Making the Decision to Homeschool

Making the decision to homeschool is a serious thing. It is not a decision made lightly for most. It is not a casual thing to do. For most homeschoolers, the decision to homeschool their kids come out of a series of life experiences, personal decisions, and life philosophies. I do not know any homeschoolers who does not understand the gravity of the responsibility.

My personal decision to homeschool was 9 years in the making. My husband and I knew that if we wanted to be 100% sure that our kids were going to be raised in a manner that we wanted; we had to do it ourselves. We wanted strength of character, we wanted ambition, and we wanted individuality. When our first child was born, we had no idea as to how we would accomplish that.

I never even heard of homeschooling until my son was about 6 weeks old. My husband came home from work and began to talk about a co-worker whose kids did not go to school. Being a new mother, who was exhausted and about a cranky as a person can get, my response was not kind. There was no way I was going to tie myself to a kid for 18 years! "You must be crazy!" I said, along with a bunch of other words that cannot be repeated. Still the seed had been planted, and years later when we hit a wall with my sons obvious depression and my daughters short attention span, the seed got the water and sun it needed and homeschooling became the answer for us.

This does not make homeschooling anything less than terrifying. After all, should I fail to do a good job homeschooling your kids, who do I have to blame? I certainly cannot blame the schools. I cannot blame the kids either, seeing that I raised them. All you can say is "I did my best, and if I am not happy, then it's my fault." Not wanting to put myself in that situation, and not wanting to screw up my kids for life, I educated and prepared myself and got on with the business of homeschooling.

Should you be about to embark on the great journey of homeschooling, it is time for you to get educated as well. You can begin by reading my homeschooling glossary. It is in 10 parts. The links are as follows:

A Homeschoolers Glossary: Accidental-Charter
100 Words a Homeschooler Should Know Part 1