Homeschoolers Tell All ~ by the Story Making Mother

Homeschoolers

Tell All ~ FAQs for Homeschoolers

by the Story Making Mother

What is the most important thing?

When it comes to home education, it's this: Start out reading to your kids, from the earliest age you can, or if you read badly, and if they hate it, then try providing great audio books, as well as movies based on books. Chances are, though, that even if you read badly, they'll want to hear you read to them.

Get them exposed to good narration, either in movies, from books on tape, or from Mommy and Daddy, whenever possible. I once had a friend who read well, but her voice was boring. The inflexion was missing, and it all sounded as if it was coming from cue cards. So, her husband, a man with a strong accent, but with a great stage voice, read to the kids. The girls eventually developed his accent, which was really adorable, and they loved books. In my opinion, it was a good situation.

We read to our kids as often as possible. We tend to wait until bedtime, and then I read to the two youngest. The 11 year old could read his own books, and he does, but he lies there in bed and listens to me read classics like the Chronicles of Narnia series, Little House books, or even the Cul de Sac series by Beverly Lewis. Prior to this, in order to interest the older two in books, I read Monster by Frank Peretti to them, some odd other contemporary books, as well as lots of classics.

Now, years later, we all love reading, and we spend as much time as we can with books, often reading at least two per week. Yet, this is not typical of many families, especially in this fast-paced world. While we developed this passion, I was a homeschooling mother who stayed home with the kids when they were young.

What if conditions are not ideal?

Lest you assume that I’m a person who has all the time in the world for childrearing, I’ll tell you more about me. I work full-time, go to college, teach a scouting class at church on Wednesday, Church Nursery on Sunday, and am the church secretary. Time gets away from me often, and my kids are now usually schooling themselves or each other.

My two eldest children got to hear Mommy read for hours a day, often asking me to postpone mealtimes so we could get on with the reading. It was a wonderful, ideal lifestyle. It ended, however, and the youngest, my eight year old, doesn't have Mommy to read to him, except for bedtime most nights.

Still, besides our reading schedule, not much has changed. Back then, they could not read. The kids were happy to learn slowly, and since I was in no rush, I let them each reach almost to middle school before I rushed their reading. I made sure that by age 9 or 10 they had a good grasp of phonics, and that they could put the sounds together. Beyond that, I did not sweat it.

Which of the many options is best?

Over the years, I got a lot of flak from moms and friends who believed that their little excellent readers were proof that my brand of schooling was insufficient. Do I sound bitter? I was, for a long time, but I’m okay with that now. Honestly, it was hard. I knew that I was doing what I believed was right, and I thought that in the end, my methods would prove to be good. In the meantime, however, I was very lonely in my journey. Not many people I knew were doing this, and the only folks who had any sympathy for me were weird—to put it delicately. (smile – sorry, Lorrie – I couldn’t resist)

Okay, so I started out with good intentions, but I didn’t make a hugely positive impression. Still, I was home all the time back then. When finances forced me out of my home, it got even harder. Now, I work full-time, and my mother-in-law is home with my kids, who mostly self-educate. I teach them here and there when I get a moment or have the energy, but that isn’t often. I sometimes complain that I find myself never having the chance to spend time with my kids—except for our reading at bedtime—which probably is the most important thing I can do for them at present.

I am a halfhearted unschooler, I guess. I am not militant in my belief that it has to be my way, and I just sort of fell into this when nothing else worked for my family. It is proving to be good for us, and I am happy with it. But you can't do it my way just because I did it this way. You have to find your own path. Research. Read things by excellent people who make you feel proud of homeschooling. When you're done, the ideas will begin forming and you will slowly develop your own style. It's all trial and error. Follow your conscience. Jiminy Cricket was right.

What about socialization? (THE S WORD)

Have you been in a public school, lately? I don’t mean in a neighborhood where there is a student-teacher ratio of ten to one. I’m talking about schools where there are 20 to 35 kids per classroom, and where the teacher is lucky to get the students to pretend to listen. In public schools, socialization means learning to look and talk like everyone else while avoiding the label of “freak” or “outcast.”

Gregg Harris gives a good description of the reason homeschooling is superior for socialization. However, if you want to see for yourself, volunteer help at a school while actually interacting with students in a classroom. Chances are, if you walk through the lunch room during meal time, you will hear things you did not expect to hear from children’s mouths. I was blown away during my last visit, and I said to myself, “My sister is locked up in here for seven hours a day, by order of the US government.” I shudder at that thought.

I deal with kids and teens, in church. These kids choose to come each week, and they are pretty good kids. However, even in church, I hear the saddest stories. At a school which scored high on our state grading system, girls can be seen kissing one another before the teacher enters the classroom—and that’s a middle school. At the high school, a girl was stripped of her Christian t-shirt and left undressed in a bathroom stall. I really worry about the socialization going on in the schools today. Is this the socialization you want for your children?

But I don’t want to raise a freak!

I understand your worry. Trust me, I do. I have three kids, and only one of them is “cool” in a traditional way. My eight-year old has always been homeschooled, and he has lived his entire life pretty much between church and home, and yet everyone he meets at the park or in the neighborhood is his friend. Teenagers want to be around this kid. It was nothing I did – he’s just naturally talented at fitting in with any group. He is truly “cool.”

My other two kids are not conventionally “cool” by any stretch. They are both introverts, and they have had huge difficulties with fitting in with group situations. They both had Mommy for a teacher in Sunday school, because they wouldn’t stay without me, and they both had trouble making friends through the elementary school years.

