There was once a time when I felt equipped to teach other people’s children but not equipped to teach my own. I guess there’s the pressure of being responsible for everything versus one subject. Also, there’s the “balancing mom and teacher” thing. I must say, God has been faithful. Almost every time I become so discouraged or overwhelmed with homeschooling, He provides grace, rest, conformation and reassurance that this is what He wants me to do during this season of life. I am fulfilling the vision in His will, not my will! And I’m grateful, to say the least. My heart is full even at the end of the most stressful days.

To get into more details, here are 5 specific reasons my husband and I felt lead to homeschool:

1. The Opportunity to Teach 

We get the opportunity to shape and mold our kids full time at such an early, vulnerable age. While doing so, we have to opportunity to control their influence and focus on building their character, faith, and other skills morals & values that we have as a family. Character and Faith are extremely important to us. While you don’t have to homeschool to have these traits, for us I love that I GET to nurture and build my children up in these areas frequently.

2. Meeting Individual Needs

We get to cater to each kids’ learning style. Although my kids are all still very young, it’s extremely evident that each one of my kids have different learning styles and I get the opportunity to observe that regularly and make adjustments based on trial and error. Most schools have a one shoe fits all policy when it comes to learning and testing. In my opinion, that’s unfair and NOT true. During my brief experience in public schools, it was obvious to me why children were not making good grades or passing the state tests.

3. No Need to Rush 

We get to go at our own pace. Sometimes it takes kids longer than a week to grasp/master new material. I honestly didn’t retain much of what I learned in school because I simply memorized the information for a test, then never saw it again. I desire for my children to learn the material not briefly memorize it. Therefore, if it takes us 2 weeks to learn to add vs subtraction, nouns vs pronouns, we get to take the time and focus on just that.

4. Flexibility

We’ve literally moved 10 times in 7 years. Therefore, my kids’ school would have changed just as much. Also, since our schedule is different than most–Homeschool provides us flexibility in school time, curriculums, locations, etc. We typically do school year-round to make up for the slow or missed weeks—and when we travel we can take our work with us or plan hands-on learning experiences for the kids in whatever city we’re visiting.

5. Quality Time

We get to spend a ton of time together as a family. It is my desire for us to be a close-knit family. Because we spend most of our time together, we get to love on each other constantly. Work out our issues in the moment, and do team-building exercises that will enhance our oneness.

If you’re considering homeschooling your children, I encourage you to do the following:

• Seek God first. Pray with fellow believers. 
• Don’t be discouraged by what your friends and family members may think. They probably don’t have their life all together anyhow.
• Establish your why! Have no fear of being exposed to the world.
• Start. Just start. Give it a try and understand that public or private schools are still always an option in the future.
• Know that there are extremely rough days and extremely amazing days — they can both be rewarding!
• Know that you are not alone. There are endless amounts of curriculums, communities, and resources available to assist on the journey!
• Stay connected with us at the F Word! I’ll be providing lots of resources along the way.