My journey in and out of homeschooling our kids

I'll start by saying that I don't (at all) feel the need to defend myself, BUT people keep asking me about it. Why did I stop homeschooling our kids?

reason: God only told me to do it for that year. When the 09-10 school year came to a close, I felt peace about sending them back into the public school system. I never once felt like God was calling me to another year of teaching my kids at home.

In the back of my mind, I always felt something like "if I could just homeschool my kids, everything would be ok"..."if I had more time with them"...."a more laid back lifestyle is what I've always wanted"...."if they could learn what they are most interested in, it would be fun learning"..."if they could be around other families who share our values"....etc, etc..."if if if" So one day as I was talking to God about all this, he said to me, "then do it already, what are you so afraid of....take a risk, do the thing", so I did!

In some ways it helped my family, in other ways it was very damaging. Some memories I will always cherish, they are sweet times with my kids I'd had never experienced any other way. Other memories will haunt me for the rest of my life.

the good: a laid back family life was great. I could drop everything and go help a friend, spend the night with family, take a mini vacation if I wanted to. All I had to do was pack up school books, or plan an educational field trip along the way, and bam, our school hours where done! My kids loved the planning process. Getting to pick what they learned about was such a new concept, and we all fell in love with it. Baylee's love for art, and the creative process flourished & Neal could tell you every character involved in the civil rights movement & how they contributed to equality for all people in America. Making dinner and grocery trips became Math lessons some days. Other days, a picnic at the local Battlefield memorial became a state history lesson. We loved it.

the bad: to my surprise, a vast majority of homeschool families feel the need to defend themselves. I still don't understand where or how this came about. The more friends I tried to make, the more families I got to know, there was this underlying theme of fear. Fear of public school, fear of public school families, teachers, children, fear of having their right to homeschool taken away, fear that their children would somehow be damaged goods by attending school, or having friends that do. It was all very freakish (for lack of a better word) to me. I didn't understand, and still don't. My children overheard some very inappropriate talk among adults. Adults who claimed to love and follow Christ, yet talked about humanity as if it were already damned to hell, and we Christians had better stay away from all the "bad people" out there. It made my stomach turn, and I was sad that a number of children are being raised to believe such things about the world and the perception of God they will develop as a result. Not every family I know that home educated their children feel or act this way, but in my own experience, I meet enough of them to know this mentality of "elite-ism" and fearfulness does exist to a great number in the homeschool community.

the ugly: when your with a group of people 24-7, they get to see the real you. There is no faking it, no pretending, no game face. Its the real, raw, authentic you. As a family we saw the best and worst of each other last year. As a Mom, my kids saw the sometimes weak, sinful creature that I can become. I can be short tempered, unorganized, lazy, boastful of the wrong things, and a host of other not so pretty qualities. There were nights when I'd kneel beside my kids bed and ask for their forgiveness for that day. There are some memories (such as yelling at Baylee for the 25th time already to just GO TO BED) that I wish I could forget. The look of fear and disappointment on her face is more than I can bare some days. I won't even go into my marriage and the stress that having children with you ALL the time can bring.

Through it all, God taught me grace in a whole new way. Grace to face the day and grace to face myself. My children went back to public school this year, and they are performing on or above grade level. They are also more confident with themselves, and a lot more friendly to their peers. Was the year a success, I don't know. I doubt I'll have the answer until I see it through the eyes of my adult children one day. At the end of the day, I think I learned more than my kids ever did last year. I was the teacher, but they gave me a crash course in life. And I'm the better for it!