Lesson 8: Homeschooling for the Long Run
The Last Thing You Need to Know
There is more to homeschooling than can be learned by taking a class. You have received an introduction to the process, but the real learning will take place day to day as you teach your child.
There will be terrible days. Children with special needs are hard to teach. There are days you will feel like a failure and wonder why you are doing this. There are days when nothing, even the best lesson plan in the world, will work.
Don’t let those days cause you to lose faith. The first year of homeschooling is very hard, and very frightening. Retired credentialed teachers tell me that homeschooling wasn’t much easier for them than it is for those without credentials, because teaching your own child is very different from teaching thirty children who belong to others. Each teacher must learn to teach her own child and must find her own style. Only time can make that happen.
This time you have chosen to give your child is a glorious gift. Very few parents are willing to make the sacrifice you are making. Most people who learn I homeschool say that they couldn’t stand being with their children all day, and that they wouldn’t be willing to give up their “me” time. You have chosen to do what only two percent of American parents have done, and even less in most countries, for their children. Even if it is only for a year or two, the time you are spending together now will change your lives. You will learn to know your children in a way you never have before. You will create memories to last forever.
Enjoy this time. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s discouraging, look for what is good. Write down the laughter and the discoveries and the successes. When the learning is too much, stop and play a game or cuddle under a blanket and read together. Point out the good to your children. Wrap up your time together as a gift to be taken out and treasured when the children are much older and aren’t around much. That’s when you will be most grateful for this time together.
Learn together. Laugh together. Be together.
That’s the real purpose behind homeschooling.
