What led to your decision to homeschool?
You know, I can’t remember why I first considered homeschooling. I know it was about 9 years ago, when our oldest was two. I had a friend who was doing Five in a Row with her daughter & it looked like so much fun! I’m always up for a good round of fun, so maybe that was what lured me. I’ve always loved school – I was a preschool teacher at the time and my “plan” was to get my degree as soon as my kids were in school & teach full time. Whooo, God must get the biggest kick out of me. A short time later, I found out that my sister-in-law was planning to homeschool her kids too.
Here’s some honesty for you: It took me several months to finally make the commitment to homeschool. (Hubby was on board right away.) I had big PLANS for when my kids went off to school, important things like volunteer work & starting a mommy support group & having a clean house. I was very selfish and it was painful to let go of those dreams, but God was patiently calling me and I knew I had no choice :o)
Our main reason for keeping our kids home is that we did not want to have to de-program them each day after they came home from school. We had a vision of what we wanted our children to grow up to be spiritually, and we could not accomplish that unless we had them home during the early years to lay a strong foundation. I was only going to school them through elementary, then decided that maybe we would do junior high too, cuz who really enjoyed junior high anyway? They could go to public school in high school so they wouldn’t miss out on really important stuff like pep rallies. What a ding-dong I was! We work with the youth group at church now, and no way are my kids going to public school! Not only is it a scary world now, but what a waste of time!! I want my kids to get a rich, deep, rewarding education.
The payoff has been big already (we are about to start our 6th year). My girls have many public-schooled friends and just stare in amazement at them sometimes. Their friends live in a catty, Bratz-loving, “I’m not going to be your friend anymore” world, and my girls find it ridiculous. An unexpected benefit is that I’m learning as much as they are!
Visit Back to Homeschool Week, hosted by Randi, to read more or play along.
