Homeschooling: Our Story - Part 1

Disclaimer

This post is not for everyone.  Oh, everyone is free to read it, but not all will understand or appreciate it.  I am writing it for the one person who may.

Our Story

When our son was due to start school, I was filled with fear.  The neighborhood that we lived in was... declining, and I am sad to say that the neighborhood parent practices seemed to be as well.  I was struck by the behavior of the children that I observed walking to and from school, and I was fearful for our impressionable son to be in their midst.  My sister had always planned to homeschool her children, and she encouraged me along that path as well.  And so it began...

The first years were great.  We had lots of fun, and when our daughter was kindergarten-age, we began homeschooling her as well.  As I look back, things went well until probably towards the end of 9th grade for our son.  Then, it became more of a struggle.  It's hard for Mom to also be Teacher, and I believe that he sometimes (or often) resented me for imposing rules related to his schooling, or giving assignments that proved difficult for him.  I knew I wasn't motivating him enough - and yet I struggled with pushing him.  We "threatened" (probably a bad word choice, but bear with me) school for 10th grade when he didn't yet want to go to school, but we ended up doing 10th grade work at home as well.  By 11th grade, he was ready to go to school, but I dragged my feet.  I guess I looked at sending him to school as failure, and I was unwilling to admit defeat.

Part-way through 11th grade, we realized that it simply wasn't working for him (or me) anymore.  This was a HUGE PILL to swallow.  Again, it really felt like defeat to ME.  When I really started praying about it though, God showed me that, in fact, it wasn't about ME at all.  This was all about what was best for our son -- and obviously, THAT was what we wanted.

to be continued...