The Choice to Homeschool

We made the choice when our oldest was of age to homeschool our children, at least through the elementary grades. If they decide they want to try public school around JR high/high school age, we won’t deny them that opportunity. But for now, they’re stuck with TeacherMom 😏

Our timeline of beginning to homeschool lines up with the dramatic increase in homeschooling because of a certain national event that occurred 🙄 but that really wasn’t even much of a factor in our decision-making, except to confirm that we, in-fact, did NOT want the headache of quarantines and mandates, etc., so we just opted out of that by doing our own thing.

I had never planned on homeschooling until my husband suggested it when our oldest was little. I kind of brushed it off with a, “Yeah. Maybe. We’ll see.” As it came closer and closer to time to making that decision though, the more and more I thought, “Yeah. I think I could do that. I mean I AM a certified teacher after all, surely I can homeschool my own…” more on that a different day 😏

I want to make it clear that it was NEVER a choice made because we don’t agree with policies within our district, or anything against the administration, teachers, peers, anything of that sort. It really was as simple as we didn’t feel it was right for us as parents, to have our children be away from us for that many hours every day during the school week and year. We didn’t feel that we could raise our children to love the lifestyle that we’ve chosen (in hopes that they will also choose it for themselves and their family one day) without having them participate in being a daily part of it - caring for, feeding and nourishing the very land and livestock that feed and nourish our family.

While realizing that we are very imperfect people, we also want to be the biggest influences over our children while they are young. Some may view that as “sheltering” or “overprotecting” and that’s fine. I’ll save that soapbox for another day.

I started out writing this post because I took a picture of our oldest son mowing. Life was busy and our schedule and routine was thrown off by first one thing and then another, so there weren’t a whole lot of book lessons accomplished this week, and to be honest, I was feeling pretty guilty about it. But then I remembered one of the reasons that we began this journey in the first place - we wanted them to learn more than what someone else has deemed necessary for them to learn to be successful on someone else’s measuring stick.

Mowing the lawn may seem like a chore that a lot of children learn and a responsibility that they have in order to help out.

But what if it’s about more than that?

I had a realization in the middle of beating myself up over not being disciplined about school lessons this week…it may not have anything to do with the work in his textbook, but he’s learning something out here, and he likely won’t realize it until later…but these are the little lessons that once they’re strung together, compound into a human that can one day take care of and take pride in doing for themselves and their family. And, these opportunities are maybe also what spark the desire to begin and grow businesses to support and serve future families…that’s a win for everybody in my book!

Now, don’t misunderstand, I’m not getting down on people that pay for lawn service, etc. I’m just saying, I think, in my typical, long-winded Kyla way, that there is so much more to learning than textbooks and a classroom. There is so much more to being “smart” than a test score. There is so much more to being educated and ready for adulthood than check marks on a transcript. And in order to learn about life and the real world, I think you have to have the opportunity to participate in that.

A lot of people can do both - give their children real world experiences while they receive a public education - and that’s fantastic, I applaud you that you’re doing the things that work best for your family!

Something a little different is just what works for ours.

I get asked a lot why we choose to homeschool, so I’d thought I’d tell you some of my thoughts and our reason…For What It’s Worth!