5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started Homeschooling

Recent events have inspired me to blog more. Blogging about my October experiment was an excellent way to reflect on how I really felt about unschooling. Now, with a good friend starting to homeschool, I have been thinking about my own beginnings with HS, and what I wish someone had told me as I was starting out.

1) You don't need to school 7 hours a day just because that is how long they would be in public school. Seven hours of one on one (or two on one, or even three on one) time is a lot. If you have a really large family, perhaps as a teacher you would be spending 7 hours homeschooling, but not each child. My kids were young, but I found that most days I was finished with our school day by lunch time. After lunch we might do a project or experiment, but some days I let them watch SpongeBob. So much time in school is spent waiting: for other kids to finish; for the teacher to answer your question; in line for lunch. With homeschool, we cut the wait, and get down to the "nitty-gritty."

2) Workbooks are only so good. When I started homeschooling, I bought LOTS of workbooks that were going to help me teach my son everything first graders need to know. Now the problem was, I was homeschooling my son because he was an outside the box thinker would would not be a good fit for public school. Why in the world did I think he would want to do worksheets? Work sheets are helpful in that they give you "proof" when you meet with the board of education, if like me, you are in an area that makes you check in. But if your son doesn't want to do them, they're not going to help.

3) Just because you are a teacher, doesn't mean your child will listen to you. These people you are homeschooling are still your children. You will still have good days and bad days. Some days they will just want to ignore you. You will have clashes of will. And sometimes no matter how hard you've planned for a topic or a day, they will not listen. Which leads to......

4) Things will go wrong. The lesson won't always go like you planned. You thought they would really enjoy a certain story, then take an hour to think and draw a picture to go with the story, and that you would share and talk about the drawings and ceremoniously hang them on the refrigerator..... But instead, the kids got bored halfway through and now while you are trying to read they are chasing the cat around the room with light sabers. There will be days like this. If you are lucky, only one or two. But I can assure you that it will happen. And when it does......

5) It's OK to take a "personal business day." If you or the kids are burnt out, take a day (or two) off. Find someway to change the sceanery. Take the kids to the zoo, a movie, a Burger King with an indoor playground. Stay home and read while the kids play LEGO Star Wars all day. It's OK. "Real" teachers get PBDs, why not you? If you are lucky enough to have a supportive significant other, go to the zoo, movies, or bookstore (Borders is my equivalent of a BK with indoor playground) by yourself. Just because you signed on to be a parent and to homeschool doesn't mean you have to be there every moment of every day.

Of course, with unschooling, some of these things are less likely to go wrong. Your children still might not listen to everything you want them to, but you'll be "teaching" them a lot less, so they most likely will listen to a larger percentage. And even for unschoolers it's OK to take a personal business day, but you won't need so many, because you will be giving your kids, and yourself more freedom everyday.