At age 11, my daughter began hitting her stride. By 15, she is now one of the “coolest” girls among her friends. They all love her and enjoy being around her. It was, again, not my doing. I smoothed the process, the best I could, but I didn’t make it happen. She learned, through hard experience, to avoid following the crowd. She still often finds herself sitting alone when the talk turns into an area she is unwilling to discuss. However, nine times out of ten, her friends will call for her and choose to involve themselves in talk that pleases her.

What if my kids are teased and bullied?

It’s tough, but remember that your kids would likely have been teased or bullied in school, too. The truth is that the kids in church teased my son and daughter about homeschooling, about being weird, and about being unable to read as good as they could. My kids were so tired of it, they often asked me just to put them in school. I would tell them, “So you think the answer is to spend seven hours a day locked up in a classroom with people like that? Puleez!” (wink)

Now, I held my daughter and son when they each asked me, “What’s wrong with me—nobody likes me.” I told them God had big plans with her, that he liked the fact that they were different, and he wanted them to be unique people. “Eventually,” I told them, “you will find a special friend.” Well, my daughter did, and she also found a whole bunch more friends. (LOL)

My daughter now advises my 12 year old the same way, with the exception that she tells him to try to be quiet as much as possible – he inherited my tendency to say anything that comes into his head. (grin) Her words, coupled with his parents’ hugs and prayers, are helping my son learn to adjust, too. However, at 12, he still shows no signs of becoming a social butterfly. That’s okay, though. He is smart, and I don’t think Einstein won applause for his hairdo. (chuckle) My son wants to be a famous movie director and he plans to do great things with his life. I believe it’ll happen.

What if a negative comment hurts me?

The key to handling criticism is self-confidence, which in my case, comes from my faith in God. The belief that I am in His will gives me the confidence to keep trying in spite of criticism. Staying grounded like this gives us a confidence the world can't take from us.

Snappy comebacks will shoot through your mind all the time, you'll find websites that list good arguments, and you'll be tempted to use earnest dialog. Don't bother, unless the Lord moves you to speak. Otherwise, tell people you're proud of your kids, that you are living according to what you believe is right for your family, and that you notice that their kids are incredibly talented and great individuals, as well. (Implication: "See what living according to God's plan can do--public school can work well, also!")

I am a terrible housekeeper and pretty lazy sometimes. I would much rather read all day and learn disconnected bits of trivia than to get up and move my limbs. Because of this, some people were of the opinion that my laziness was causing my kids to get an inferior education. (There were good excuses for their delays: My daughter is dyslexic, my middle son had ADD, and my youngest just wants to play and work with his hands all day.) Still, if I had worked harder, they would have made bigger strides. Right?

While I could cognitively understand the thinking of my critics, and even relate to it from an outsider’s point of view, I also knew that God had called me to home educate, and if I did it the best I could, he would work it out in the end. This has proven true; so far, my children are all very bright and interesting people with a variety of talents and each with a unique personality and style. I am very proud of them, but that’s the sort of thing you can hear everywhere—all homeschoolers seem proud of their kids--which leads us to the next question...

Why do all homeschoolers seem perfect?

I would have liked to have read about the challenges as well as successes of homeschooling parents. Even though this can be encouraging to hear, I sometimes got very tired of hearing how well everyone was doing. I wanted to know that my experiences were normal, and that there were people besides me who often faced the temptation to quit, because it is NOT easy. Yet I also wanted to know that other people were as committed to this as I was. The other home educating mothers I learned about just seemed so sure that they could do it, and their frustrations were related to stresses they had not brought upon themselves. I kept thinking that maybe it was easy for them—and not a matter of sheer willpower and prayer like it was with me so often.

Did they go through this self-doubt? Did they have domestic worries? Did they let the laundry pile up until everyone was out of socks and underwear? Did they fail as often as I did? Were they impatient with the kids? Was it really all as rosy as they drew it? I didn’t think so, but I saw no evidence of any real difficulties—until I found online discussion groups.

Why tell our secrets to strangers?

Perhaps the idea of posting on a website or in a book seemed too much like airing their family’s dirty laundry. Maybe it scared women to think of telling all and leaving it out there for their children, spouses, mothers-in-law, or critics to read. It might have just been too scary to consider opening themselves up that permanently.

So, instead, on email lists, which update daily and are pretty much anonymous, the same sterling silver, polished women told us about how things were not always so good. For instance, I learned that the governmental agencies that oversaw child welfare sometimes stepped in because of a messy house. Another issue was trying to get kids to clean up their bedrooms without resorting to cruelty. I even mentioned my spanking dilemma. I wondered if my boy would ever learn self-control, since he only seemed to stop when I spanked him. (By age 3, through prayer, with spanking, and lots of conversations about how proud I was of him and of the the vision I had for his future, he was quite self-disciplined, thank you.)

This was scary. What if they all hated me when they saw my darkest secrets? What if one of my failings was too much for them to take? How could I do it? Yet, in the end, it was the most necessary thing for a person like me to write—and their words were a must read. And so, I’m writing it down for you newcomers, just starting out, and you’ll know what I didn’t—that home educators aren’t just modestly saying, “We’re not perfect, and we make mistakes.” In fact, you’ll know that this statement should be in bold, in a 200 point typeface, highlighted, and blinking in neon.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at an experiment of mine, titled:

My Morning

I really could use a link!

Spend time talking to other homeschoolers, and you’ll find something amazing—people who have failed, fallen, bled, picked themselves up, and often pulled themselves back together and tried again—day after day—after day. Below are some lists, some links, and ways to learn more about me, if I haven't scared you away yet.... ~grin~

Some good discussion lists:

One of my favorites is: AO-Homeschool

My group for Hispanics: Homeschoolers Hispanas

One for messies like me: Organize-to-Homeschool