I am just a regular mom wanting the best things for my kids. I want them to love the Lord, I want them to be productive, hard working, members of society, I want them to love their neighbors as themselves and I want them to be well educated in the things of school and of the Bible. I am not a super mom. I don't know any homeschool mom who is a super mom. If you're out there "Super Mom" raise your hand! We are all just normal people wanting to lead a life we envision for our family and that we feel God has called for us.
I didn't know much about homeschooling until I met a wonderful family with (at the time) 4 wonderful children, who homeschooled. At that moment I knew that was what I wanted for my family. I saw a family dynamic I had never seen before. I saw love between siblings, respect for parents and elders and true love of knowledge that I just knew I wanted. My husband, at the time, was not on board, so I prayed and I trusted God to make the right decision for our family.
After only 1 year in a preschool, my husband did change his mind, not only did he change his mind, but his heart was in it just like mine. We wanted our kids to not only be book smart, but more importantly we wanted them to have a Christian Worldview before they headed out into the big scary world we all know. Every family has different needs within their family, I am hear to tell you, if you want to homeschool, you can!
We have a single, small, income (a teachers salary, which is not big). We have made choices to sacrifice in areas of our lives that are not important, we have made choices to keep vehicles a little longer than we probably should because we didn't want another car payment, we have made choices to buy used, to always except hand-me-downs and to love a good garage sale! Financially, homeschooling might be cheaper than public school. No fancy clothes every year(we stay in our pjs many days), or backpacks, or special supplies are needed at the beginning of each year. We always wait until the after school sales start and stock up on what we need supply wise when they are cheap. I usually spend less than $1,000 per year on homeschool curriculum, for EVERYTHING, for all kids. I am able to reuse text books with younger kids when they get to that age, and we have been able to bless other families to borrow some of the things we are not using that year.
Patience, I hear that a lot. "I don't have the patience to homeschool. Bless your heart." I pray everyday for patience, do I raise my voice when I shouldn't sometimes, sure. Do I get frustrated when kids aren't doing their schoolwork and goofing around instead, absolutely. Are some days harder than others to get motivated to teach, yes! But, I would have those days even if I didn't homeschool. I would have days when doing homework into the night would get frustrating and tiring and make me want to pull my hair out. I would get upset when the kids would say they have no homework when they actually do, or wait until morning to remind me a huge project is due that day! The only difference is, we have no homework, and all projects I assign to them, so I know when they are "due" and we usually do them together anyway, or at least they do them during the day sometime. I think Patience is something every mom works on everyday, training children is a tiring and repetitive job and requires patience, whether you teach your children at home, or you make them do their homework when they get off the bus at the end of the day. We all seek help in the area of patience with our kids.
"Homeschool kids are weird and unsocialized!" Sometimes I laugh at this. Quite honestly I think the bigger issue should be the financial and patience issue and not the "I don't want my kids to be weird" issue. Seriously. How many super awesomely cool people do you know today? I mean, I think everybody I meet is about average ( I even have some homeschooled friends, and personally, I think they are pretty cool). "Socializing" when homeschooling is so easy to do these days, actually, their is so much out there you can really get to have quite a crazy schedule if you aren't careful. Let me give you a typical weeks scenario for our family.
Mondays. My big boys have rehearsal for a play they are in with other homeschooled kids that they will perform in front of an audience(tonight, when this gets posted). My 5 year old is in a dance class with "normal" kids. The big boys have soccer practice on a church soccer league, which my husband coaches. Tuesday, thankfully we don't have anything, we usually do our grocery shopping this day, after school, and go to the library.
Wednesday, we are in a homeschool co-op, we meet for classes, go on field trips and have fun, "social" days (as they are appropriately named).
Thursday is a stay home day, I love stay home days. We get things done around the house, we go on bike rides or walks around the neighborhood, we play outside with our chickens and take care of our garden. Thursdays are great!
Friday we have rehearsal again for the play (during which time the 3 younger kids play with the younger siblings of all the other people in the play and the moms get to chit chat).
Saturdays we have soccer games.
I have a rule not to overbook ourselves with all kinds of outside things. I like our at home time. I like to sit around the dining table every meal and chat about our day. I like to have days that we stay in our pjs all day! Who doesn't? But, I know of homeschool baseball, boys scouts, girls scouts, soccer, lego club, french classes and much more! It's overwhelming!
"They won't have any friends!" WRONG! First, let me say that it is important to us as a family that we teach our children about making good decisions with their friendships. Choosing friends that encourage good behavior from them and remind them to always glorify God in all that they do. To do this, Adam and I have to be involved in that process when they are young, they do not know what making good friends is all about. I also like to know the parents of my kids' friends, just knowing the parents alone can tell you a lot about if those kids are a good fit for your family. Tell me how many of your kids' friends do you really know? How many of their families do you know? Now, my kids have some really GREAT friends. They are great kids, they come from great families, and it makes me so happy that we have such great people in our lives. Friendship is important, and we certainly don't want to hinder that. We want to do quite the opposite, we want to encourage great friendships that will last a lifetime!
Homeschooling is doable for every single family! Their is no "special mom" that has more capabilities than any other mom, I am just a mom, doing what God called me to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment