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Surviving the First Year of Homeschooling after Leaving Public School

January 10, 2006 by 3 Comments

I understand your frustration. We began homeschooling after our older child had spent several years in public school (our younger child spent only Kindergarten in The System). We felt strongly that God was leading us to take responsibility for our children’s education, but we had a difficult time finding adequate support from other homeschoolers. Most of the other homeschooling families we knew at that time had been educating their own children from the beginning and had never experienced the trauma of feeling that public school had failed them. Parents often write to me, seeking encouragement and advice in surviving this transition from public school to homeschool. I know exactly what they mean. It is a completely foreign situation, somewhat like starting over from the beginning, but with students who cannot afford to lose any ground.

Children who undergo this change from public school to homeschool will experience abrupt (but not disastrous) changes in environment, teaching styles, and learning situations. These changes will usually affect behavioral changes in the child — sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

The environmental changes may put the child on an emotional roller coaster. If he had difficulties at public school or did not enjoy that experience, he may be relieved to be away from that setting. At the same time, he may miss some of his acquaintances or the reliable routine of scheduled activities. Enjoying school, not enjoying school; missing the other students, not missing the other students; excitement, depression; up, down — most children do not have the maturity to effectively cope with the emotions they will experience through this process without help and hugs from their understanding parents.

If the student is eager to adapt to homeschooling, the teaching parent will not have much difficulty during the transition phase. However, some students are not in agreement with a parental decision to leave the public school and view the change as something to rebel against. In this case, their behavior may become uncooperative and stubborn and include what I call the “Limp Spine Syndrome,” that tendency for a child’s entire body to go completely limp whenever you urge him to pick up a pencil. The simplest assignments may drag on and on, and work that the child could easily have accomplished within a few minutes’ time may stretch out to last an entire day. If the child had formerly been an attentive student in the public classroom, he may just be dawdling at his work in an effort to substitute Mom’s companionship for the classmates he is missing, or he may be seeing this extended class time as a way to monopolize Mom’s time, keeping her from completing other household tasks, and thereby punishing her for taking him away from his former friends and associates. Students who are used to having homework assigned to be done later may not immediately grasp the concept of doing their work during class time. A casual discussion of expectations between teaching-parent and student may clear up many misunderstandings and motivate the child with the promise of free-time activities once the schoolwork has been completed.

Since this new arrangement is homeschooling, not school at home, it will undeniably be different from what the student had been used to. The style of teaching necessary for a roomful of children is not at all suitable for just a few students. At the same time, the learning skills used in the large group setting are not the same skills necessary for the more self-directed format of homeschooling. Another common cause of disinterested learners is lesson presentation in a manner that does not appeal to the child’s learning style: giving oral explanations to a student who learns best through building 3-D models, or assigning a student to read a chapter of history when he would rather participate in a reenactment.

Spend some one-on-one time with your child, endeavoring to learn what things he is interested in and how he would prefer to study them, and then tailor a few lessons specifically towards those areas. Topical Index: Learning Outside the Books contains ideas for lessons that will be more appealing than the average dry textbook. If your reluctant student is interested in guns and soldiers, rent a few factual war movies (look for older movies that do not require the modern cautions against adult scenes or foul language) and watch them together, followed with brief discussions of various scenes or characters. If he is car crazy, challenge him to research comparisons on new models or prototypes. Find his areas of personal interest and focus on those. It can make a tremendous difference in his level of motivation and create a valuable bond between the two of you at the same time. (Mom is letting me study this?) Remember, education was taking place long before the first textbook was ever written. [Also see Topical Index: Learning Styles.]

Teaching and learning are difficult enough with only a few subjects — there is no reason to complicate matters by tackling too many subjects at once. When neither your student nor you as teacher has had any experience at homeschooling, allow yourselves plenty of time to adapt to this new routine before worrying about covering all the bases. A student who cannot read well cannot fully grasp history. A student who has not mastered handwriting will find creative writing to be needlessly tedious. Get the basics covered well first, and then other academic subjects may be added in later. [Depending on the ages of your students, you may be able to adapt some ideas from Start with Reading, Handwriting, & Arithmetic, and Save the Rest for Later.]

