of reasons: to give their children a learning environment free of bullying and peer pressure, to dedicate special attention to a child with a learning disability, or to provide their children an education that integrates faith into the lesson plans without the prohibitive cost of private school.

In fact, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Education, 29.8 percent of home schooling parents cited religious instruction as their most important reason for home schooling.

Maria Beckwith, a mother of nine children between the ages of 21 and 7 months, began home schooling her children in 2000 because she wanted to “spend more time” with her growing family.

‘“The family is the domestic church,” said Beckwith, who believes home schooling has allowed her to explore and celebrate the Catholic faith as an essential part of her children’s curriculum.

Beckwith said she receives support in her home schooling journey from her husband, Tim.

She also joined a Catholic home schooling group that meets monthly under the guidance of Father Brian Lehnert, pastor of St. Thérèse de Lisieux Parish in Wellington.

The families of the North Palm home schooling group get together for faith-based activities and programs. The gatherings provide children, who are away from school environments and activities, a way to socialize both with their peers and with society.

As for her own experiences, Johnston began her foray into home schooling after speaking to another parent about the benefits of the practice. After years of struggling to balance a career at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel with her family life, Johnston decided to take the plunge into home schooling herself.

With no formal training in education, she used her experiences managing projects in the workplace to assist her, viewing each lesson as a small project to overcome.

She said she enjoys the freedom not only to tailor her lesson plans to the unique interests of her children – Christina, 17, Alexander, 12, and Lauren, 6 – but also to help them view the various academic areas through a Catholic perspective.

Indeed, many Catholic parents find that home schooling their children affords them the unique opportunity to integrate spiritual development with academic growth.

“I realized that home schooling was a gift from the Lord, allowing me to spend more time with my children,” said Johnston.

Doggett said she knows home schooling is the right option for her family, as they are able to spend precious quality time together, and her children “have formed close bonds that they will take with them into adulthood.”

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