Dear Dahti & Pattyann

I messed up on the previous post, hit a button and oops!I don't know how to remove a goofed up post.

We were lucky back then. I think there was alot more innocence back then.

I also homeschooled my son. His first year of high school he didn't like because it mostly about protecting himself. The boys were all trying to be dominant, see who was the toughest, you know the score. So he decided to go to an outreach school for a year in Nelson, the nearest small city, about 13,000 people, since there was a bus going there and everything was done on computer.

The year after that I decided it would be good to homeschool him. He learned more about politics, life, different religions, wisdom and how to think, being at home listening to our discussions which cover every topic under the sun. Being home during those vulnerable years, where peers generally try to dominate your belief system at school, helped my son avoid all that crap and teenage angst.

He also learned new methodologies on how to study. His marks went up into the 80's and 90's, a vast improvement from his previoius marks.
When he went back for grade 11 and 12 he did great and loved it. He said homeschooling gave him confidence and respect for his abilities and proved to him that he was capable of pulling in great grades.

Dotsie, with regard to hitchhiking I can't imagine doing that now. However, my son does hitchike locally as do alot of people. Mostly they get rides from locals in nearby towns, going from town to town to meet with friends. It's quite different out here in the wilderness. We pretty much know everybody in the local towns, at least to recgonize when they drive by on our wilderness highway. Everybody has a wave and a smile which is really lovely considering I grew up a big city girl outside of Toronto.

That was my same message too Dotsie to my son, 'It's not you I don't trust...it's the rest of the world.'

With that in mind I told him about everything I could with regard to people, relationships, the dangerous people out in the world and his inner voice, how to trust the moment. When he hitchikes he listens inside for the best time to get a ride, then goes out and there's the perfect ride.
Prayer is an amazing protector.

I am very grateful that he has the wisdom inside to bypass all the crap our teenagers are inundated with. In fact, I'm very grateful he passed by those teenage years and didn't need to do the wild partying scene teenagers today are into.

I taught my son that the world is out for itself, that it is run by fear and that for him to make decisions he had to bypass the way the world does things and listen to his inner voice and what was right for him.

Yeah it was tough raising my son, terrified he'd get trapped in the wild aspect of the teenage years, or trapped by his peer's values. That was tough. I was just so glad that keeping him home with regard to homeschooling changed his whole outlook. He was able to see crap for what it was, able to be who he was. I thank God he made it. These days you hear so many stories about kids and drugs, the wild parties.

At some point I may write about how our technology and society itself is raising our kids, instead of parents. We're actually being divorced from our kids by economics, government and technology. Our whole way of life is taking us away from inner values.

With love
Leigha