A parent recently mentioned to me that her student had previously been given prescription medication to compensate for a learning disability while in public school, but he did not seem to have a need for the medication at home. The child also seemed to be struggling with that inconsistency — why was the medicine needed for learning at school, but it is not needed for learning at home? Let me bluntly say that I feel public schools have become much too liberal in assigning “disability” labels, and children are being over-medicated, sometimes needlessly medicated. I do not discount the possibility of children with legitimate problems in learning, but I also think medication should not be the first choice in conquering those problems.

If you are struggling with homeschooling, be encouraged — the first year is always the toughest. Remind yourself that you have chosen to homeschool your children for very important reasons. There is a definite adjustment period involved in switching from public school to homeschooling, and that period can last at least a year. If you are currently in the critical transition stage between public schools and homeschooling, I suggest you browse through my Indexes for a larger dose of encouragement. I will list a few past articles here for you to start with:
Questions from a First-time Homeschooler
Homeschooling Is Hard Work
Do the Best Job You Can, and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest
What Didn’t Work for Today Can Be Changed for Tomorrow
Homeschooling an Only Child
Meatball Education: Filling in the Potholes of Public School
Spoken Destinies and Learned Behaviors
Are We Homeschooling or Schooling at Home?

Filed Under: Behavior, Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

Homeschooling Is Hard Work

August 1, 2005 by Leave a Comment

As a young man, my father-in-law built houses. I doubt if he would have called it easy, and I think I could go so far as to say that building a house is hard work. But I am also quite sure he would have called it satisfying work, enjoyable work, and well worth the required effort. I watched him one day as he walked into my neighbor’s home, looked around a bit at the structural lines, and said, “Yep, I built this one.” The frame was many decades older, remodeling projects had changed a wall here and there, and the latest occupants had never seen it in its prime, but the master craftsman could still recognize his work.

Many things we do each day can be considered enjoyable and satisfying, even though they also fall into the category of hard work. Stripping the bed linens and stuffing them into the washing machine can be a chore, especially when bedrooms and laundry room are several floors apart. Carrying a basket of wet sheets outdoors and hanging them on the clothesline is also not an effortless task, but the sun-dried scent of clean cotton defies description. The delight of lying down upon cool, crisp bedding after a wearying day somehow trivializes the amount of work it took to accomplish the task.

Homeschooling your children is hard work. In the midst of this grueling task, we often have to remind ourselves of what our goal is and how much we will appreciate the reward when that job has been well done. Homeschooling can be either complicated or simplified in many ways, based on the tools we choose to use and the extravagance of the details we decide to add. If we have chosen the proper equipment to fit our task, we can progress smoothly — some days barely working up a sweat. At other times, we may compare our progress to hanging pictures with a sledgehammer and railroad spikes — it will get the job done, but the results may be less than desirable.

From time to time I found our homeschool “product” becoming less than satisfactory: the children were not learning the material as easily as I had anticipated, some or all of us were frustrated with the presentation of material, or some or all of us became bored with the materials, the lesson format, or schooling in general. Those were the times when teaching and/or learning were becoming hard work, with few rewards to maintain our focus or enjoyment of the task.

The first time this happened, we were brand new to homeschooling. I had purchased an all-in-one language arts program that was becoming very popular with the other homeschoolers I knew. My daughter looked at the material with some apprehension, but faithfully gave it a try. Day after day, we worked together on the lessons, and day after day she became more frustrated. One part of the lessons required me to dictate a story excerpt to her while she transcribed it into a notebook. As simple as that seemed in theory, it was tremendously difficult in practice. As we pressed on through increasingly trying days, I began to analyze the process, hoping to determine what was making this so hard. After all, the homeschool families I had talked with told me how their children progressed from one lesson to the next without difficulty — what were we doing wrong? Our first two months of homeschooling made us question our motives along with our sanity: how could we possibly continue on this path for an entire year, let alone multiple years?

It finally became evident that we were following the instructions accurately as laid out by the curriculum’s publisher, but their plan of action for this particular subject just did not fit our needs at this time. Heart-to-heart discussions with my daughter revealed what she was hoping to receive from homeschooling. Her public school classrooms had too few books to go around, and the students were required to copy their lessons into notebooks instead of writing directly in the workbooks. My daughter’s vision of homeschooling included being allowed to write in her very own workbook! I grabbed my stack of curriculum catalogs, and together we read through the descriptions, looking for a program that would meet her expectations besides providing the basic grade level instruction. As soon as the parcel-delivery service brought the desired package, our homeschool days underwent an amazing transformation. My student had her first personal work-text to write in, without any reprimands for doodling in the margins or plastering each completed page with “job well-done” stickers, gold stars, and smiley faces. The stigma of her public school experience was suddenly vanquished, and she became an overnight homeschooling enthusiast. We were no longer bashing the walls with sledgehammer and oversized spikes: we had the proper tools for our job.

Houses do not get built in a day (except through the “magic” of television), and children do not obtain an education overnight. Homeschooling takes dedication, hard work, and a little sweat, but hopefully not too many tears. While still in the midst of your mission, you can look around to see what has been accomplished so far, and from that obtain the encouragement needed to see this project through to completion. The reward will come when one day you look at the finished product and recognize a job well done.

Filed Under: Curriculum Choices, Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School, Roadblocks to Learning

How Long Should I Homeschool?

June 29, 2005 by Leave a Comment

When considering whether to homeschool your children, you may also be pondering how long to homeschool or if homeschooling can be used as a remedial alternative for a child who is lagging behind in public school. I have found that there are as many opinions on the length of time to homeschool as there are reasons to homeschool and methods to use.

Some families choose to start their children out with homeschooling, desiring to give their children a firm foundation from home and then sending them off to public school once the elementary years are completed. Others will keep their children at home until time for high school, reasoning that the junior high/middle school years are difficult enough by themselves without the trials of the public school atmosphere. Many homeschooling families educate their children all the way through to high school graduation and then send their offspring to college, while a few families utilize distance learning programs to complete college from home as well.

I have noticed a tendency in some families to “yo-yo schooling” — send the kiddies to school for a while, then teach them at home for a year or two, send them back to school, bring them home again, etc. Overall, children (and the teaching parents) need more continuity in the educational process than can be gained from bouncing back and forth. Since homeschooling usually uses different curricula from what the public schools use, there will be some uncertainty in the amount of progress made each time the student changes facilities. A few particularly obstinate school administrators have refused to accept part or all of the work students have done at home, creating even more inconsistencies. While homeschooling can be an effective way for the struggling student to get back up to grade level, it is my opinion that it is not a good plan to send that same student back to the institution that caused the problem in the first place. [See my previous article on Homeschooling Failures I Have Known… and What Can Be Learned from Them for some true-life examples of families who suffered from the yo-yo syndrome.]

I have groped for the proper words to address parents who told me they intended to send their little ones to public school first and then homeschool them for junior high, “when they really need it.” Pardon my bluntness, but it may be too late by then. My daughter began showing signs of the you’re-only-my-parent-what-could-you-possibly-know attitude as early as second grade, and it was fully functioning by the end of her third grade year. Her progress in every subject was showing a drastic decline throughout fourth grade, at the end of which we removed her from the public school system. Since then, I have observed children who despised their parents’ influence from even younger ages. Yes, your sweet little darlings are the image of innocence and devotion at three or four years old, but it will not take long for their values to be compromised under the strong influence of public school peer pressure and bullying (which is not limited to just students: teachers are just as effective at bullying and manipulation as the students are). Classroom pressures only increase as time goes by, and children who are in elementary classes now are exposed to things that were not even mentioned in my high school classes. Do you really believe those influences will be beneficial to your children?

