Do I Have What It Takes to Homeschool My Child?

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You are considering homeschooling your child, but you are full of questions. You may be thinking…

“Can I homeschool my child?

Will we be able to keep up?

Is this the right choice for my children’s education?

Do homeschooled children have friends?

What if they are missing something?”

Here are several reasons why you CAN homeschool your child!

What does it take to homeschool your child?

I recently read a fantastic article written by the Homeschool Legal Defense Association in which the author listed two crucial attitudes necessary for new homeschoolers to make it over the long haul.

They need to believe

1. “We really can pull this off!” and

2. “Homeschooling is good for our children.”

When my oldest son was 4 years old several years ago, I asked myself the same question, “Do I have what it takes to homeschool my child?” Can I possibly do this?

After more than fourteen years of homeschooling, here is what I have learned.

You will learn as you go.

Whenever you start something new, you are bound to make mistakes. There will even be days when you will completely blow it as a homeschooling parent, BUT you will learn as you go!

• Does your daily schedule not seem to be working? You will figure it out.
• Are you having a hard time managing both the house and school? You will find a workable routine. (And you just might become more flexible!)
• Do you stink at math? You will grow in it. You will become better at math AND you will become a better math teacher.

The other day my husband happened to be home for a school day and our 7th grade son asked him to help him with his math problems (fractions). My husband gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look across the room, telepathically asking for my help.

It’s not that my husband doesn’t know fractions or is bad at math. It’s not that I’m a math whiz or that math has always come easily to me. The fact is that I have been studying and teaching math every day for the past 14 years since our oldest (now graduated) started Kindergarten.

When you work at something on a daily basis, you become better at it. It’s fresh in your mind and you can more clearly break it down in different ways for others to understand.

As our oldest grew and started some higher grade level math work, I had that same deer-in-the-headlights look at times, BUT we figured it out together step by step. Now I understand how to do it and teach it to the kids who are coming up behind him.

Stay one step of your oldest child. You will learn as you go.

It gets easier as your kids get older.

Building the foundation of your child’s education is hard work, but it WILL get easier as your kids get older!! This is one thing I wish someone had told me.

The longer you homeschool and the older your kids get, the easier home education becomes. Yes, maybe the subject matter becomes more challenging. Still, managing schedules, finding your style and your child’s learning style, gaining confidence, meeting your child’s needs, homeschooling with littles underfoot….all these things become easier.

The longer you homeschool, the more readers you have in the house. The more readers you have, the more independent they can be with their work.

At the beginning of your homeschooling journey, everything feels so foreign and takes a lot of time, especially if you grew up going to school and homeschooling is a brand new concept to you.

Choosing a homeschool curriculum the first year can be daunting. Becoming familiar with your curriculum also takes time.

In the beginning, you may be just starting to establish support groups that are a good fit for you and the kids. It’s not always easy finding and making new friends!

Many moms start homeschooling their Kindergartner while juggling younger kids and/or pregnancy which is an additional challenge.

My first several years of homeschooling were hands-down the hardest for me. But now I am reaping the rewards of that hard work and I’m so glad we stuck with it!

Of our ten kids, one is graduated and seven are school-age. We have six readers and five fairly independent learners. I still have young children, but it is different now than when my oldest started school. Back then it was a challenge to help the older children with school work while keeping the baby occupied and the toddler from flushing something down the toilet!

Now, my littles tend to follow the older kids. They want to do “school” since that’s what everybody else seems to be doing! They will sometimes sit beside them and draw or pretend they are doing their own work. Often my older kids will take a break and read to the littles. It’s a whole new world when you have older kids!

Encourage your kids to be self-learners and watch them thrive.

Years ago, someone told me this regarding children. “The one who is doing the most work is the one learning.”

Think about that. Are you doing everything for your child? Are you holding their hand all day long as they muscle through their work? Consider pushing them to be self-learners. Try giving them a daily checklist to follow. Make them responsible for all the work that they can do independently.

In my early years as a homeschool parent, I used a math curriculum that was very hands-on. It taught basic math facts using manipulatives and games. I thought it was a perfect fit for our second son, a hands-on learner.

Due to the number of children in our growing family, however, I simply could not teach three math lessons to three different kids every day on top of all our other school work and caring for younger children! I reluctantly let go of teaching his daily lesson and switched to a more self-directed curriculum.

