I found this to be an interesting topic at The Homeschool Village, and wanted to share my story. My first encounters with homeschooling was in the early 1990’s, when I met several families at our local church who homeschooled. It took a few years of asking many questions, of how they homeschooled, curriculum concerns, and the all to often overwhelming questions about what is homeschooling all about that I really began to think this was an option to explore closer.
At this time a very good friend of mine had just started homeschooling her girls. With her encouragement, and the encouragement of the other homeschooling mom’s I had met the decision was made to jump into this world ourselves. Yes, we ran into the normal concerns and disapprovals from family and friends but we were confident at this point this was a way of life we wanted to embrace. I like to describe it as a way of life, since truly it is, it means total commitment of the family and it also means changes that tend to be out of the norm for society.
I had so much fun homeschooling my older children, and as I learned more about it, I loved to step along side families while they made the decisions for themselves. Now that we have our granddaughter with us, there never was a doubt in our minds that we would continue with the life style we grew to love, we just knew from day one we would be a homeschool family again.
I know that I will never miss a moment with my granddaughter, the good and the not so good, the funny and the sad. I love those light bulb moments when things just seem to really click for not only her but for both of us. We often think that home education is all about the children, teaching them, but I am here to tell you these years of homeschooling is a learning experience for the entire family. We as the educators and parents can grow, challenge ourselves, and learn right along side our children. We laugh, we cry, we get frustrated, feel overwhelmed, but mostly we build a strong family togetherness, that always pulls everyone through these rough moments.
Plus we don’t get to miss moments like this:
Very nice!
ReplyDeleteShe looks like a sad painted clown. That's a picture to show when she brings her first boyfriend home.
ReplyDeleteI always live to hear stories from veteran homeschoolers as I don't know that many who have been through it all. I agree with you that it's a learning experience for all! Even my husband has taken an active role since we decided to homeschool.
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