THE Homeschooling Post

How in the world did we ever get into homeschooling.  How in the world???!!!???  Let me tell you.

But first, a little backstory.

When our oldest was about 3 years old, Scott started looking ahead to Cade's education.  We knew the 2 years prior to Cade entering kindergarten would fly by pretty fast (and they did).  Scott read a lot of books and determined that homeschooling was his #1 choice followed by private school at #2 and public school at choice #3.  He came to me with his findings, and I pretty much laughed in his face.  Me?  Homeschool?  Ha! 

I have not been very content being a stay-at-home mom since Cade was born.  I'm not a "little kid" person, so these years of having numerous small people in the house has been difficult.  Not that I don't LOVE my kids.  I do!  But this little stage just wears on me like nails on a chalkboard.  The idea of extending this time with the kids into homeschooling, especially at the time when I had two kids 3 and under, was a big no.  Homeschooling was great for other people (how on earth did they do it?), but it wasn't for me.

Fast forward a couple of years, and Cade entered kindergarten in public school.   We couldn't afford private school (at least not for 3 kids), so public school was the only option left.  Scott and I are both products of the public education system; and we turned out OK (keep your comments to yourself!).  And Cade had a great time at school.  And we were fairly pleased with his teacher and the school; we didn't have any major complaints.

Fast forward another couple of years when it's Jack's turn to enter kindergarten (this was around May 2010).  By all measures, it did not appear that Jack was ready for kindergarten.  One of the major obstacles we saw was that Jack still wasn't potty trained.  At the age of almost 5.  He was in diapers.  And would freak out on us if we tried to put him in underwear or on the potty.  I started looking around at private kindergartens.  But none of them would accept him because of the potty training issue.  We didn't want to try public school just yet:  what if the kids that he was going to grow up with start making fun of him?  What if they remember in junior high that he was the kid who went in his pants in kindergarten?  We thought it would just be a colossal mistake to subject Jack to that ridicule. 

Public school was out.  Private school was out.  Our only viable option?  Homeschool him.

At first this didn't sit too well with me.  But by golly, if this is what my kid needed, then I was going to do this for him.  I started devouring books on homeschooling.  And a funny thing happened:  the more I read, the more excited I got about homeschooling.  Sure, I was still nervous as all get out (can I really do this?  what if I don't end up teaching him anything?  what if he's behind his 1st grade peers the following year?).  But I had to trudge ahead.

I homeschooled Jack for 6 weeks before we made the gut-wrenching decision to put him in public school (that's a long story -- a story for another post some day).  And he did GREAT.  We saw Jack mature a lot those first few weeks.  And he loved school.  His teacher was the quintessential kindergarten teacher:   smiley, loving, sweet, nurturing, etc.  God could not have orchestrated that any better.

Fast forward to March of this year.  I'm not sure what got me thinking about it, but I started to be haunted by the idea of homeschooling.  I had really enjoyed my time with Jack (even if it was only 6 weeks).  And I recalled all the stuff I had read in the homeschooling books.  I became convinced that homeschooling was the best educational option for our kids.  Once I realized that, there was no turning back.

And the fact that none of this makes sense (I am the mom who skipped out of the school after dropping her first born off at kindergarten; no tears, just whistling and whooping) leads me to believe that God is behind all of this.  And if He has called us to do this, then He will surely equip me to be successful.

So WHY are we homeschooling? What makes it a better education option for our kids?

1. we can beat the public school's student-teacher ratio in a huge way
2. we can go as fast or as slow as we need to with each kid according to their abilities
3. we can use curriculum that is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all education.  we can use curriculum that meshes with the kids' learning styles
4. we (scott & i) will be involved in what they are learning; no more guessing at how the teacher teaches something when it comes to helping out with homework.
5. we can teach our kids our values; the public system tries to teach moral virtues.  but without a Who or why (God and the Bible) behind the system, the teaching falls short and shallow.
6. we love our kids more than their public school teachers do.
7. we don't want to outsource the educating of our kids to strangers

There are more reasons, but I'll stop with the above 7.  I'm excited about the idea of homeschooling our kids.  And the boys are excited too!  And most of all, a shocked Scott is thrilled that I've come around to what he has wanted since the beginning.