Reluctant Homeschooler
After swearing never to homeschool, how did I end up a Reluctant Homeschooler?
The Homeschooling Cultures we were Raised in
As a teenager I was sure I would be a homeschool mom. After we had kids, I was sure I wouldn’t be. Here we are with the first year of homeschooling under our belt. Both my husband and I grew up being homeschooled first grade – graduation, but our experiences looked very different.
I grew up rural and my parents did most of the teaching. Once a month we got together with a group of other homeschoolers, but my parents were mostly on their own with the educational aspect.
My husband grew up in a city and his mom was very active in the homeschool co-op community. Every where we go someone knows her from something they did together, especially in the Christian community.
I didn’t want to Homeschool
My concern was I wouldn’t have time to do everything that I wanted/needed to do. Care for infants, keep a house clean, be involved in our community, parent well, and then add the burden of education to my plate.
I didn’t feel the same as all the other moms who wanted to homeschool. Other homeschool moms seemed to all be eagerly picking curriculum. They spent hours talking about the readers the were using, and finding educational crafts to do. As a teenager I had spent time assisting other homeschool moms, and putting together after school lessons for one of my jobs, so there wasn’t anything new and novel about what it took to teach children.
(this is how I plan for our school year now — this process has helped so much!)
Research says that there has to be just enough new and stimulating to a project to keep the human brain engaged, and there just did seem enough new to get my creativity flowing (despite this project).
My husband on the other hand DEARLY wanted to homeschool to the point that in his book it wasn’t even a conversation. In the end I found a curriculum I thought I could live with. He promised to pick up the math portion, if I would do reading and writing, and that seemed like a plan I could live with. A reluctant homeschooler mom was born
Why Homeschooling was the Best Choice for this Year
Little did we know how well that would serve us. Two weeks after public school started the tree fell on our house and we moved 30 minutes away. Everything that was normal to us was stripped away. I can’t imagine our timid 6 year old trying to adjust to school and a new home. Or trying to get to pick up and drop off in time each day!!
I’m not going to lie, homeschooling hasn’t been easy for us. I wasn’t planning to use any app based learning, but it has got us through some rough weeks. I don’t feel like we’ve checked off all the boxes I had hoped we would, but we are making our way through. Thankfully, Kindergarten isn’t very high stakes!!
(Plus. I learned to slow down and do gentle school during the month of January).
We are carrying on our work through the summer because our newest baby was due right as we kicked off the school year! The thought of starting a second year behind was really frustrating to my type A personality.
Looking back at the school year I’m glad we decided to do what we did. Because of the tree forced us to move, and then COVID hit. This past year feel like I have learned some disciplines that will make it easier going forward. Thankfully, we are slowly figuring out what our culture/rhythm is.
