Homeschooling

 

 Homeschooling my kids was one of the most important things I've done in my life. It won't work for every family, or in every season, but when it's right, it's right. 

 When my first baby was born, I knew I wanted to homeschool my kids. I had been homeschooled for a few years as a child and I had strong, positive memories of it. From the time our children were born we started reading them books and singing songs. Toys were both fun and educational. Once they could sit up on their own, they had educational computer games they would play. My oldest son taught himself to read at 3 years old with a computer game! He became a voracious reader and, even though he had a September birthday, I decided to start him with kindergarten the fall he turned 5. The following summer we brought our daughter home from Liberia, West Africa, and because of some family transitions we decided to place our oldest in public school for the year. Unfortunately, because of his birthday, they decided he needed to do kindergarten again, but he had the most amazing teacher! She did all she could to offer him additional learning materials. Still, by the end of the year, he had gone backwards academically. Our school district is not very friendly to homeschooling, so I was shocked when she told me she had met with the three first grade teachers and after talking about his case, they all recommended that I homeschool him. I took that as direction from God and never looked back. 

Train up a child in the way he should go, 

And when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6 NKJV

 My homeschooling philosophy included this biblical adage. It doesn't say to train children in the way they should go, rather a child in the way he should go. To me this meant that God had made all children different, and they each had different needs, interests and giftings. Each year our curriculum would be adjusted for each kid to include things they personally were interested in and in methods that worked best for them. Two of my kids had auditory processing issues, so we made sure to include visual and hands-on components for them as much as possible. One of my then nine-year-old children was interested in learning "Botany" (their words not mine) and another wanted to learn Hindi. So, we did! Sometimes this was a long and challenging road to find the best methods for them to learn. With one child, fractions just weren't making sense and we went through three or four curriculums before finding a little workbook that included hands on activities. It was about a candy factory and had you sorting candy by color, shape, etc. It stuck! If that child was in school, they would have really struggled to understand fractions along with their classmates. Another child was completely unable to learn to read using phonics, but once we broke out the ancient sight-reading books, they caught on immediately. 

 When my children were little, I couldn't imagine sending them away to school for eight or more hours a day. Why would I have kids if I just wanted someone else to raise them? I'm not judging anyone else's feelings on this, just sharing my heart. Teaching the kids at home kept us bonded as a family - we're still very close. It allowed them to develop relationships with their siblings that wouldn't have been possible if they spent all day during their formative years away from each other. It also allowed them to participate in different co-ops where they made life-long friends and were encouraged in their interests by other adults. They got to do swim team, art and music lessons, chess club and PE on a regular basis. They also learned about chemistry, cooking, the Iditarod, wilderness survival, and dozens of other fun things. I got to be a part of my children's childhood in a wonderful way.

Here's the Thing: Homeschooling isn't easy. Did I mention that when one child wanted to learn Hindi, I had to learn Hindi so I could teach them? It's also not right for every child all the time. At one point we decided my youngest would do best if we transitioned him to private school. But it was worth it 100%. I would definitely do it again.