Home Educated Teenage Launches First Book

July 3, 2013 - PRLog -- Jazza’s parents, experienced professional educators who offer free advice on home schooling on their family website Kidsngo.org, point out that with alternative forms of education children’s talents may well bloom beyond any expectations. Now they use the example of their own children’s successes to encourage other families to explore the benefits of home schooling.  

Why home education?

To say that home schooling helps make children’s dreams come true may seem to be a bold statement and may be hard to accept by the many. Yet considering the fact that a home educated child receives a unique opportunity and plenty of time to explore their passions and interests, it seems to be only a question of time when they achieve mastery in what they like doing most. And with modern marketing tools that can nowadays support entrepreneurial skills in every one of us, this kid is already closer to making their statement to the world. And such children are the ones who will inevitably help the future world redefine the way Education is seen today.

Freedom to explore

Our daughter Jazza received formal school education until the age of 11. Now together with her 7-year-old brother she is on full time home education. And after less than two years of home schooling we can see spectacular results that we think may help people change the way they perceive education in general.

When Jazza was only 6 years old she started developing her interest in reading books and writing stories. She would write comic stories or short picture stories paying unique attention to small details. But then she went to school and she got very busy with obligatory homework, tests and all kinds of school-related activities which kept her mind away from exploring her recently discovered literary fascinations. She would still write from time to time but hardly ever shared her work with others. We knew she loved books and whenever possible we would supply her with additional reading opportunities. But after hours spent at school the most important thing for her was just to relax and do nothing.

The heavy workload that children receive at schools and the amount of time they spend there leave virtually no space for them to explore their passions. Even though a lot of attention may be, and should be, paid to helping children develop their interests in their Early Years, the work is not continued when they start their formal school education. The problem is that they simply need to divide their attention and energy between the many things that they usually do not really like and, as a result, not enough time is left for exploring the areas which they feel attracted to most. Naturally children do need some time to unwind after school, however as soon as they are relaxed enough it is usually too late for their own initiatives or they have to get back to their homework to be ready for the next school day. This does not support children in developing their individuality.

Self-confidence booster

When we allow children to explore their personalities, when we give them plenty of time to discover what they are good at and let them develop their skills, they start to truly believe in their own sense of achievement. This happens because they get better and better at the things they like doing. And when they are happy with themselves, when they are confident about their own work, they believe in their own success too. They are ready to show their work to the world and to make practical use of their skills, which may eventually help them achieve success later in their professional life.

Talents reveal themselves

During six years of our adventure with formal schooling we had actually never received a school report saying that Jazza demonstrated outstanding writing skills. So we thought she didn’t. Although the reports were always very positive and full of praise, no special attention was ever given to how to handle her talent. It was only after the first year of home schooling when she started to read and write seriously. She would literally eat books for breakfast, books that inspired her to write her own stories. And with much practice her writing style started to emerge and became more defined.  Also, through her writing she let her true personality and her genuine sensitivity revel themselves for the first time.

It has been a few weeks now since we published her first ebook  Just Another London Girl  on Amazon and Smashwords. What a brilliant birthday present to give a child a real sense of success right here, right now!

Bursts of creativity

It’s fascinating to observe the process of creation in children that unfolds so naturally. There is no end to it, and it simply flows when given enough freedom and space.  This is one of the many blessings of home schooling – it offers enough freedom to unleash the creative side of our kids. Getting in touch with this creative centre is extremely important, especially nowadays. On one hand we are much obsessed with facts, numbers and hard evidence, and on the other hand we are living in times when thanks to human creativity we can enjoy highly advanced toys like Androids, iPhones or iPods. These toys, which make our lives even easier every single day, are created by people who know their talents, who stay in touch with their inner creativity and constantly explore their interests and passions.

Learning redefined

Our observations are also based on our experience that comes from teaching writing skills to high school and university students. Our daughter Jazza has already demonstrated great maturity in her writing skills that is usually expected of students as part of their writing course. A question that comes to my mind is: What are writing skills? When shall we start to teach them?  The more classic answer might be that as soon as a child achieves certain fluency in writing and reading. The example of our daughter however proves otherwise. To my mind, what it shows is that our “writing skills” have not much to do with being literate but rather with being creative.

We consider this as an achievement and we believe home education is a natural way to help your children reveal their talents too, achieve their full potential and become self-confident individuals who truly believe in their success now! Just giving them freedom to explore their interests and being an observant parent will do the job!

You can join us at our family website http://www.kidsngo.org where we share our stories of passion and adventure.

Jazza’s ebook  Just Another London Girl  is now available for all reading devices at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JazzaTheCrabb and http://www.kidsngo.org