Homeschooling: Why Our Family is Starting

My husband and I were both raised in the public school system and we both have good memories (for the most part) of our experiences. I was a public school teacher at the middle school level for four year and although I saw things I disapproved of I had an overall fulfilling career. So why in the world would we choose to homeschool our own children?

First off I want to make it clear that we will revisit our decision each year and for each kid. We do not know what the future holds and to say this is what is best for the next 18 years for each of our children is foolish. However, right now it is absolutely the best decision. Here is why: none of our children are of school age so the option to send them to a public school is out of the question. Our finances do not allow for us to even consider putting our oldest in preschool so that is also out of the question. This leaves us with two options: begin some pre-schooling of our own or don’t.

I don’t think it is crucial that a four year old receive “pre-schooling”. I’ve had plenty of friends who have allowed their kids to “be kids” and have not worried about doing anything formal before sending their child to kindergarten and their child has adjusted as well as any other. I also know that plenty of people pay good money to send their children to expensive preschools only to have headache after headache when their child enters kindergarten or first grade. There is just no way to ensure that your child will adapt well, there are too many factors involved.

But one thing you can do, and this is what our decision came down to, is be intentional about giving your child a good base at home. It doesn’t take a person with a degree in education or even someone who has worked with kids before to start teaching their child some basic concepts. Since I am a former teacher I wanted to go full-blown when I started but after looking at just a few of the gazillion resources on-line I was so overwhelmed that I almost didn’t start at all. What helped me the most was to sit down, as I was taught to do as a middle school teacher, and write down my objective in a sentence or two. Once I was able to do that I realized that simple was best. So I went out and purchased a whiteboard and determined that everything I wanted to teach for a week needed to fit on the whiteboard. I can’t tell you the weight that was lifted once I was able to do this! I no longer felt obligated to run out and buy all the educational posters and materials that I had earlier felt I needed (but not known how I was going to afford).

For some of you who have older kids your objective will definitely be a bit more extensive but for my almost 4 and 2.5 year olds I knew that simple was best. And my 14 month old can only benefit from the routine of seeing and hearing his older siblings practicing their verses, letters, numbers, shapes, and math.

Although we have every intention of continuing this process of homeschooling our children, we will continue to take it year by year, child by child and I encourage the rest of you to do the same – as long as you have that choice. I do realize that life circumstances have prevented many of you from having this option. However, as I will address in another post on one-income living, we do have many more choices than most of us realize when it comes to how much we live on!