Lets be friends - Homeschooling for Today
Welcome to the wonderful, crazy, slightly scary world of homeschooling! First, take a breath and exhale. Feel that? That sigh of relief and willingness to keep going? You are gonna be doing a lot of that! But that’s okay because you are not alone anymore! You have me, and countless other moms, dads and kids that are all navigating this whole homeschool thing along side you.
Let me introduce myself, my name is Stephanie. I am an actual homeschooling mom sitting behind this computer. I grew up with a wonderful mom who homeschooled me from kindergarten all the way to graduation! She is a real super hero because she not only taught me, but also my (now) 5 other siblings everything we know.
My favorite quote has to be… Proverbs 30:7-9 NIV “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God”. I love this one because it reminds me that I want only what I need. Nothing crazy, just enough.
The short answer, you don’t have to! But I hope to kick down some barriers that seem to surround the idea of homeschooling. The first is that homeschooler are unsocialized. Let me just say this couldn’t be farther from the truth! When you have siblings, can be out in public during “working hours” you meet a lot of rude, old (and just mean) people who love to have opinions. So you actually learn very early how to deal with people of all ages and beliefs, and how to stand up for yourself respectfully. The second barrier is that homeschooling requires a teaching degree. That’s a nope again! You see, higher education is GREAT, there is time and place for that. But there are tons of areas in life that you don’t have a degree in, but still operate on a daily. For example, you drive on a road because you learned the basic laws that everyone has accepted. You eat meals and cook for yourself because you continually learn how to do so, tweaking recipes and mixtures that work for you along the way. Homeschooling is no different. The last misconception is that you can’t homeschool because you aren’t patient enough. Congratulation you are HUMAN! Homeschooling isn’t about the Miss Frizzel magic school bus, always happy, smiling kind of education. Have you seen the inside of a classroom come the last week of school? Teachers are tired, worn out and trying to just keep the tiny humans from eating glue and destroying the room.
Please, for the love of all things sweet and salty, stop comparing yourself to perfect. Just take a breath (again) and tell yourself this, “I am the most qualified to teach my kids”. Because you are. God gave those tiny humans to YOU, for a reason. Let yourself be vulnerable and learn along with your kids. Trust me, it’s the best lesson you can teach to kids. Learning and owning up to the fact you don’t have all the answers is the beautiful mess kids NEED. They need to see that perfection doesn’t mean success. That progress and learning is what life is really all about.
So, pull yourself up by your boot straps and get ready to empowered, equipped and inspired.
See ya around pretty momma,