My family’s journey to homeschooling began about 7 years. There’s OUR journey with it and then there’s MINE. I did not walk onto it gracefully, it was more like kicking, screaming, stumbling and tripping. I felt like I had to do some major excavation, on a historical site, with fragile things everywhere. We had time, we didn’t need to scramble to pull my kid out of school and find our own way to do this. That was definitely a good thing. My heart goes out to those families who take a sharp right out of the classroom door, onto Homeschooling BLVD. I hope that what I write in these posts will be helpful to both types of families.
My kiddo – little, smart ball of energy
Our then 3 year old was a very smart, little boy who was full of energy. We looked into a few options for schools. It didn’t take long to see that he’d have his love of learning drained from him in any school setting. I have the deepest respect for teachers, and have had a lot of conversations about kids like mine. He was sensitive, high energy, smart, and needed one on one attention. Through those conversations I realized that there was room for respecting what they do AND wanting to teach him ourselves.
Which way should we go?
Ok, so at the time we had just our amazing 3 year old and a newborn. My oldest was doing everything early and just eating up everything he was learning. We weren’t intentionally teaching at 3 years old. He enjoyed learning through games, books, and songs. This little one took in everything around him and just couldn’t get enough. He was so ready for school. People said…stop teaching him things or he will be too far ahead. “Tell him he has to wait until he gets to school to know more.” WHAT? No, thank you! We needed to find somewhere that could foster his love of learning and let him move. I also wanted somewhere that I could be super involved. I couldn’t handle the thought of leaving him all day, 5 days a week. After much searching, nothing felt like the right choice.
The winner is…Homeschooling!
We made our choice – the winner was…HOMESCHOOLING! Making the decision to begin our journey to homeschooling was, for me, scary to say the least. My thoughts began to swirl. How did I let my husband and MIL talk me into this? The thought would never have entered my mind without their encouragement.
Then there were thoughts like these: “Oh no, homeschool kids are weird right! How do I make sure he doesn’t end up like that?” Then I felt immediately guilty for thinking that way! “I was thinking about my own school days – I was popular, an athlete, had a ton of friends, loved my teachers. He’d miss out on all of that. How was I going to pull this off? “Is this the right choice? What about our other son, or if we have more kids???”
Then there was this next thought and for me it was a big one! “The kids all being in school some day meant freedom for me. Freedom to go back to work, to see friends, to have a something that was just about me. How would I hold onto myself as just Lynn? Not Lynn the mom, or Lynn the wife, but just Lynn. Oh the stress haha!
It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine!
I had to remind myself to take this journey to homeschooling one step at at time. First of all this was preschool, “this is fine, it’s fine, everything will be FINE! Breathe Lynn, breathe.” I had to ask myself, “What do I know? ” My kiddo liked books, playing, singing, and he’s super little. I could do this, at least for now. It was reassuring to think about my time as an early ed major for 3 semesters and the internship I did in a kindergarten class. I wanted to teach before becoming a social worker, I could do preschool for sure! I still wasn’t sure this was the best idea, but in my head it was probably temporary – maybe in a couple years we will look at school again, maybe for high school.
My husband was homeschooled from middle school on. I knew I wasn’t alone in this, but I also realized it would be primarily up to me and I needed to figure things out. He was only 3 but they were ready to get this homeschooling truck on the road. Truck? Freight Train? Something big, heavy and fast!
My MIL was constantly sending me ideas, resources, she had chosen a curriculum and everything. Along the road she has been a huge help and source of support but in those early days of trying to figure out how to homeschool we bumped heads quite a bit and I often felt overwhelmed and burnt out before we had even really begun. I kept looking for schools…just in case. So much self doubt, fear, worry just spinning in my head like a cyclone.
Finding confidence
Finding confidence for me came after attending a homeschool convention. I feel like for me, this is where our family’s journey to homeschooling really hit the road! It was such a positive experience. I finally started to realize I could keep this simple and we could have fun with it. In addition, meeting families like us, who were just beginning their homeschool journey, and others who had been at it for years with many kids was a huge help. I saw the closeness and joy these families seemed to have together on their journey. I left there with so many resources. My husband and I started having gentle but intentional conversations about homeschooling, we started to feel like we were on the same page for the first time and in this together.
Still not having all of the answers was stressful. Really I left there with more questions than I did before, but I felt inspired. I stopped looking for schools and started looking for ways to connect with local homeschool families, get ideas, learn the rules and regs for our area, make this fun and help both my son and I thrive. I was reminded of the strengths I already had and how I could use them to make homeschooling something my family and I would come to love.
