That is the question, right?
Taking that initial leap is huge. Seriously- HUGE. It's scary, you're mind is full of doubts, you've got comments from the peanut gallery coming at you, your spouse might not be fully on board but in your heart- you know. This is the right decision.
Recently, I had a girlfriend reach out to me who is wrestling with this. Her son is about to start Kindergarten and she's not sure if she can homeschool. She needs to keep working and is just overcome with all of this. She's me five years ago.
My advice to her was this- follow your heart. The rest will simply fall into place. Now I know this sounds pretty lofty, "fall into place"...yeah right. But I'm here to tell you that it will. When we step back from our lives and take a good look at what our priorities are, the details simply have a way of working themselves out. Trust me on this one.
So seriously- how do they work out?
Five years ago the husband and I had to make a decision. Enroll William in public school Kindergarten, look into private school options, consider the nearby "crazy" Clearwater school or officially become homeschoolers. At the time, we didn't know anyone who was homeschooling. Seriously- no one was doing this and everyone thought we were crazy for even considering it. But what we didn't fully realize at the time was that we were already homeschooling.
William was learning at home. He had been learning at home for the last five years. Sure, financially it was tough- lots of juggling, odd hours, part time jobs and so on but we were doing it. So why now that we were suddenly faced with the decision about officially enrolling him in Kindergarten, did we think we could no longer juggle it? Clearly we were just a bit overwhelmed with this decision that we failed to realize that we didn't even really NEED to make a decision.
Say what?
Yeah- we didn't actually have to really do anything. In our state you have until kids are 8 years old to "state your intent" as far as schooling. So we still had several more years to decide. Oh well...
What we finally decided to do was to try this scary thing called homeschooling. We gave ourselves a year and if it was still working and our son was learning, we would consider that a success and keep going. By about year 3 we stopped giving ourselves this out and realized that we are homeschoolers. Deep down to our core- we are homeschoolers.
In order to make this work financially, I had to keep working. We simply couldn't afford for me to be a full time stay at home homeschooling Mom. I know for many of you, this is also your reality. You can click here to read more about how I work and homeschool. But the main point from this is that you have to switch up your priorities. If you've got a great job that you love but it doesn't work with a homeschooling schedule- you'll need to make some tough decisions. You might have to sacrifice your weekends so you can work or ask friends and family for help but it can be done. Really- we are doing it, so I know it's possible.
At the end of the day, this decision is one that your entire family needs to make together. You'll need the support of your spouse and you need to hear what your kids have to say about all this. So gather together and have an open dialog about homeschooling. And if you do decide to follow this path- please know that you are not alone. Even if you don't have the immediate support of your friends or family, there's so many of us and we've all been in your shoes.
Take the stress out of this decision and simply follow your heart. You can do this.
No comments:
Post a Comment