Gardner and Caitiejane hard at work during the start of homeschool this week.
If you had told me seven years ago that I would be the one educating my kids from my dining room table, I would not have believed it. My husband and I both are the products of public school education. Parenting is hard enough and now it’s my responsibility to make sure they can grow up to be productive citizens?!?! I’m just coming out of the haze of having four kids in five years! No way I can do this! And yet here we are. Last week we quietly started our homeschool journey.
Let’s not forget that virtual school was pretty much the worst last year (for teachers and students) that I even made a some parodies about our journey: “For the First Time in Forever” and “Hey, Look Y’all We Made It”.
I thought face to face learning with masks was the way to go this year, but after having issues with adverse reactions for one of my kids and unintended consequences for the other, we ultimately decided that bringing them home was for the better.
I fought hard to try and keep them in school, but without some accommodations it was an uphill battle that we ultimately lost. I had been so against being the one to educate them at home. I kept running from it and trying to find an alternative route. I didn’t want to raise those “strange” homeschool kids. In the end, God pulled me to it kicking and screaming. Not to mention, earlier than my own timeline, as I thought we’d keep them in public school until Christmas.
When we decided to homeschool, things kept lining up. People came into my life when I least expected it. I made two visits with some friends doing homeschool already, so I could pick their brain and see what they were doing. We connected just days before we pulled them out. I thought our homeschool application was going to take 3-5 business days and it came back in the same day!
When I went to get supplies from Staples to help with the instruction I was planning, the woman outside was a public school teacher and identified me as a homeschool mom. How did she know? The day after we got approved to open our homeschool the song, “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash was on the car radio. Seriously?!?!?! If all of this isn’t God, I don’t know what is!
I’m grateful to have them home with me. I’m glad to bring a Biblical foundation into their education. I’m excited to go on this journey with them, even though I feel ill-equipped to handle the job some days. I’m angry that I have to console my kids because they miss their teachers and their friends. It’s been a crazy few weeks with “all the feels.” In the end, I know that having some control over their education will be for the better.
We will find some other homeschool friends and find a balance with structure and curriculum topics they want to learn. We’ll have some kind of routine for sure (I mean they have an event planner for a mom), and I’ll let my first-grader (with autism) maximize his potential for learning since he taught himself multiplication last summer at six years old. This fact makes me wonder if this would have been our destiny anyways.
So far, one week in I’ve had doubts and had to ask myself, can I do this? I’ve been angry that it’s come to this. I’ve had fun with them. I’ve worked hard to keep up with my job and homeschool curriculum. But I think we’re going to be okay.
Who knows, if things change at the school maybe they’ll return in next year. Or maybe they’ll like this homeschool schedule much better and decide that they don’t want to go back. Either way, I’m here for it. If the pandemic has taught me one thing, it’s that this is not a dress rehearsal and I have to prioritize what’s important. I’m grateful that I have the people and the tools to be able to do that.