Why We Educate at Home

I've decided to start this blog off with our reasons for educating at home. As for most, there is not one simple answer. In a nutshell, it's because we believe home is the best choice for our family and we believe God is pleased.

Home schooling is something I wanted to do before I even had kids. It kind of runs in the family. I saw the fruits of home school and wanted that for my children. I thought it would be fun as well as save my children from some of the heart ache I endured throughout my school years. My husband, Scott, was not in complete agreement. He had the usual concerns about our qualifications, the socialization of our children, etc. It only took the birth of our first child to change his mind.

When making decisions for our children, we always consider their spiritual welfare. The same has been true in regards to their education. I love Scottt's statement, "My concern is not whether or not my child turns out to be a geek. My only concern is that my child loves God." Amen.

After prayer and discussion, we decided that public school was not an option. In the beginning, my fears took over and I pushed to have our oldest son, Gabriel, enrolled in a Christian preschool. Gabe's first experience with school was wonderful. At that point, I resigned myself to a lifetime of being classroom mom.

Then we moved. We moved 4500 km away from home. A month later, we dropped Gabriel off for his first day at his new school. As we drove away, Scott was questioning the wisdom in our choice. I was saying, "Scott, I NEED the time alone." (What a dummy I was.) Besides, Gabriel needed a place to make new friends. Right?

Scott continued to give me a guilt trip, but left the decision to me. Had I been wiser, I would have submitted to his leadership and avoided the problems to come. The guilt did eat at me some. I spoke with a friend about the decision and she assured me that I should only home school if God burdened my heart to do it.

It didn't take long for things to go sour. Within two weeks, Gabriel was crying every time I dropped him off. He never talked about school in a positive light and lost interest in learning at all. After some investigation and time in the classroom, I realized that the new teacher was very insensitive to the needs of children out of her range of normal. She always acted frustrated with kids who didn't comply to her standards. In fact, one day she told me that Gabriel had a fear issue and needed to memorize Philippians 4:13. I offered to speak with her further in a phone conversation rather than in front of my son, other children and their parents. We had a nice conversation and I told her that Gabriel would no longer be in her class, effective immediately.

My heart was burdened and I haven't wavered since. As time goes by, we see more and more reasons to keep our children at home. There are so many things in life that pull us away from home. So many children spend so few hours out of the influence of home. In the end, we want to be the primary influence in our children's lives. We want to have time spent with our children developing trust and teaching values to strengthen them for adulthood. We want to teach them that God is really the only thing that matters.

Besides, Scott works nights. Our family time is in the morning. Need I say more?

Now, for a tiny confession. One of our children is in preschool two mornings a week. This was not an easy decision for us. She does have some needs that, due to various reasons, we are unable to meet on our own right now. It is our plan to take her out as soon as she is enrolled in the services for which we await. In the meantime, this homeschooling momma is very irritated by everything that goes along with preschool. I.E., fundraisers, parties, dress-up days, show and tell, etc. Basically, all the things that everyone else loves about school now officially get on my nerves.