Some Encouragement for Unexpected Homeschooling...

Now that a version of homeschooling has been forced upon so many, I thought I would share with you some of what I learned as a homeschooling mom.

We homeschooled our kids for 5 years. Homeschooling was a pretty fresh concept at that time – late 80’s, early 90’s. I thought it would be a good fit for our farming lifestyle, which consumes all of our summertime. I wasn’t ready to send my kids away for the best part of their day. I had a strong-willed kid who I was afraid would be categorized unfairly for his…uh…individualistic way of approaching life if he was in a classroom. I love learning and wanted to share my kids experiences of discovery.

These were mostly good reasons – but as it turned out, I wasn’t very good at homeschooling. And I didn’t like it either.

Don’t get me wrong – we did have a lot of good time together for which I am grateful. Seeing my kids learn to read, and love reading, was a highlight. Having time throughout the year, not just summer, to do things together was a great blessing. And I loved seeing the kids integrate academic learning with life experiences on the farm.

But daily, it was a struggle. Finally, I was so burned out that we decided to end our homeschooling efforts. The kids went into school all at once – a fifth grader, fourth grader and second grader.

And you know what? They were all okay. They were ahead in some areas and behind in others but by the second semester, they were pretty much where they were supposed to be. Academically, they were just fine. Socially, they had to learn courage to be the new kids in an environment that was familiar to everyone else – but they did it. And we all grew.

I say this first so you know that as long as you’re trying, you’re not going to wreck your kid’s life by being a less than stellar homeschooling parent. So just put that fear away for good.

Now let me share some things with you that I discovered would have helped my schooling at home experience had I understood them back then:

1.      If there are deficiencies in your parenting, schooling at home will reveal them. Because I was inconsistent in training our kids, I got inconsistent obedience and respect. Just what I earned. If your kids take your words as a suggestion, rather than an instruction, you’re going to have a lot of trouble homeschooling. I was mostly concerned that everyone was happy and based my leadership on achieving that. You can’t make everyone happy all the time. Duh. But oh how I tried! I didn’t recognize the value that feeling bad can have on building our character. Eventually, after many frustrations, fears and tears, I learned that I should be more concerned with feeling RIGHT than feeling GOOD – for myself and my kids. Homeschooling is a hothouse that causes bad parenting habits to explode. And for me, they did. If I had a better handle on parenting, homeschooling would not have been such a struggle. So if you are struggling, honestly assess your parenting. Are you inconsistent? Unclear on what/when you expect your kids to do? Do you let things go because you are doubtful that your expectations are reasonable? Or because it feels like a lost cause? The best thing you can do to make homeschooling better is to work on fixing the parenting issues you discover. And even if that’s the only thing you get out of this distance learning experience, it will be the best thing you could do.

2.      Forget about the fear that your child will not perform well enough and get far behind. Unlike a homeschooling parent who has the sole responsibility to meet the requirements of their child’s academic results, you have an expert to help you. Your child’s teacher can give you a big picture assessment of how he/she is doing. And if they get behind, next year you will have another expert teacher to help them catch up. So just stop worrying about that. Academic progress often has different speeds as kids grow up.

3.      Don’t fall into the black hole of perfectionism. It is so easy to start looking at every little thing the kids do for schoolwork and try to micromanage every answer. I had to admit that my pride was all wrapped up in their daily work. If they didn’t get it right, I felt it was a reflection of my ability as a teacher and parent. Your kids’ schoolwork doesn’t prove or disprove your worth as a human being…or theirs either. Look at the wrong answers just as a measure of what is learned, and what still needs to be learned. That’s really all it is.

4.      If you get caught in the trees, try to back up and look for the forest. Discern the principle that is being taught in the lessons and strive to make progress toward that end. Don’t put too much importance on each individual worksheet! Sometimes comprehension won’t come just by doing worksheets. Don’t be afraid to use other methods and again, measure your progress against the principle, not the pages accomplished. Is the reading getting better, even if in small increments? Is math understood a little better than last week? Pat yourself on the back; progress is being made!

5.      Read lots! My oldest loved to read the Readers Digest and learned a lot of stuff that way. Have a lot of different things available to read – we always had Popular Mechanics and Horse magazines, even Lego and Playmobil catalogs, along with books of all sorts. Read aloud to them an ongoing story instead of watching a tv show together. So much language and vocabulary is learned just by reading, reading, reading!

6.      Be flexible. Not all school activities translate well to a home environment. It’s okay to improvise to make things work better for your learners. And when we had a day where we were all on the struggle bus, it helped to break out of the rut by going outside, creating with art supplies, doing a work project, or reading aloud. Some days it was better to do math by measuring stuff for a project. Doing life skill activities can jolt kids out of a bad attitude, and they’re still learning academic principles.

7.      Have grace for yourself and your kids. You will butt heads. You will have kids with bad attitudes, and maybe a mom too! But it will pass. Deal with the character issues as best you can, then forgive each other and move on. And with distance learning have grace for your child’s teacher. They don’t know how it’s going at your home, and they’re trying to do something they’ve never done before either. Don’t resent the expectations they have and the work they have sent – but give yourself the flexibility and grace to adjust as needed. After all, everyone involved is just doing their best to redeem the opportunities for learning out of this unforeseen circumstance.

Lastly, try to make the most of this opportunity of having more time together. It will never come again. From my perspective as a grandma, that time of my life now feels like it flew by. Don’t think it’s a fail if you’re feeling like it’s a struggle. Likely, there will come a day when you look back and see just why God allowed it and you’ll be grateful for it.

That’s how I feel about my years of homeschooling. True, they were not a great success, and it was a struggle – but it led me to some painful discoveries that became great blessings to my life. The most important tool you have for these hard times is the way you choose to look at them. I encourage you to expect that there is a diamond under the rock God is tumbling in our lives right now.

Someday soon, you can pass the teacher hats back to the experts, God bless them! And you can just be Mom again – but with a new appreciation for what it means to get an education!

**Please understand that sharing my less than successful experience with homeschooling in no way detracts from the amazing opportunity it can be.Nor does it diminish the many wonderful families I know that have done an excellent job.  I write from the perspective of encouraging those who have had it thrust upon them and are struggling with the responsibility.