This will be my 11th year homeschooling. Wow. How did that happen?
If you had asked me in the beginning if I expected to survive 10 years of homeschooling, I’m not sure I would have answered with a lot of confidence. Those early days were rough, and though there are certainly things I wish I could change about them, I would not want to repeat them.
But I’ve learned a lot in 10 years: I understand myself better. I know my kids better. I’ve learned more about what works and what doesn’t, and I know that making a mistake, even a significant one, doesn’t mean I can’t make the necessary corrections to have a happy and successful homeschool.
So what do I wish I had known in the very beginning? Here are the 3 bits of wisdom that would likely have benefited me most as I began my homeschooling journey.
If homeschooling is miserable, then you’re not doing it right.
I’m not trying to imply that homeschooling is a seamless, sublime experience, but neither should it be misery! If it is, then something needs to change.
Sometimes the issue is attitude. I won’t argue that the attitudinal problem is often the fault of the child, but it can just as easily be the fault of the adult! In the very beginning I homeschooled with a negative, I’m-doing-this-because-I-have-to mindset that literally sucked the life out of my homeschooling efforts. No wonder things went poorly!
But homeschooling can also become miserable when what we’re doing isn’t working and we refuse to make adjustments. Sometimes the problem can be as simple as changing our curriculum or altering our methods.
Which provides the perfect segue to my next thought…
What works for one child may not work for another.
We know they’re all different, right? And yet it complicates our lives when kids don’t all learn the same way or thrive under the same conditions.
One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is the ability to tailor the education to fit the child, but that only works if we are actually willing to do it. In the beginning of my homeschooling journey, I was determined to use a curriculum I was familiar with — one I knew others had used with success. Never mind that it wasn’t working for my child! I was more committed to that stupid curriculum than to finding what really encouraged learning.
When I finally began to see my kids as the delightful little individuals God created them to be and was willing to change to accommodate it, it turned my homeschool upside-down in the most beautiful way.
It’s not supposed to look like public school.
No, I didn’t purchase a desk, ring bells, and schedule regular potty breaks, but when I started homeschooling, I did make the mistake of trying to create traditional school at my kitchen table.
Big mistake.
Public school teachers have to operate within the confines of some pretty intense structure. It’s more or less a means of survival: You can’t hope to keep order, let alone actually educate 30 vastly different children without it!
But while rules and structure certainly have their place, they don’t necessarily encourage learning. In the home one can reap the benefit of a small teacher-to-student ratio and the learning can really flourish. Kids don’t have to be bound to desks or schedules or traditional methods, and they can learn at their own pace, rather than be expected to follow along with a classroom of students.
Pushing kids too hard too early can have disastrous effects.
Sorry, but I cringe when I hear moms distraught over 5- year- olds who aren’t reading. It hurts my heart when I read articles about kindergarteners with two hours’ worth of homework every night.
Really? So children can’t be children any more? They are somehow less than if they aren’t fluent readers at age 4 or 5?
When kids are eager and ready to learn, I’m not opposed to teaching them, but I know from experience that pushing young children academically can often do more harm than good. We ignore the tremendous benefits of playtime and our sweet little kiddos come to associate learning with demands and pressure. It generally has the opposite effect of what we’re looking for; It slows learning rather than encourages it, and the negative impact can have long-lasting consequences.
I’m still learning where homeschooling is concerned, but I’ve definitely come a long way! Oh, the stress and worry I would have saved myself if I’d known these simple things in the beginning!
