A Letter to My Younger Self

Dear Younger Me,

 You are sitting on the couch right now browsing curriculum catalogs and researching learning styles. And you are FREAKING.OUT. Not on the outside of course, but on the inside you are panicking. Before you had children you just knew that your child would get the public school education you "missed" out on. You even moved to be in a school district that was supposed to be fantastic, and maybe it was. However, as your children grew you realized that you really didn't miss out on anything worth having, but as K5 for Brianna inched closer, you also realized that you couldn't bear the thought of being one of those moms standing in tears watching as this child who has been so fought for, so wanted, this child who was an extension of you, was sent away to someone else for 8 hours a day to be taught and trained. Even private school was out. So you decided to give homeschooling a trial run.

I am here today to tell you that the trial run never ended. You did it. You made it past those first few years when you were most likely to quit. As a result you have been witness to some of the most joyful moments as well as those most difficult ones in your children's lives. You have taught them to read and to count. They have learned about space and phonics, Ancient and American history and botany. Your children, who by the way, now number 3, are bright, polite and pleasant to be around.  They speak respectfully to adults, make friends where ever they go and are learning at a pace you can hardly keep up with! Both Brianna and Keira are avid readers and eat up classic literature like it is cake. Your youngest, Luke, is a little more reluctant, but he is also learning and adores to add sums on his fingers!

Your kids will make friends! They will, I promise. They will become part of a community that you help start! You will get to be a part of planning parties, play dates and even field day! Your children will have friends ranging from 2 years all the way up to adult! Some of their favorite people right now are young adults! Teens that love to be around the little ones will be vital in helping your child see what young adults should act like. They will participate in sports and volunteer work and one day they will get to participate in prom and even a formal graduation service! All those things that everyone is telling you they will miss out on...well, let's just say that homeschooling is an oxymoron.

That is not to say there weren't rough days. Yes, those were there too. There were days when you were sure that you wanted to give up, that you weren't doing a good enough job, that the task seemed impossible. You still have them, even this far in, but what you have gained is wisdom, conviction and a burning desire to see your children succeed. What started out as just a deep need to not be apart, is now a strong unquenchable commitment to teaching and training your child not only in academics, but in the admonition of the Lord. And oh, how you have needed His grace during the days that seemed they would never end. If not for that unfailing grace, the tears that sometimes seemed to flow for days would have never stopped. But by this grace, you have come to see that your children are not only your God-given responsibility to raise, but that they are a joy beyond measure and you would not want to trade even the bad days. I want to tell you all of this because I know how hard and impossible it will seem at times. I know that for every success there will be a struggle, but that you will make it through and you will reap rewards that you could never have imagined.

I also want to tell you to take a step back and relax! You will come to a place where you recognize that pushing 4 hours of formal work on a pre-k aged child is not helpful. When you realize that learning is not something found in a book, your entire homeschooling experience will change and while book learning will still be very much a part of your day, you will also learn to enjoy those more "organic" moments. You will spend days without ever opening a math book and that is OK! Those walks in the park discovering bugs or days playing store, they are learning too. Take advantage of quiet times, sit on the couch and read together. Oh, your children will enjoy that so much! Go play in the sandbox when the weather is nice and plant gardens together. Take spontaneous trips to the library and let them pick out 30 books, all on minerals and crystals, you know they will never read. Play lego for hours and put the art supplies in a place they can access at any time. Don't fret, two are now advanced readers and the third, well he is only 4. There will be plenty of time for math books and formal science. Right now, enjoy your children.

So put the curriculum catalogs down, step away from the printer and just be with your children. Enjoy these precious younger years that fly by faster than you could have ever imagined and know, that you can do it and you can do it better than a stranger in a class room can. No one knows your children like you do, no one cares for your children or is willing to fight for them the way you do and that mama, makes all the difference.

