Oh What a Feeling

Assignment: Take time this week to write about YOU and your feelings of trials and triumphs with homeschooling.  Touch on when you first heard about the concept of home schooling and whether you tip-toed into the idea or just jumped in and never looked back.  Share your schooling as a child and how you compare it to what your goals are for your children.

I began thinking about homeschooling the day I walked my soon to be three year old daughter through the halls of a pre-school at a little church down our street.  At that time I felt pressured by other mom’s in our Sunday school class that were doing the same thing.  When I walked out the doors we walked home and I just held her and cried.  That was the turning point for me.  We fought infertility for many years (another story) and I couldn’t imagine that after just a couple of years of being a mommy I would have to turn her over to someone else for the biggest part of her day. 

We began to talk about it…and being the investigator that I am, I began to research homeschooling and knew that this is what we needed to do.  My husband was in full agreement with me…it was our decision for our daughter together.  I guess we were like pioneers because no-one in either of our families had ever heard of it…well, I take that back, his side (Dennis) is filled with teachers so you can imagine the raised eyebrows that little old me got when we began talking about it.  At first we were always questioned about socializing…never the learning…only how we were going to mix her in with other children.  We were very involved in Church and our church had a huge homeschooling group that we attended at first.  But life has its way of just ironing out all those details.  Turns out…my daughter can talk and associate with people of all ages…and she makes eye contact…which is a rare thing among teens these days.

Of course we have had challenges…but that was just growing up stuff…like for instance, I would walk out of the room only to find her hiding under the table on my return…was that a problem.  At the time, I would scratch my head but oh what I wouldn’t do to go back to that time.  We had tears in math too but year by year I began to see a change, even today, I see each year how she grows and matures and begins to want to carry the load all by her self.  (sigh!) 

The most wonderful thing for me is the relationship that I have with my daughter.  How I can gear her schooling to HER interests.  To really know her from the inside out, I wouldn’t have traded this for anything in the world.  To have been a witness to it, to have watched her grow up right in front of me has been my greatest joy.

I grew up in the country.  My dad worked and my mom was a stay at home mom.  I liked school ok.  I was the token “timid” child (oh, how I hate that word).  Not really though, I was just the child that was compliant and didn’t like to get into trouble.  I remember bringing books home from the library and crawling up on my dad’s lap as he would read them to me at night.  I remember, my mom working with me on school projects and never giving up…she would help me until it was completely done.  I remember reading the Bible to my little brother at night and always wanting to teach him not to be afraid in the dark.  Maybe these were all seeds that were planted in me through the years, I don’t know.  I do know one thing.  I never had to read a whole book in school.  Many people tell me that they read this book or that…not me…don’t know why exactly either. 

One of the many blessings of homeschooling has been to sit under a cozy quilt on a cold day (and we have a lot of them) and dig into a great book.  I sure wish that I had been taught this way…it sure would have given me a head start on life.

Philippians 2:14-16

¹⁴Do everything without complaining or arguing, ¹⁵so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.