We never set out to homeschool. We have two children- now ages 9 and almost 6. We started our homeschooling journey when our oldest child started kindergarten. It all began with a feeling of anxiety.
I had deep seated anxiety about sending my then 5 year old daughter into the world alone. At least this is how I viewed it. I did not feel my child was equipped to handle the world outside of her protected home at the age of 5. I did not like the idea of putting her on a yellow bus for her to return to me 8 hours later. What would she be taught? Whose influence would affect the molding of her brain. How would her morals and values be affected by the view points and possible prejudices of others? Would she lose some of her child innocence when I could not control the information she would be receiving?
I began to research our public schools and considered touring some Christian schools. Then someone asked me if I had heard about K12. No, I had not. I began to research on the internet. Is it homeschooling?
My husband was against homeschooling in the beginning. He didn't like the idea. How would our children get socialization (later, I find this is probably the number one homeschool myth)? How would we know what to teach her? Who would help us if we didn't know how to teach something? As we being our research into homeschooling we both realize the vast resources. Through friends from church that homeschool I find K12 is a virtual public school and not recognized as homeschooling. But the door of homeschooling opened for us at that point.
My husband and I did not realize all the choices that were there for homeschoolers. I did hours of research online. I looked at curriculum, spoke to other homeschool parents and educated myself on our state homeschool law. My husband and I talked about it and we decided we would try homeschooling for a year and see how it goes. We joined a homeschool accountability group as well as a local homeschool support group.
Well, that was 4 years ago. My oldest daughter will be going into the fourth grade in the fall and my youngest daughter will be in the second.
God has changed my heart on a lot of matters over the years. I definitely believe that He lead me to homeschool our children. Homeschooling our children has been my ministry in this season of my life. I would have missed out on so much if I had ignored my anxiety over sending my daughter to school. Homeschooling has allowed us so much time together and so much freedom.
We have the freedom to choose our schedule. We can have school on Saturday and take Monday off if we want to. We can plan vacation in September. We can do school in our pajamas!
More importantly- we teach our children our faith. We talk about God, we read the bible and we pray. We can curtail the education to our children instead of making our children adapt to the school system. If one curriculum does not work, we can try another. We get to build strong relationships with our children by spending time that they otherwise would have been spent with others.
Homeschooling is tough at times. We have made some sacrifices to teach our children- sacrifices of time and finances, but I believe the investment will have eternal influence. I can say I have had rough days- days where I wish the bus would take them to school for a few hours- but I have not ever regretted out decision to homeschool.
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