Your 4 years in the future self,

A Letter to the New Homeschooling Mom

Dear New Homeschooling Mom,


Eeek! You did it! You made the decision to take full responsibility for your child's education and to homeschool them! I am so excited for you and you should be too, for you are embarking on one of the most rewarding adventures.

But I also want to be real with you. It is scary.

You will wake up excited one morning and terrified the next. You will have days where you wonder why on earth you thought you could this. You will worry that you are behind, you will worry that you aren't doing enough and you will worry that you are doing too much.

You will have days when your child refuses to do what they are asked. Where chores go unfinished and where math takes 4 hours and yet you accomplish nothing. Tears will flow and you will want to quit.

You will most likely start out with a very pretty picture of what your school will look like. You probably read books, researched learning styles and decided on what method you believe will work best for your child. Most likely, it will turn out to be the exact opposite of what your child thrives on. You will spend money on curriculum that doesn't work. More than once.

There will be days when you will envy, just for a moment, maybe longer, the moms who get to send their children off for the day. You will wonder what it is like to have so much time alone. What is it like to have a clean house? To take a hot bath or to go to the bathroom...alone?

There will be hard days. Mark my words, there will be days when you will want to quit.


But oh will there be joy! You and your child(ren) will spend days cuddling on the couch with good books, exploring nature in the park, learning, laughing and living together which result in a closeness that is more fulfilling than you could ever imagine.

You won't have to spend your days wondering who is influencing your child, or if they are being bullied. You will be able to speed up or slow down to meet your child's educational needs.You will be able to saturate every moment of their day in Christ and teaching them to live like Him. Their hearts will be yours to guide and their minds will be yours to mold.

You will get to watch moments of discovery that would have been relayed second hand to you if they were at school, if they were relayed at all. You will get to see the moments of delight as your child overcomes an area they are struggling with.

You will spend days relishing the fact that you can send your children outside to play during the cool hours of a summer morning or going on a field trip during the school year when the museums are practically empty.

You will get to watch them grow knowing that you were there for the entire thing and most of all you will know that your child is being raised in a Christ centered environment.

New homeschooling mom, you will have days of fear and doubt, but you CAN do this. Let the adventure begin!

Busting the Homeschool Myths #1- Homeschooling is Expensive.

When people find out we homeschool the initial reactions we get can vary from shock and awe to flat out disgust. Most, however, immediately begin to tell me how they admire me but could never homeschool themselves. In this series we plan to put to rest some of the myths and stereotypes about what it takes to homeschool.





Myth #1 Homeschooling is Expensive

When my children were first born I was working part time. I made a decent salary for a part time employee and I even had the benefit of being able to take my girls in with me! As jobs go, this one was a dream come true. However, by the time my youngest daughter was 6 months old, taking them both in was just not working. Well, more to the point was I was not working! How could I with a toddler and an infant constantly needing my attention. So, I began checking around for child care. I toured day care centers and was pleased to find one that I really loved! They had a computer lab, an indoor playground, a low teacher to student ratio and boasted a fantastic kindergarten readiness program. The kicker was that it was going to cost me $250 per week per child to send them there! $500 per week just for child care! In order to put my children into day care I would have to take a loss on my pay check. Ok, how can I make this work? I was bringing home about $350 a week on my part time hours. I could increase my hours...of course that means the girls have to stay at the day care center longer. It was unlikely that I was going to find another job that paid as well as this one and allowed me the flexibility that I needed as a mom. Then I came to a surprising conclusion. It was too expensive for me to work! It was cheaper to keep my children at home and be a non-income parent than to have a job!

Of course, I know what you are thinking, public school is free (well, free on delivery), but have you ever taken the time to tally up what it costs you to work and send your child to the "free" school? I encourage you to sit down and do so!

Consider these expenses:
gas to and from work
car maintenance
clothing for work
lunches
dinners out due to late work hours
school clothing
school supplies
gas to and from school
money for field trips/fundraisers/class parties/projects
school lunches

These are just the expenses that came to my mind, but I bet you will find that the free school isn't as free as you thought! Even if you are managing to bring home some of your pay check, what about the time investment? How much is your job and your child's public education costing you in family time?

What about homeschooling? Is it expensive? It can be.We definitely need some of those things too, and it is true, some homeschooling curriculum can run into the thousands. The great thing is that homeschooling can cost as little or as much as you want it too! Are you willing to put in a little extra time searching the internet? Between the internet and the library homeschooling can be completely free. Yes, there is a little bit of a trade. Some homeschoolers prefer to pay for the convenience of a curriculum already set up, but even that doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg. Providers such as Rod and Staff offer a very comprehensive and inexpensive "boxed" style curriculum. A parent willing to go the extra mile can match any expensive curriculum with free or nearly free substitutes.

Homeschooling FAQ

As a potential homeschooling parent you no doubt have plenty of questions. Or maybe you know someone who homeschools and you are curious. Each of these are real questions that most of us have been or will be asked at some point.

1. Is homeschooling legal?

The short answer, yes it is legal. The long answer is, well, long. Some states regulate homeschooling quite a bit, some states a small bit, and some have no regulation at all. The best place to find the most current homeschooling law is http://www.hslda.org/hs/default.asp Just click on your state’s picture, and the laws and current legislation (if there is any) will be shown to you.

2. Is your day like “regular school?”

Well, first we have to define “regular.” In my house what we do is normal and “regular.” But, if you are referring to the standard eight hour day, with multiple times of standing in line, getting permission to go to the bathroom, waiting in line 25 minutes to go to lunch and then only getting 20 to eat that lunch, then the answer is no. But, this is different for every home schooling family. Some people may want to school for eight hours, I personally only do three. Some people may want their kids to stand quietly in line for 25 minutes for lunch. We just try to do this at the checkout at Kroger.

3. Don’t you have to have a degree to be a teacher?

Well, if you are teaching in a public school the answer is yes. But, since we are answering questions about home school, I will refer you back to question number one. It depends on the state you are in. Some states have different opinions on this.

4. How do you handle all their classes when you have children in multiple grades?

Again, the answer depends. If you take a unit study approach you may school all the children together – you know like they did waaayyyy back when public schools were started. Everyone sits together and hears the lessons for the day, and then will break apart to work independently in areas like reading and math. If you take a work book or text book approach, then each child will have their own set of materials, and you would work with each child separately, at different times. See how the answer to this is dependent on the individual homeschooling family?

5. How do you differentiate being a teacher from being a parent?

Being a parent is no different from being a teacher in that, we are both responsible for the instruction and encouragement of the children we are responsible for, however, as a parent, we have a bigger responsibility to our children, for we see immediately the results of the children learning and unlike a teacher who manages a classroom of 20-30 children, that changes every year. As parents, we have both the time and emotional investment to understand and learn how our children best learn and are able to more easily adapt to each of our child's needs without having to sacrifice the needs of the individual over the whole.

6. Don’t you think they need to be in “real” school?

Ahem. I will try my personal best to not to be offended. After, all my kids are learning “real” phonics and “real” math. I am not really sure what answer to give here, as the question is not asking anything specific. It is more like a derogatory statement about homeschooling in general. Ask a real question, get a real answer.

7. How could you possibly homeschool if ____________? (Fill in blank with whatever circumstance you can think of.)

If someone wants to homeschool, they can generally figure out a way. This question is typically referring to different circumstances like single parenting, special needs children, gifted children, etc… I have a special needs child. I have a friend with an extraordinarily gifted child. Our homeschools look different. Some people may need to school when they are not at work, so their school may be in the evening. I school during the day most days and during the late afternoons when I have morning appointments. So, you really learn how to work it out according to the needs of your family.

Got something to add? Be sure to let me know and I will keep this updated (serious and snarky questions allowed hehe)!