What I observed in my son afterward completely changed my opinion on this! He liked seeing how much work he had to accomplish each day- rather than me teaching a lesson for which he had no idea how long it would take!

I became more of a facilitator in his learning rather than a lecturer. He came to me when he needed help with a new concept, but he figured out how to solve problems by reading and studying the lesson examples.

He learned HOW to learn himself! What a valuable skill!!

Reading covers a multitude of sins.

Ask any experienced homeschool mom for advice and you will hear this message repeatedly. READ. TO. THEM. Read a lot. Read to kids who can already read.

Whatever mistakes you make in your first homeschool year (and you will make them!), they aren’t crucial if you read to them a lot.

Reading covers so much ground. It fosters their imagination. More importantly, it creates in them an insatiable desire to learn more, read more, and know more about things about which they have always wondered.

Reading will be your margin for error. It’s okay to make mistakes in homeschooling if you are reading to them a lot.

How much reading? Little snippets throughout the day. Here a little, there a little. For more on this, see my blog post Teaching a Child to Read and Teaching a Child to Read Part 2.

Find a community.

I’ve met them. The people who say they’ve tried homeschooling and it just didn’t work for them. This is what they all have in common. They tried to do it alone. Don’t make this mistake.

Don’t think you can pull this off without somebody in your corner. No man is an island. You need to meet other homeschool moms and your kids need to have friendships with other kids who are also homeschooled.

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is a great resource for national listings of homeschool support groups. Their website has a community section where you can look up organizations by state and more specifically, by county.

Another great way to find community is simply to ask around. Many churches host homeschool co-ops. Look for groups on Facebook. Asking people helps give you a feel for the best option in your area.

Or Start Your Own Community!

If you have a pioneer spirit, you can also start your own homeschool co-op! That’s how our co-op started over ten years ago.

There were five of us moms with kids about the same age. We met and talked about homeschooling here and there. We decided to start meeting in each other’s homes every week.

It was a good place to start, especially because we were all in the same place and had so many things in common to talk about.

Over the years, our group expanded and we now have 35 families and over 150 kids! Our co-op is like family to us. I can say with certainty that I would not have continued homeschooling if it were not for the wonderful friendships and support we found through our co-op.

YOU are the expert on your child.

You are the expert on your child.

No one knows your child like you do. No one has a personal, life-long investment in your child like you. No one will work harder or search more diligently than you will to find the resources your child needs for their struggles AND gifts.

While certified teachers may be experts in a particular field or specialize in teaching a certain age, YOU are the expert on your child. And the more you homeschool, the more adept you become at understanding the unique person they are becoming.

Imagine the following scenario. Your child goes to school from K-12th grade. Imagine that among many teachers along the way, he had one teacher, chosen because he or she had the utmost ardor and care for your child. Imagine that this person remained his teacher, his advocate, his role model, his champion from Kindergarten through the culmination of his education…his final year.

That teacher is you. YOU are the expert on your child.

Some of the most amazing homeschoolers I have met have had no teaching background at all! The two basic qualities that I see great homeschool parents have are these: 1. An insatiable desire to learn and 2. a passion for their kids’ success.

Here’s Why You CAN Homeschool Your Child

Not all parents choose to homeschool, but I firmly believe that ANY parent CAN homeschool their child well. Who else, but a loving parent is better equipped to pursue any means to do what is in their child’s best interest? I am confident that any parent can create a learning environment that thrusts their child to love learning and life.

When I started our homeschool journey over fourteen years ago, I asked myself, “Do I have what it takes to homeschool my child?” Looking back now, I wish I had known all the benefits of homeschooling and realized what an excellent education it is for kids. I had no idea then that this would end up being the best decision we would make for our family.

I felt alone and unsure of myself. I knew that God had called me to this. And I loved it.. even with the challenges. I just wasn’t sure how it was all going to turn out.

More than anything, I wanted our kids to have the very best. I remember reading this verse one morning and tucking it away because it was so encouraging to me.

Psalm 37:6 “He will make your righteousness shine like a light, your just cause like the noonday sun.”

If you are going to make it this year, you have to know, from this homeschool mom who has been where you are….

don’t doubt yourself,

don’t underestimate what God can do through this,

take a deep breath,

you really CAN homeschool your child!

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