Learner for Life

 Over the past several years as I have homeschooled my girls, I have been approached by several parents, who are curious about how homeschool works. The most notable incident occurred during the first month of the COVID pandemic quarantine, where school, businesses and other places were closed for a period of time. 

I had been invited to a friend's birthday party at a candle bar, where we each created and poured our own candles. There were about ten women at the gathering, and we all sat and chatted, wearing masks, of course, as we selected scents and candle holders. The conversation during the candle pouring was light and friendly, and I enjoyed getting to know them.

When the activity was over and we all headed out to the parking lot, it seemed as though many of the women had previously planned to approach me at once. I immediately was bombarded with questions about homeschooling, and how can they go about doing it? 

After I got over the initial shock of being confronted by several women at once, I calmed them down by expressing my faith in the sense that due to COVID being such an interruption in our lives, we were dealing with some extreme changes, and they would not last forever. When the women further insisted on learning more about how to homeschool their children, I gave them the following advice:

1. Do not choose to homeschool your children, because you are afraid. 

2. Do not Google 'how to homeschool'.

3. Seek prayerful guidance from the Lord to know if this is the right path for you and your family. 

4. Your children can always go back to school.

Fear is a horrible feeling. It is not from God, and it does not inspire or entice to do good. The reason that was the first advice I gave them, was because I could see fear in their eyes. COVID quarantine was a crazy time! We had never experienced that before in our lives; an illness that shut down our lives. And, it wasn't a good reason to immediately make even more changes in daily routines in order to try and try to control our lives when we were afraid. 

Whether you are afraid of COVID restrictions, ideologies being taught to your children that are against your religious beliefs, or general physical safety of your children, decisions made during bouts of fear can cloud judgment, and cause irrational consequences. 

With that being said, though, these are pretty significant issues that could severely affect your children, and the quality of education they receive. These are valid concerns, and they should be addressed with prudence and logical thought. 

This leads me to my next piece of advice. Do not google 'how to homeschool'. We live in a world chock full of information. That being said, that information can come to us in tidal waves, instead of small ripples at a time. This causes overwhelm, and further clouds the thoughts of well-meaning parents. Google is great; it's just too much all at once, and there are so many resources out there for homeschool options. But too much information all at once, can just cause one to feel overwhelmed and give up on the idea of homeschool altogether, when it could very well be the solution. Because of this, I further advised these women to pick one resource. Perhaps they could check out one book about homeschooling, or talk to a trusted friend or family member that homeschools, and get inspiration in small bites. Then, after there is a cohesive train of thought regarding what they are looking for in their minds, they could Google to their heart's content in a concentrated search.

The third piece of advice is solid. God knows our children (and us!) more than I do. I cannot even tell you how many times I have been prompted to change curriculum, or adjusted how my daughter learned her math concepts, because the previous ways just weren't working, and it was causing so much discord in our home. Seeking the promptings of the Holy Ghost in this way, will ensure that you are doing the very best for your children, for yourself, and for your family.

Finally, it's good to know that if the homeschooling thing doesn't work out for your kids, you can always enroll them in school! This was such a comfort to me at the beginning of my homeschooling journey, because it's not a lifelong commitment to homeschool. There can be changes according to life events, and it doesn't mean that I am a failure as a mom, or that I messed my kids up beyond repair. There are always options. 

Here's a final piece of advice, which I will address further in my next post. The secret to being a successful homeschooling parent, is to keep in mind that our children should be trained to be lifelong learners. If our children learn how to read, write and know how to seek out reliable sources of information, they will not fail in life. It's just impossible. Though their paths may look different than others, they will at least be ON the path!

If you want to learn more about what I'm talking about, then tune in tomorrow for my next post about creating lifelong learners.