Some people just know that they will homeschool their children. They are confident about it before they even have their first child. I, on the other hand, was not one of those people. In fact, I had considered it many times, but I hesitated for a long time before making that important decision. Honestly, I was scared. Even though I did well in school and I even have a college degree, I did not know if I was capable of teaching my children at home. Did I even have enough time to teach them for 8 hours a day and still do all the things I needed to get done? How was I going to teach them to read, to do long division, and later on Calculus?? And what about SOCIALIZATION??  It all just seemed too overwhelming, I felt I just couldn’t do it. I thought I couldn’t do it as well as someone who had a degree in education could.

Fast forward many years later, and I laugh at all the fears that kept me from making the decision to homeschool.  I can’t believe I let all of those ridiculous myths keep me and my children from being happier versions of ourselves. Homeschooling is one of the best decisions we have ever made! Homeschooling has been a learning process for all of us, but it has brought us so much closer together. Like I said, my intentions didn’t begin with homeschooling, as with most things in life, circumstances led us there.

My oldest daughter went to public school all the way to the beginning of middle school. She never liked school. She made straight A’s and had friends, but she was never happy in school. In kindergarten, she was excited about her first day, but when she returned home she announced she would not be going back. She then cried every morning before school, and at least several times a week she vomited in the classroom upon arrival. I was so worried about this new anxiety that my fun-loving child was now experiencing. She had always been somewhat introverted, but still she had been a very happy child up until school. Hence, I became the “Homeroom Mother” and made my presence in her classroom as often as I could. I was working full-time and I was pregnant with my second child, so this was a very exhausting time. We also picked up almost every virus you could get that year from her classroom and let’s not mention the anxiety I felt when a newsletter went out cautioning parents of a lice outbreak! [Read more…]