Job transfers or terminations can happen to anyone, bringing major upheaval to the family routine, sometimes including relocations to unfamiliar territory. Homeschooling families are also not immune to tragedy and death: I have mourned with those who have lost children and even spouses. Yet homeschooling can continue. Creative scheduling has enabled many working parents to supervise their students’ education while still providing the necessary family income. Students who have learned to teach themselves can carry on a great deal of their home education independently even if major setbacks arise to hinder your efforts. My daughter found the routine of doing math lessons to be a valuable coping strategy for the stress of having two grandparents near death at the same time.

While the idea of homeschooling for the next 13+ years can be overwhelming at first thought, I recommend focusing on only one or two years at a time. Reassure yourself that you can complete this task and plan for doing just that, but choose not to look too closely at all that the future holds, lest you scare yourself away from attempting it. Once we as a family had recognized the benefits of homeschooling over public school, we knew there could be no turning back for us, but to consider how much work lay ahead of us was a very daunting prospect indeed. However, my children were currently in elementary school, not high school, and I realized that I had several years to figure out how I would handle the harder subjects once we arrived at that level. I was able to learn many things right along with my students, and our progress came one year at a time: we did not tackle chemistry or calculus until we had the foundations properly laid for them.

My children extended homeschooling into the college realm by attending a few classes during their high school years and then living at home while completing an Associate of Arts degree from our local community college. I proofread college papers at their request and offered suggestions for changes before the final editions were handed in. Occasionally, I was called upon as a sounding board as they attempted to explain their college lessons to me in an effort to better understand the concepts — proving the old saying that the best way to learn something yourself is to teach it to someone else.

How long should you homeschool? No one can predict exactly what your future will hold or what obstacles to homeschooling may cross your path, but I personally recommend doing everything possible to homeschool your children through high school graduation. The benefits of individualized learning at home and the consistency of steady progress will provide the momentum needed to carry you and your students through the years that you dedicate to education at home.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool v. Public School, Leaving Public School

Can You Convince My Husband to Homeschool?

April 8, 2005 by 3 Comments

Here is another goodie from my email box: Do you have any magic words or potions to convince my husband that homeschooling is truly the best thing for our children? –Frustrated Mom

To begin with, a wife should be willing to submit to whatever her husband decides, since he is the head of their household. Sometimes, just seeing that his wife has agreed to let him make the decision is enough to sway a husband into reconsidering a matter. If he already knows how strongly she feels about this issue, maybe he just needs to know that he has an important role in making the decision. Many husbands will have pre-conceived ideas about education to deal with, so they need plenty of time and space for thinking things through. Be faithful, be submissive, and leave it in God’s hands. After all, God is big enough to change the mind and heart of even the most stubborn person — look what He did to Saul (Paul) in the book of Acts.

If you are a new reader to this site, I am going to suggest several of my previous articles which include helpful background information that may help you answer your spouse’s questions about homeschooling. These are for the pro-homeschool spouse to read (whether husband or wife), since shoving them under your mate’s nose would be likely to produce the wrong effect entirely. If your spouse becomes more interested later, you will probably be asked where you found your information. These articles were not written for the purpose of browbeating a spouse into submission to homeschooling, but as you read them, you will likely come across situations you had not considered before. Use those topics for open, honest discussion with each other about how homeschooling will change your lives, in both positive and negative ways. Listen to your spouse’s concerns with an open mind, knowing that the more you discuss, the more you will understand each other’s point of view, and the more you will come into agreement with each other — regardless of what decision is made.

