A little encouragement for homeschoolers

I LOVE Homeschooling. I was homeschooled myself all the way through my childhood along with my 2 brothers and 2 sisters. 3 of my siblings graduated from Bible College. My sisters and I are all stay-at-home moms homeschooling our own children. One brother works in Special Education, and my other brother is a Missionary. We are all married with kids, and all love the Lord and are involved in our churches.

I always imagined I would homeschool my own children. It was what I knew. It seemed natural, and made sense to me. My husband was not too sure when I first mentioned it but it took no time at all to persuade him. Our first 6 years of homeschooling were fairly traditional but relaxed. We studied the recommended subjects for each grade but we didn't make our kids sit at desks to do their school work. Well, at least not all of the time.

Half way through our 6th year of homeschooling, our youngest son was diagnosed with cancer. Our whole world changed. Chemo treatments, surgeries, blood transfusions, and almost all of it out of town. Our goal of completing all of our school subjects each day changed to making an effort to do at least one "schoolish" thing each day. Some days I was too tired to have any idea if my children had learned anything at all that day. In my school journal I would mark these days by simply writing "unschool day". It was the best I could do. I had heard of unschooling, but at this point I had not really looked into it too much.

This cancer beast took over our lives for nearly 16 months, then grief took over when our precious almost-five-year-old, Silas Nathanael, went home to Heaven. He passed away Memorial Day weekend of our 8th year of homeschooling. For the rest of the Summer, all of our days were marked "unschool day".

I knew we couldn't just not ever do school work ever again. I thought I knew that. I was so anxious and worried at how far "behind" the boys had gotten in their school work over the past couple of years and I wanted to get them "caught up". My 10 year old and 8 year old were barely reading and I was feeling so guilty. It was a challenging school year. Our grief was so fresh and just getting out of bed was hard. School was so hard and no one was enjoying it.

Our 9th year of homeschooling I decided to have the boys do a free online school program I had found. I figured that way they would be sure to get everything they need and I wouldn't have to worry so much about buying the right curriculum. Everything was all right there on the computer. We also joined a homeschool co-op. The boys really enjoyed this a lot, they enjoyed spending time with other homeschooled kids and I enjoyed spending time with homeschooling moms! We needed the fellowship desperately. The online school wasn't going well though. My 8th grader was on track with most of his school work but he hated it, and my other two were obviously way "behind" grade level. They were learning, but were not where I thought they "should be". About half way through the year, I decided to drop the online school and keep things simpler. We focused on Math, Writing, Reading, Science, and Bible.

Our 10th year started out with me stressing out A LOT about High School! My oldest was now in 9th grade and I felt so much pressure to make sure he was going to be prepared for college and had everything he needed to go to college. Transcripts had to be written, I had to make sure he was taking all of the right classes at the right times, etc. He was not liking it much and I was so stressed out about it. I was comparing myself to other homeschoolers and felt like I was so far behind and unprepared. By this point my 12 year old was finally reading, but my 10 year old was still not. This caused more stress. We continued attending co-op, but I was still stressed out.

Around January I was seriously questioning a lot about our homeschooling. Why do we have to study certain subjects during certain years? Why do we have to study certain subjects at all??? I loved the idea of unschooling or child led learning, or life learning, or delight led learning (whatever you want to call it). I loved the idea of living life as though "school" didn't exist, but I wanted to know, is this biblical? Does this fit with living a godly life? Does this lifestyle fulfill our God given duty to raise up our children? I started reading unschooling blogs such as this one and this one. I was hugely encouraged! I discovered that God designed children to learn! They have a desire to learn about the world around them naturally! They are going to learn even if I don't cram math books into their heads, or force them to memorize poetry. In fact, if they are given the freedom, encouragement, and support to learn about the things they are interested in, they may even learn better! God also gave them unique desires, interests, and abilities.

Suddenly the idea of forcing a child who loves being outdoors to sit inside studying a subject he has no interest in at all seemed wrong. I want to help my children learn what talents and abilities God gave them and help them learn to build on those. I want to help them learn how to learn! How to access the information they need to pursue the projects they are interested in. I want to show them where to look for information and resources on their own so that even if I am not available they can figure things out for themselves. More importantly I want to help them to learn to hear from the Lord and pursue what He is calling them to. I can't figure that out for them, but I can show them how to look to the Word of God and how to pray. I am accountable to God to teach my children His love, and His Word, when I think of things this way it changes everything.

