To the mom who is considering homeschooling
I know your probably nervous. You don’t know what the right decision is for you and your kids. You just feel that nudge that maybe homeschool is something you should try.
I’ve been there. I know all too well the feeling of making that hard decision. But if I can pass on any words of wisdom it would be not to ignore the nudge and why it’s there.
Secondly, I would say keep the opinions of others, outside your immediate family, about homeschooling out of your decision.
What I have found is most of us, parents/adults, are public or private school kids. Homeschooling wasn’t something we heard much about growing up. So now that the homeschooling term has gained more popularity, you may be considering it for your kids. But is it the right choice? When you haven’t experienced something for yourself, you start to wonder what your days will be like. You don’t know what to expect.
But I’m here to tell you, that discovering what your homeschool days look like is part of the amazing journey of being a new homeschool family.
Both my husband and I grew up going to private/public school for 12 years. We aren’t “homeschool advocates”. But now with our kids, having experienced both homeschool and public school life, they both can be great experiences depending on you as the parent and your child.
With that, I can only tell what has worked for our family. Only you can answer what’s best for yours.
Our oldest son, went through 12 years of public school in the Etiwanda and Chaffey District and graduated from Rancho High last year. He would be the first one to say he loved public school. But for him it was more about the learning environment than the social one. He was lucky enough to have great teachers. Teachers who took time to help him learn at his pace, which was always faster than the rest of the class. Not all teachers are willing to do that.
He was heading into high school when we decided to homeschool my daughter. It was very clear that our son wanted to stay in public school. I had no reason to pull him, so I allowed him to stay.
Our daughter was a different story.
When the time was right, just like her brother, we enrolled her in the same public school he went to. We were ready to walk through her 12 years of school alongside her.
After being familiar with how the classrooms worked and what she was going to be learning at each grade level, I knew what to expect. She fit the mold of public school - she didn’t have trouble sitting in her seat, she listened attentively, had no trouble with the routines of the day and was always one of the first kids in the class to finish her work. She loved school, her friends and the environment. There were no big reasons to pull her from school.
But something felt different this time around.
It wasn’t until the summer after my daughters first grade year when I started feeling the tug to do something different for her.
I had seen changes in the school system where parent volunteers were seen as more of a nuisance than a help. The fun parts of school were being removed from their days and the kids were growing up way too fast, already dealing with negative peer pressure of others. I was also starting to see the busy work that filled the kids school days due to accommodating lots of different kids’ needs. Teaching to the test became clearer and not for greater knowledge and understanding of subjects.
I had always laughed off the thought of any of us homeschooling. The phrase “I can’t be with my kids that much” to “I can’t imagine teaching them at home” all were phrases that came out of my mouth.
But that summer, it really hit hard. I just want more time with my daughter, to enjoy her being a kid. I want her to enjoy her childhood rather than be in school all day, come home with homework and projects to do. More family together, vacations without being questioning why they were pulling her out of school, seeing their dad more because of his nighttime work schedule. More learning at her pace - and not just to take a test and move on.
Part of me was excited about the possibility of homeschooling and part of me felt scared.
Would I ruin my daughter by taking her out?
Would I take away a pivotal part of her childhood by not having her in school?
She would be missing the (AR) accelerated reader parties, the school field trips, the structured school environment, the classroom friendships, - and for me, the moms who were now my friends. Life would look so different.
My fear helped me pushed away the thoughts of homeschooling but the excitement of schooling differently kept me coming back to consider it.
I knew if I asked others about it, they would give me all the reasons this was a crazy idea. Then I could move on like normal.
So I started by asking my son, the “school-loving” kid who would definitely tell me to keep her in school to
experience what he did.
He immediately said, “mom, I think you’d be great at it. In some ways, I think she would learn more at home with you than at school. I think you should do it!” I was shocked. It wasn’t the reaction I expected.
I moved on to my husband who surely would not think I should take on another thing and disagree with pulling her. Nope. He thought it would be a great experience for our daughter. “You’d be so great at teaching her from home”, he said.So now, this thought was becoming real.
I sat with my thoughts for about a month before making the decision. I talked with friends who homeschool to hear what their days were like, how their kids learned. The pros and cons of homeschool life. To this day, the best advice I received was, “Beth, you will never regret taking a year to try it. If it doesn’t work, you could always put her back in school.” That was all I needed to hear. It was decided, we would try it for a year and then decide if we should go back to public school. To be honest, I thought we’d be right back.
Today, we are now ending our fifth year homeschooling.
Can I tell you how much we love fell in love with it?
It’s taken us a little while to find our groove. I had to learn the homeschool lingo - PSP, PSA, Charter, charter funds, teacher facilitators, transcripts, keeping records, making work samples and homeschool vendors. Then there was curriculum, I couldn’t believe all the choices! It was a little overwhelming, but in a good way. We had to figure out my daughters best learning style to see what curriculum would be the best fit for her. It took a little trial and error to find the right ones.
We had to really dig deep to find out what my daughter wanted to learn about. She was already so programmed to walk into a school year being told what she was going to learn and how that was going to look based on the teacher and her lesson plan for a classroom of kids. She had never even thought about what interested her.
I dedicated our first year to be a break from everything that was extra. No extracurricular anything and no volunteering anywhere. You could say, we took a year off of the busyness public school life gave us and became still to figure out our new life.
Learning, field trips and friends filled that first year and it was amazing. My the second year we added in more extracurricular activities and now, well we do it all. I work from home, we volunteer at church, we are part of a homeschool group called Classical Conversions, and we have a ton of extracurricular activities.
My journey into homeschooling will look different than yours.
Maybe your situations different than mine. In fact, I’m sure it is. No two kids are alike. But if your still reading this sweet mama, the nudge your feeling is still the same as mine was. Listen to it. Try it for a year. The kids can always go back after a year and at the least, you will be filled with amazing memories you can’t get back.
Will it take work and effort on your part? Absolutely.
Will life look different? I hope so.
Will your kids life be ruined by pulling them? Nope. Kids are resilient and are great being flexible.
Will you be able to do it! YOU CAN! You just have to believe in yourself, ask other homeschool moms all the questions and start paving your family’s journey. It just takes you saying Yes!
Be sure to message me and let me know what you decided. I’m here to cheer you on, no matter what you do!
Considering Homeschool but have a ton of questions? Send me a message!
Have a homeschool mom question? Send me any questions you have. I’ll get you an answer or reply in an upcoming weeks newsletter.