Start here for the basics, the most frequently asked questions relating to homeschooling:
Common Homeschooling Myths Dispelled — many commonly held (but false) beliefs about homeschooling
Socialization and Why You Don’t Need It — addresses the dreaded S-question (a.k.a. The Socialization Myth, Part 1)
The Socialization Myth, part 2 — ditto
The Myth of Age-Mates — ditto, again
Discouraging Families — how to deal with in-laws and others who may disagree with a decision to homeschool

Your husband may also be mulling over how the change to homeschooling will affect other areas of your lives:
–Increased workload for you — see Where Do I Begin? and Using Your Household Staff
–No time away from the children — see Family is Spelled T-E-A-M, and Siblings as Best Friends
–Financial burden of purchasing curriculum and supplies — see But Public School Is Free…Won’t Homeschooling Cost a Lot?
He may even worry that he could lose your attention, since your focus would be turned to the children most of the time. (See Involving Dads in Homeschooling)

If you know any other homeschooling families, you might consider putting together a casual fun night with them and your family, or ask if your family can attend a homeschool group function with them. That way your husband can get to know some of the other dads and see first-hand how things work. Men often relate better to hands-on activities than to reams of printed information, so the more face-to-face, eyewitness contacts you can provide, the better your case will be made. The same things apply to children who are not “sold” on homeschooling: providing an opportunity for them to spend time with homeschooled children near their ages lets your children see the “kid’s eye view.”

We spent several months checking things out before we actually began homeschooling: we made our decision in early April, finished out the school year in public school (not easy when the school was very unsatisfactory), talked with other homeschooling families over the summer, then began our first year of homeschooling in September. (We tried to start in late August, but –wouldn’t you know it — I got my first call to jury duty! Lesson #1: Life happens; homeschooling is flexible.) The more interaction we had with other homeschooling parents, the more assured we were in our decision. We attended potluck picnics with two different homeschool support groups, allowing our children to meet new friends and interact with them while we talked with the parents. We visited the home of at least one homeschooling family, who graciously answered all our questions as well as they could and encouraged us to interview their children for their opinions. That Mom also loaned me a stack of books and magazines about homeschooling to fill my summer. As I read every word, I took notes on the best parts, recording which book they were from. I still have that notebook and refer to it occasionally when I need an encouraging boost.

The first year of homeschooling can be very difficult, — do not let anyone tell you otherwise!!! Removing your children from public school to switch to homeschooling is more difficult than starting to homeschool from preschool or Kindergarten level. However, the second year of homeschooling is infinitely easier because you realize you have done this once before, and each successive year continues to get easier as you develop your own personal, comfortable routine. (See Homeschool Failures I Have Known and What Can Be Learned from Them) If you are leaving “school” to begin homeschooling, you may find an area or two of weakness. (See Meatball Education: Filling in the Potholes of Public School)

Our personal testimony of choosing, then continuing, homeschooling can be found in Our Reasons for Homeschooling and Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another. Also see Homeschool Beginnings: A Child’s Point of View for my daughter’s testimony of what she experienced during the switch.

Finally, see Do the Best Job You Can and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest. It is not worth strife in your home to have Mom and Dad at odds with each other over this decision. If you are not able to homeschool, or cannot begin as soon as you would like, your children will survive. Millions of us made it through public school, even though homeschooling may have been a much better option. Only God knows what your future holds, so you must trust that God can guide your husband’s decision. Your willingness to abide by your husband’s decision in this matter will provide its own rewards. You face your hardest job right now — that of being the patient wife and mother who hides her emotions so as not to manipulate or cloud the facts.

No matter how strongly I may feel about homeschooling, I know that God has ordained our husbands to be the heads of our homes, and God will honor our obedience to our husbands. Only God can truly convince a person’s heart of what He wants them to do. Be patient, be supportive, and be faithful in prayer for God’s best for your spouse and for your children. God can handle the rest.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Leaving Public School

Where Do I Begin???

