10 Things I’ve Learned In 10 Years of Homeschooling, Part 1 is here.
6) Decide On A Philosophy of Education
It’s worth spending some time on this and even writing some things down before you begin homeschooling. What does education mean to you? What does a well-educated person look like? What are your overarching goals for your child?
This will be like a lighthouse that guides you when things are tough. It will also help you avoid pitfalls and second-guessing yourself. Revisit this philosophy when you feel stressed. It will minimize those freak outs you will have periodically about your child’s education.
7) What You Do One Day Isn’t Important; What You Do Most Days Is
If you’re in a season of life in which getting everything done in your homeschool day is proving to be difficult, sit down and think about what your bare minimum good day would look like. (In my brain, any day that math, history and reading/writing are done is a school day.) If those things are accomplished, will you feel like school is “done” and be ok it? Write those things down.
Those are the things that you need to make sure get done daily. If they aren’t, then you’re going to feel stress and start worrying about your kids. Get those important things done and then if you have time/energy/money, fit in the rest. The rest of the stuff can be done once or twice a week, or on weekends, or in the summer or what have you.
8 Hang Out With Other Homeschoolers
Spending time with other homeschoolers occasionally helps you feel less freakish, especially if you live in an area where there aren’t a lot of homeschoolers or homeschooling is frowned upon. You need the social proof of people who think like you do. You need a tribe. What’s more, you will find in whatever group you associate with that you’re neither the strictest homeschooling parent nor the most slack. Which is good for your confidence.
9) Teacher, Know Thyself
You’re the teacher and the parent. If something isn’t working well for you in your homeschool, forget it. If unit studies make you loopy, don’t do them. If your friend spends hours on lesson plans and you pull out an “open and go” out of the box curriculum, so what.
Your kids will learn best if you run your homeschool in the way that works with your personality. (Think back to your own favorite and best teachers in school – were they the same?) You don’t have to do “it” like Suzy Q. Homeschooler on the wildly popular homeschooling message forum. And you don’t have to do it like the homeschooling curriculum writer guru either. Which leads me into the last point.
10) Do Not Compare Yourself With Others
With the millions of homeschooling blogs that exist, the message forums, Pinterest and the like… you could make yourself positively loony trying all the ideas and attempting to make over your family, your kids and your life like the best possible picture you see presented on the internet.
Don’t do that.
Everyone has a different situation. Some have fewer kids, more energy, more money, more support, more tolerance for clutter, more interest in particular subjects, more smarts, whatever than you do.
Focus on what there is to love about the tools you have on hand, and your own kids and do what works for your family. The best thing about homeschooling is getting to spend a lot of time with your kids.
That’s about it. What things have you learned in your homeschooling career?
Leave a Reply