My Homeschooling Journey

It’s crazy actually, quite accidental how we started homeschooling.  My history with homeschooling as a second grader was very non-lengthy. I was only homeschooled while I lived in Mexico learning Spanish in order that we might move to Columbia…which subsequently never happened. Anyway, I have a tattered memory of it, so no thought had gone in to me homeschooling our children. The goal was private school.

When we had kids, the reality of that set in…expense!!!! We could place one in maybe, but 2 then 3 and now 4? Not a chance! I stayed home raising my kids, so on my husband’s salary, it wasn’t going to happen. I was going to have to put them in public school. It just so happened that we lived in a rural town so it couldn’t be that bad right? Well, it seemed okay. With the exception that Embu was in K-5 and already bored to tears, literally. She cried some mornings because school was so boring. This child was a smart child. She was reading simple words by age 3. She was in the gifted and talented program that offered all of 30 minutes a week doing some sort of science experiment. It was the highlight of her week, but always so short lived.

One day, her teacher put on a video of a cartoon that had a new age undertone. The song was worshiping the sun and moon and so we had told her at home that we would not be watching that video. She raised her hand boldly and informed the teacher that this was against her mom and dad’s rule. She was sent out in the hall for the duration of the movie.  The library would have been a fantastic option or even a call to me to come and pick her up would have been welcome, but this was unacceptable to me. We were flabbergasted. How could my daughter choose right from wrong again knowing that it might cause isolation or a feeling of boredom? I do realize that eventually we are faced with the consequences of making right decisions, but for most of us, it is at a time of some form of mental maturity when we are able to at least reason. Five was too young in my opinion. She was being sent a message loud and clear that day and that message went against everything I desired for her.

So, in an effort to never have that happen again so young, we decided to homeschool.  We have never looked back, but I have looked for the yellow school bus. I've  just never chased it. Side note: We took Embu to have ice cream that night to praise her for her courageousness. Sometimes you have to actually back track the worldly paths and redirect the hike. It seems we have been successful thus far.

The reason I homeschool began as that and has evolved over the years. It has really become about my children’s character. Eternally, geometry and literature and most certainly Latin, will not be a prerequisite at the moment of judgment. Rather the character of my children will be what is judged. I will be held accountable for it. Blessed for every moment I got off the couch and tended to it, affirmed for every time I did it for the thousandth time and rewarded most of all for directing them continually to the cross. This is why I homeschool, so I can be the one to train them instead of their peer.  I can be the one to answer those embarrassing questions rather than their friends who have no idea of their own and so I can pour into them the wisdom and values God has placed in me rather than the often misguided values the world is trying to place in them.

This is my why. What’s yours? Why do you homeschool? Why do you send your children to private school? Why do you send your child to public school? Why do you send your child to boarding school? Know your why. Were you directed by God to do it? Let me challenge you to open your heart to any direction. If it is directed by God, it is safe for you and your family.