December 22, 2004 by Leave a Comment

[co-written by Jenny and Carolyn]

You would like to begin homeschooling. Your children are already in school. How do you begin? Start with a trip through the Home School Legal Defense Association’s website (http://www.hslda.org) to learn what must be done in your area to be in compliance with your state’s laws. Some states require notification before you remove your children from a formal school; some do not. Trust HSLDA as your final authority: public school officials are often woefully ignorant of their state’s laws. Laws and requirements vary from state to state, so do not assume you can do the same thing as your friend’s neighbor’s sister-in-law who lives three states away. HSLDA also has links to homeschool support groups in your state or local region. Find the name of a homeschooling family and call them up — if they do not feel they can answer your questions, ask them to suggest someone else who can. I have spoken to many potential homeschooling families who just needed a little boost in the encouragement department.

The first physical step would be to pull your children from the school system they are in, but truly, you already have started teaching them. Your children have been learning from you from the time when their big eyes first followed you around the room, though they could not even speak or understand you, and it has progressed from there (see Who Taught This Kid to Walk…). Not getting your children up early enough to catch the bus may seem too simple of a way to begin homeschooling, but that is the beauty of home education. You may choose to delay removal from a school system until a semester break or major holiday break, but it often is not necessary. Others (in more drastic circumstances) choose to pull their children out NOW before another day goes by.

From there you can begin with the books that you already have around the house. Literature is a great way to start: read to your children, and have them read to you. Make cookies together and do the math of fractions. Play with water or corn meal and all your measuring utensils. There is no need to freak out and think you need a formal set-up. Relax and enjoy having your family together, and learn from life. Watch an historical video and discuss the parts that interest you. Spend an afternoon at the library. Walk around your local business district and see what you have never noticed before. If you are the only customers in a shop, talking to the owner can result in a fantastic, spontaneous field trip. Visit a local museum or antique shop and ask questions of the proprietor. Later, textbooks or organized lessons can be added, but it is not necessary right away, even if you are starting with a child who is in junior high or high school. You can still allow yourselves to take it easy at first; it helps make the transition less stressful and more enjoyable. Do not worry about desks and art supplies and music lessons until you find a need for them. Cuddling together on the sofa or gathering around the dining table will work just fine for now.

When you begin to doubt whether you are doing enough, stop to consider how much time your children would be wasting in a classroom while waiting in line, waiting for silence, or waiting for the teacher to finish whatever is going on before they can all move on to the next thing. A lesson that requires 45 minutes for a classroom to do may take only 10 minutes at home with one student. If you have multiple children, you may be able to combine lessons sometimes and save even more time. The entire family can enjoy a video or read-aloud book, and then your students can continue the lesson with assignments appropriate to their ages and abilities (i.e. further research, comparison or analysis of characters, make a costume and re-enact a scene). When my daughter had to read Hamlet for a college class, my son joined her for the video/read-along session and used it for high school literature credit.

It is beneficial and therapeutic to spend time contemplating what things you and your students have learned at home — remembering that we learn much more from life’s experiences than we do from books! Enjoy your time together as a family. From mealtime conversation to family game night, the educational opportunities never stop. Those opportunities were always there, but you were all too exhausted from rushing to keep up with school schedules to take advantage of them.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

If You Have Children, You DO Homeschool

December 3, 2004 by Leave a Comment

During my daughter’s last year in public school (4th grade), we were already homeschooling, but we just did not realize it at the time. Recognizing how much I was already teaching her at home made our decision to homeschool much easier.

She had difficulty keeping her mind on the subject at hand and often daydreamed in class when she should have been working on assignments, so I worked with her at home after school to improve her focus. Many concepts that the public school teacher tried to teach were just not grasped by my daughter, so I explained them in as many different ways as I could think of until she understood. It felt really good to be able to impart confidence to my daughter for the things I was teaching her. She did not get personal feedback in the classroom, and that was something she truly needed to keep her going.

