The Educating Parent (merging Beverley Paine's Homeschool Australia and Unschool Australia)

Nurture by Nature

by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron-Tieger

Reviewed by Kelly, 2007

A friend told me to check out a book called Nurture by Nature. So I did. It has one of those personality test kind of things to find your child's type. I love these quiz things anyway, but they are not always accurate. This book was right on the nose though, and it was great!

I loved it because it pointed out things to me that are just part of who the children are and how there are things you cannot change or may need to work with. For example, an introvert needs quiet time, to be aware that too many people at once can be draining to them. I'm naturally and extrovert and I thrive on people, I get energized by them.so I missed allowing for quiet time altogether. There are many combinations of types, but the test described all of my kids right on the dot.

Okay, now how this relates to learning.... Up until now I have mostly tried to fit all of the kids into one style. We did Waldorf and we did computer based curriculum,unschool ing and hands on. Not one of them worked one hundred percent. I had done the learning style thing with them; auditory, kinaesthetic, visual, tactile. .. and I figured something like Waldorf that does multi-sensory should cover it. Well, I have learned from Nurture by Nature how individual each child is, and that to get the full benefit of homeschooling I need to meet the individual needs of each child instead of doing an alternative but satill one-style-fits-all education.

Now I know my oldest son needs very little structure. He prefers to work in bursts, prefers the computer, a steep learning curve and thrives on problem-solving games.His younger brother needs variety, computer, hands on, artistic expression and he also needs the structure of a schedule.My daughter needs to choose her own activities for the day, thrives on surprises and lack of structure. She needs to go with the flow and express everything through artistic forms. She also learns well with audio CDs.

I have been busy accommodating their individual needs into planning my day, asking for their input on what they would like to accomplish each day. So far it is very good!

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Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.