After a couple of weeks of talking with my husband, reading blogs about unschooing, and through prayer. We made the decision to quit "school" and start learning through life! I feel like my world view has changed. I am seeing things I have never seen before. I am seeing how intelligent my children really are. If I looked at a standardized test to tell me what they know I might be disappointed, but when I look at them, my children, I am amazed! My 10 year old is reading now because he loves video games and there is so much text involved he realized to be able to play he needed to read. He is not only reading video games, he is reading the Bible! He memorized over 40 Bible verses through the AWANA program at church this past year. My 13 year old is reading better, and has been brushing up on his cooking skills, trying new recipes and experimenting with flavors he has never tried before. My teenager has changed from a grumpy, angry moody kid to a happy, helpful, considerate man-child! We are all getting along better, there is less arguing, and more conversation. LOTS more conversation! We talk ALL the time!

Some of the best things we have done as a family are not really academic but I think they will have the biggest influence on our children as they grow.

~We always attend church together. Sure we occasionally miss, but those times are rare. Daddy usually only comes on Sundays since he works during the week. We have also been part of AWANA for most of the past 7 years. Perhaps AWANA isn't for your family, but as a Christian homeschool family, Bible memorization should be key. I was in AWANA as a teenager and I am so grateful for the verses that I memorized at that time. They have stuck with me and the Lord has used them so much in my life!
~Bible reading. We have changed things throughout the years, sometimes having children's church at home with the boys, sometimes having family devotions, sometimes simply reading through scripture together and discussing it. The Bible has always our guide for how we do things. It is God's Word! It contains God's plan for our lives and we have always shared that with the boys throughout every day life.
~Adventures in Odyssey. LOL, I am going to sound like an advertisement, but here goes. We love Adventures in Odyssey from Focus on the Family. I remember when it first came on the radio when I was a kid. I LOVE that it is full of biblical principals and truths. I love that it confirms to the boys the lessons they have learned from the scriptures. I love that it encourages both adults and kids! They weren't really interested in it when they were little but now they could listen for hours. So many great discussions have happened at our house after listening to Adventures in Odyssey. (even if most of the kids in Odyssey attend public school).
~Conversation. We talk about everything! We discuss movies, radio, church, Bible, video games, social issues, you name it! We don't listen to the radio or watch videos when driving around town, we talk! I have to say, I love the internet, I am able to answer so many more of their questions much more quickly than I would otherwise. I remember a few weeks ago when my 10 year old came in my bedroom at 11 o'clock at night and said "Momma, remind me who the Hellenists were again?". Yeah, at 11 o'clock at night, I needed a little help from google with that one.
~We have down time together. We don't rush around a lot. Part of this is because of my health, but partly because we don't want to be rushed all the time. We enjoy simply hanging out together and with friends. There doesn't always have to be a schedule, though schedules can help us accomplish our goals. Down time is good too. Time to rest and renew. This is needed every week!
~Fundraising. While we have shifted away from being so busy with fundraising for Childhood Cancer this past year, there are still some fundraisers that are close to our hearts. We do a toy drive each year on Silas' Birthday to take toys to the children's hospital where Silas was treated. This is something we all participate in and really enjoy doing. We participate in a head shaving event to raise money for Childhood Cancer research. The boys all had a chance to speak at this event a few months ago, what a great experience for them, speaking in front of hundreds of people! It also helps them to be aware of the hurting world around them.

There are many other things we have done as a family that I consider amazing and important, but I won't go on to name them all. Now that we have changed our perspective and are allowing them to pursue their own interests, they are learning so much through living life! Setting aside work books and text books has not put them behind, but has helped them move forward!

I no longer believe my children are "behind". Behind what? Behind what the world decided they should know? Why should they be reading at 5, learning multiplication at 8, and algebra at 13? Not that reading and math are unimportant, but I now believe that there are very different ways of learning and that learning to read at 12 is just fine! My children may not be able to recite rules of grammar, but they can have a conversation with anyone. They may not spend hours pouring over text books but they can measure ingredients to make a batch of cookies to take to a pot luck. They are learning life skills rather than useless facts they may never need to know and I am totally OK with that!

Our life has become simpler in a way, less stressful for sure, and more focused on important things.

Today, they cleaned out the van, helped me with the dishes and laundry, and now they are building something or other in minecraft together. In a little while we will read another chapter in the book of Judges and discuss it. Then we will cook supper and probably spend some time outside. It's a Saturday as I write this, but learning doesn't just happen Monday through Friday 180 days a year around here, it happens everyday, 365 days a year, and we love it!