It finally became clear to me that I was becoming the primary teacher in my daughter’s education. The teacher at school handed out the assignments, but her attempts at instruction simply were not successful with my child. More and more often, my daughter came home seeking my confirmation of a lesson from school, and many times the lessons were very confusing. The school did not allow students to take textbooks home; for some subjects they did not even have textbooks. Once in a while the concept learned at school was just plain wrong. (There is no polite way to phrase it: wrong is wrong.) The frustration level soared dramatically as I attempted to teach my daughter at home in late afternoons and evenings (when she was tired and I was busy preparing a meal) without benefit of curriculum. Many parents go through this scenario to a greater or lesser degree — Junior needs help, parent tries to help, success is debatable.

Parents, I would like you to reflect for a moment on all the things that you do successfully teach your children. You have probably already read my soapbox speech on how you taught your children to walk, to talk, to dress themselves, to feed themselves, and how to do a myriad of other tasks before they were considered old enough for “formal education.” You imparted all of that knowledge without the aid of printed textbooks, charts, diagrams, or other visual aids. Now I want to look deeper into the realm of what you teach at home without even trying hard. Your children learn their greatest lessons in life just from observing the everyday routines of their parents and other family members.

Language (including choice of slang words), fashion consciousness, manners, the value of money, person-to-person relationships, the importance of extended family members, community involvement, religion, politics, prejudices — these are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of lessons learned at home. Have your children learned to do their own laundry, have they learned to think of others by sharing in the family laundry task, or have they learned to expect someone else to provide them with clean clothing? Apply the same line of questioning to mealtime — is Mom expected to perform all facets of food preparation and clean-up, do family members help Mom, or is it “every man for himself”? Look around your house right now: are there articles of clothing scattered about, draped over every chair; newspapers lying on the floor next to an endless array of toys, game pieces, and miniature cars; or is every room absolutely spotless, not a speck of dust, and no single article out of place? Remember, this is not a spot inspection of your housekeeping ability — this is your personal, private, in-depth analysis of what and how you teach your children.

I am the only member of my extended family who has chosen to homeschool, but I am not the only one who teaches her children. Some children learn that a parent’s career is much more important than the children’s needs. Some children learn that volunteering in the church/community has a much higher priority than spending time with family. Some children are taught to expect the television to be their constant companion and the basis of all their values. Some children are never taught how to entertain themselves without the use of electronic media. These may not be the lessons that parents desire their children to learn, but it may be what they are teaching.

If you are spending every evening with your child, helping him with his school assignments, you might want to consider the benefits of homeschooling. You could continue to do the same amount of teaching, but you could choose when to do the lessons — ideally, choosing times when you are both fresh and not at the end of very frustrating days. You and your child could also decide together what other subject areas would be interesting to explore and how you would like to investigate them. If you have children, you are already homeschooling. You may not be the one teaching long division, world history, or grammatical sentence structure, but you are teaching.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Leaving Public School

Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another

October 28, 2004 by Leave a Comment

The “last straw” that finally convinced us to begin homeschooling was hearing homeschool advocate Gregg Harris on a local talk-radio program. He was promoting an upcoming seminar (which my husband and I quickly made arrangements to attend) and was giving myriad reasons why a growing number of families were choosing to educate their children at home.

The seemingly trivial reasons that actually caught my attention dealt with the hassles caused by public school’s time schedules. We had found that public school activities and programs frequently kept our children up past their bedtimes, causing them to be difficult to start off again the next morning. Mr. Harris touched on the rush to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and get to school on time — a continual struggle at our house. He light-heartedly mentioned that homeschooling removes all those rush-rush problems: if you find yourselves up too late at night, sleep in a little the next day, and then begin school on your own timetable. School lunches would no longer be offensive to picky eaters: Mom’s cooking would always be readily available. Homework would also disappear as an after-school trauma: enough time could be allotted during each subject to do all the work necessary for the day’s lesson. I found myself much more interested in homeschooling after hearing just a few of these statements by Mr. Harris, reasons that I had not personally considered before.

