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You Don’t Need to Apologize for Raising Kids In a Greenhouse

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It’s not fair.


When you dedicate your life to raising your kids and personally stay at home to make sure their needs are met, you are like a master gardener inside a greenhouse.


Greenhouses are safe and controlled environments which provide optimum conditions for seeds to grow.


Plants are given just enough food and water and care to ensure they are healthy and strong and exposed to plenty of light.

As homeschoolers, we are greenhouse parents.


We carefully tend to their needs as young learners, providing just enough to help them grow in their love of learning, while providing plenty of opportunities for time in the sun.

Someone I respected told me I was setting my kids up for failure because my husband and I chose to homeschool our five sons.

I was rattled.

My sons’ doctor had homeschooled all six of their children, so I asked him if I was making a mistake.

“What would be your mistake?” He asked with a warm smile.

“Over protecting and over sheltering my kids,” I replied.

He laughed. “Bekki, look to the Bible. God ALWAYS over protects His kids.

He hides them under His wings, protects them from storms, covers them with clouds, and warms them with pillars of fire. He parts seas when they need to cross water and sends food when they are wandering in the desert. God always over protects His kids. We should do the same.”

That one conversation gave me such a burst of confidence, I never looked back again. In fact, my husband and I pressed in and became expert Greenhouse Gardeners for our Kids.

Just like tomatoes and flowers grow better in a greenhouse, so do our kids… for the same reasons.

Temperature Control

“Outdoor temperature swings range widely between day and night. Plants subjected to extreme cold and heat across a 24-hour period do not grow as well as greenhouse plants and stressed plants become stunted over time.”

Kids left to their own devices, or worse the whims of the world, are subjected to extreme cold and heat in the form of topics and agendas being thrust into their worlds long before their roots are strong.

Over time, they become stressed and their own growth is stunted.

  • It’s the right thing for us to control the temperature in our children’s lives. To give them the proper balance of normal, healthy, and whole- all flowing from our love for the Lord.
  • It’s ok for us to control the flow of information that comes into our child’s mind while they are young.
  • It’s necessary for us to give our kids boundaries and rules based upon the word of God and to teach them His guidelines for truth.

“They will know us by our love.”

Carbon Dioxide Factor

“Controlling indoor air movement provides the greenhouse plants with a constant supply of carbon dioxide, which they need for sugar production.”

A master gardener knows that controlling the air flowing to her plants is key to their health and eventual harvest. Too little of the right air and the plant withers, too much and it is not healthy. The key is balance.

Kids need the proper flow of ideas, teachings and truth to be controlled as they flow into their lives also. As a greenhouse homeschooler, you don’t cut your child off from the world entirely, instead you are completely in control of how much of the world has contact with your children as they are developing. Master gardeners will not fill their greenhouses with sunshine, water, locusts, and diseases that may arm their plants.

Greenhouse parents take precautions when raising their kids as well, carefully selecting and controlling what they let in. That is the best way for kids to grow.

Reduced Pest and Disease Exposure

“Plants in greenhouses grow in containers with specifically chosen soil. Unlike an outdoor garden, your greenhouse container soil does not have the potential of harboring harmful diseases and pests. As a result, your greenhouse is practically sterile to fungi, bacteria and pests, such as borers. Without stressful pathogens and pests, the plants concentrate on healthy growth rather than repair and defense.”

Read that last sentence again. ‘Without stressful pathogens and pests, the plants concentrate on health growth rather than repair and defense.’

You are NOT stunting your child’s life when you control which ideas and ideologies you allow in your home. You are strengthening them and giving them an unfair advantage for growth.

This is where everyone takes sides and draws lines, I get that. You have every right to decide what you want to pass on to your children, but be careful. EVERYTHING is too much.

Kids who are exposed to an “anything goes- no boundaries” world are not set up for confidence and success to the same degree as those who are taught to live within the safety of boundaries. The right boundaries are more than beneficial for our kids. They catapult them toward stable, secure, healthy and fruitful lives.


Our kids have an unfair advantage because they grow in safety, security, and confidence in this greenhouse environment.

We made the decision long ago that we would homeschool our kids, I would be a full time mom and homeschool teacher, and we would stand upon the word of God and all His precious promises.

It may be unfair to everyone outside the greenhouse, but it’s still the best for our kids and the effects are evident in our kids as they grow in joy, love, confidence, and passion.

All five of our sons are healthy, strong, and catapulting toward successful futures.


Don’t be afraid of the greenhouse.

EMBRACE it!

Bible Studies for Kids:

My personal statement of faith:

I believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

I believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

I believe “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that we are saved by faith in Jesus.

My favorite Bible teachers are my husband (Craig Sayler), Pastor Jon Courson, Pastor Chuck Smith, CH Spurgeon.

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Comments

  1. I love the way you put this into perspective. It make total sense to raise a child this way. The world has change so drastically from when I was a child. I am helping to raise my grandchild and she will be raised like my kids were. My daughter wants to limit her exposure to our technologic new world. Exposing her to little at a time when needed.

    Reply

    • It’s incredible how quickly things have changed. We never need to apologize for protecting and sheltering our kids from the craziness. They just aren’t ready as fast as “this new world” insists that they are.
      I’m a big fan of technology in small supervised doses… but I never trust my kids alone with tech. Although they are not looking for “bad stuff”, he junk tries to find them. Your daughter is wise:).
      What a blessing you get to help raise your grandchild!!

      Reply

  2. Bekki, thank you so much for this article! I really needed this after couple of tough conversations with my daughter’s doctor. My daughter has special needs and some developmental issues so we have to see doctors quite often. But some of them feel like they are also experts in education and parenting… should I continue how many ridiculous things I heard from them and how many times they make me feel guilty about any developmental issue I bring up?

    Reply

    • No one knows your daughter better than you. It’s amazing to me how many people think they know what’s best for you child, my child, our children.
      I’d shop around for a team that is either on the same page as you about homeschooling, or at least willing to stay on their side of the line.
      All five of my sons were delayed in some way: talking, reading, potty training, walking, tying shoes, holding pencils correctly… But now, at 14-up they are way beyond their peers. They are helpful, kind, compassionate, passionate, eager to learn, and have tenacity that is just not common these days.
      In the same breath some people will tell me how amazing, smart, talented, gifted, and educated the boys are while asking me “how are you equipping them for the real world” out of the other side of their mouth.

      I don’t judge their ignorance about my kids. I just move on.

      Hang in there!

      Reply

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