What Is The National Parents as Teachers Day All About?

Cooler Weather

It is officially fall season with cooler weather. Seems like Texans appreciate cooler weather after some extensive triple digits summer temperatures. Excited for hot teas and cocoa celebrating cooler weather. Here in the United States, we know the month of November as one of America’s favorite holidays-Thanksgiving. However, there are more significant dates in November for us to learn about and celebrate. Such as National Parents as Teachers Day, World Town Planning Day, Veterans Day, Diwali Day and World Kindness Day.

National Parents as Teachers Day

This post explores the National Parents as Teachers Day, which is November 8th. This day was developed in Missouri in the early seventies. At that time, educators noticed that there were children beginning kindergarten with varying levels of school readiness. Some children could read and write while others could do one or neither. Educators realized with these varying skills in kindergarten, parental involvement was critical in developing a child’s foundational learning skills, including reading and writing. Furthermore, educators at that time also realized the necessity of rallying parents together and equipping them with all they need to teach their children at home.

Homeschool Days

This realization is something our family can relate to very well. We homeschooled our children for eleven years. What makes a family decide to teach their own children at home? My husband and I realized each of our daughters were very precocious by age two. What was dubbed the “terrible twos” was the “terrific twos” for our family. To write this post, I went and pulled out some of our homeschooling pictures from back in those days. It’s incredible those years were almost three decades ago! How time flies! My husband and I decided to homeschool our daughters for three major reasons: firstly, to have the opportunity to introduce our faith in Christ, secondly, to build a strong literacy foundation for life learning, and lastly, to create family values.

Gift of Reading

God used those eleven homeschooling years to accomplish so many things not just in our own lives but in the lives of many families we had the privilege of serving through our local, state and national homeschool organizations. Through those years, we developed long term friendships. One of the major results of those homeschooling years was that each of our daughters developed a love for reading and started reading at age three. They grew up reading their Bibles and a wide variety of genres. In fact, weekly trips to our local library were a favorite for our family back then. Each daughter had a library card and checked out books of their choices. As professional adults now, they are still readers! This is something I’ll love to see in our culture again- children that love to read!

In The Trenches Shoutout

Fast forward to 2023 and shoutout to the millions of families that are in the trenches of teaching their own children at home, just like we did almost three decades ago. Now, parents can homeschool as a private school or even homeschool as part of a public school. There are programs and curricula that make teaching your own children at home much easier than decades ago. So, on this 2023 National Parents as Teachers Day, let’s celebrate parents who are doing the hard work of setting the foundation of learning for their children! Let’s celebrate the courage of parents that have chosen to be counter-culture! Let’s celebrate parents as teachers! Happy National Parents as Teachers Day!