For many years we had known families who homeschooled. We met the first ones when our daughter was a year old. We currently had several families in our church who homeschooled, making no lack of people to turn to for support and encouragement. I had never considered homeschooling as an option for us until this point, when, suddenly, homeschooling looked like the solution to many of the problems plaguing our household.

The primary reasons for homeschooling that we gave to family and friends were health-related. They all knew that our daughter had been plagued by tremendous headaches for several years and sympathized with our need to make a drastic lifestyle change for her sake. She often could not endure an entire day at school: once her headache became intense, the noise of the classroom was intolerable and she needed to come home for relief. She was always able to do some subjects without difficulty, but others critically depended on her ability to concentrate. We had been to doctor after doctor, endured all sorts of tests, tried a variety of medicines (to no avail), and fought ten rounds with the schools over attendance policies (even though her grades never lagged). We even changed from one public school to another in an attempt to find an administration that would listen to us and help us cope. When the school nurse declared that a child who did not run a temperature or vomit was not actually “sick,” we knew we had finally reached the end of that rope. Something drastic had to happen. Homeschooling provided an ideal solution: our daughter could do schoolwork during the hours when she felt well, and she could lie down to rest when she felt ill without conflicting with anyone. She could do the easy subjects any day and save the harder subjects for the days when her head could tolerate intense concentration. (Along with our adaptation to homeschooling came a change in diet, prompted by much research into the various probable causes of headaches, resulting in success in controlling her headaches and other related symptoms.)

As our first year of homeschooling passed and we began our second year, we became more enthusiastic about learning at home. We were shaking off most of the public school trappings of schedules and preconceived ideas of what certain academic subjects should resemble. We were becoming independent in our homeschooling. We attended field trips, play days, and family potlucks with other homeschoolers. We took days off to have spontaneous family days with Dad. We drew closer as a family unit; we enjoyed each other’s company. We began to see other, deeper reasons for homeschooling.

I had read about people who said they homeschooled for “religious reasons.” I was not sure I understood that at the time, thinking they must be much more radical in their faith than I was, but now I was beginning to see their point of view. Public school had a very anti-family overtone to it that was not voiced aloud, just understood: they were the professional educators; we could not possibly pass anything of importance on to our children. Personal Christian values were pushed aside at public school, even by teachers who were themselves faithful, believing Christians. By homeschooling, we could make our beliefs the most important aspect anytime, all the time, if we wanted. We could ignore the witches and hobgoblins of Halloween. We could be truly thankful for God’s blessings at Thanksgiving. We could take time to celebrate “Christmas,” and not “Winter Break.” We could sing songs with their original words and not the carefully rewritten, politically correct lyrics we were so often forced to endure in public school programs.

Although we had begun homeschooling for the reasons of caring for our daughter’s health and adapting family-friendly scheduling, we soon began to realize that our Christian faith played a dramatic part in our reasons to continue homeschooling. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to concentrate on creation science and point out the difficulties with evolutionary theories. We could count Christian fiction as literature, not just as pleasure reading material only to be indulged in during one’s private hours. We designated a large block of time each day to Mom reading aloud from Christian books — a huge children’s book of Bible stories, the Chronicles of Narnia series, the Little House series, Frank Peretti’s Cooper Kids series, and many others. We discussed our faith, what made it important to us, and how we saw it being strengthened through homeschooling. We could tie in scripture to any subject where we saw an application, without fearing that we might offend another student or violate an administrative policy. We sadly watched public school friends become increasingly influenced by peer pressure in all areas of their lives, including Christians who made choices contrary to their faith.

We made the decision to homeschool based on one set of reasons, primarily health related. We continued our decision to homeschool based on another set of reasons, primarily the freedom to practice our chosen religion in every facet of our lives.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Family Unity, Leaving Public School
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