Many people I meet ask me why we chose to homeschool. I can't really say that there was one particular reason that we chose to embark on this journey of home schooling, but I can say that we felt a very strong pull that this was the right decision for our family. I honestly think it was a mixture of things. Our daughter was attending a gifted program at our local public school but she was still very bored and was not being challenged. Our youngest was just approaching school age and had a medical condition that made it difficult for us to imagine dropping him off at a school all day long. I was just finishing up my teaching degree. Everything seemed to just fall into place. The timing was right and we knew that we wanted our children to be taught the things that we felt were important to them. We also wanted to be able to help mold and shape their character, which at times can be the most important lessons they learn.
It was certainly not an easy decision. To pull a child out of a school where they are doing well academically can be a very frightening thing. I felt a lot of pressure our very first day of homeschool. As the other neighborhood parents were dropping their children off at their first day of school, I was busy wondering Can I do this? Do I have the patience for this? What if I mess up? What if I can't teach my youngest to read? What if this is a mistake? But with some prayer and lots of fun we made it through that first year and are now flying through our seventh year!!
I really can't imagine not homeschooling at this point. The blessing of having my children home and being able to interact with them and see them learn is priceless and I often ask myself how we ever sent my daughter to school in the first place? I know that homeschooling may not be for everyone, and I certainly am not anti-public school, but I also know that home schooling is absolutely the right call for our family!
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