+JMJ+
One of the great challenges of home-schooling is that of walking the line between complete intellectual anarchy and slavish imitation of the public-school "teach to the test" model, both of which are erroneous and harmful to a child's development.
We carefully screen what our children read, watch and listen to, but it's not that hard, especially since we:
a) don't have cable or network TV, only subscription services like Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Instant Video (which we as parents are absolutely in control of every time they are put on).
b) only go to the library together (none of our children are old enough yet to drive, and our oldest is not old enough to walk or bike to our local library alone IF we were even to allow such a thing, which we would not.
c) don't listen to commercial radio except for the odd classical station. Even then, most of the time, we simply use our Internet connection to stream an ad-free channel over our TV or PC.
Our children are being taught math, composition, some history from books which is supplemented heavily by Dad's own studies in history which often clearly show how wrong the standardized curricula are, even the "Christian" ones (ex: "Jamestown was the first European settlement in the New World. The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts.")
and elementary science, which is largely composed of food-science and gardening. Again, these subjects, when not being taught out of a good book, are being taught by Mom and Dad, bringing the truths of Scripture and the teachings of the Church to bear on every aspect of what they are learning.
We are intentionally NOT schooling our children towards a secular college education. We are intentionally NOT assuming that such things are any more necessary in 2013 than they were in 1943, when my grandparents were raising young children. None of my grandparents went to college; three of the four of them never finished high school. Both sets of grandparents had traditional home lives, wherein my grandmothers stayed at home and raised their children until they were in school full-time, and even then only worked outside the home for brief periods each week so that they were never not home when their children were.
All that to say that my grandmothers were practically very intelligent women who could carry on conversations, keep their homes, instruct their children in moral and ethical (and in my maternal grandparents' case, Catholic) truths, and present to the world feminine, modest, chaste, respectable and altogether productive examples of how society should be formed.
That is the goal we have as parents as we educate our children. I can say for certain that my mother and father received excellent educations in their respective institutions (my mother went to Catholic elementary school and middle school and then public high school since the closest Catholic high school at the time was too far away and there was no extensive busing system in the early 1960s). Things are SO radically different today that my wife and I felt we had no choice but to home-school; we decided that a full DECADE before we even had our first child!
The way to battle sloth in education of your children is the same method for battling sloth in any other area of life: remember that NOT to serve Our Lord and the Faith is to serve the Devil. St. Pope Pius X called secular schools "strongholds of the powers of darkness", which they were and are.
Remember that, and you'll not only home-school with zeal, you'll direct their education not just to things useful in practical life, but to things truly Heavenly.
St. Benedict's motto, "Ora et labora", could not be more applicable to home-schooling.
Doctors of the Church, pray for us.
St. Ann Seton, pray for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.