Family, Holidays, Opinions.

The topic at Three Thinking Mother’s this week is Holiday Traditions, and what do you do when your family doesn’t agree with your choice to homeschool. I guess I am pretty fortunate in this area as most of my family do not question my decision. We usually spend the holidays with my Uncle and his family, though they have never homeschooled, they support our decision 100%. I suppose one reason for this is that they have raised their children in the school district, not truly thinking they could homeschool. They have had issues with the school districts, as well as seen the affect of the wrong peer pressure on their children. The over all feeling with many in my family is that the schools are failing our children these days.

This is not to say there are not some in my family who oppose our decision, and at times yes, they do give me reasons for opposing it. Mostly it is about socialization. I truly take these oppositions with a grain of salt and move forward, I seldom even attempt to rationalize, or uphold our decision, I guess basically I just agree to disagree with them.

I truly feel lucky in this sense that I do not have to listen to family members ideas, attitudes and continuous questions concerning our decision. I know there are those in the family who do not understand the whole homeschool issue, they probably do oppose our decision, however, they never say much. If there was one thing that I think all of us who were raised by the generation of my parents, we were all taught that some times it is better to just keep our opinions to ourselves, unless we see the situation being harmful. We were taught to embrace our differences, and no matter what to be as supportive as possible, and always be available for support should the time arise we are needed.

I would say leave it out of the holidays as much as possible. Approach any remarks with grace, and suggest that this is a subject to be discussed at another time, do not let it rule the holiday spirit. I feel any family member would agree that the holiday table really does not need to be the battleground for the differences of opinions.