Homeschooling is Scary

I wasn't homeschooled. Kris wasn't homeschooled. I was vaguely aware of one family as a kid who did homeschool.  I thought they were weird.  Then I read a book when my girls were tiny that said I didn't have to send my babies away  as soon as they turned 5.  And that seemed like a great plan to me.  I didn't want to send them anywhere.  I liked them home with me.  So when Erin turned 5 we didn't send her to school.  And we started to teach them at home to read and to add.  We read about penguins and fireworks and elephants and Australia, and it was a lot of fun.  We made play dough and watched movies and danced a lot and played weird imaginary games.  We drew a lot of pictures and went sledding in the backyard.  But despite all the fun I was having and the sheer joy I experienced in just having my kids around me, there were frequently these little nagging thoughts creeping in...was I messing them up forever?  Would they ever be able to function in society?  Could I teach Algebra?  Chemistry?  What if they wanted to know how to build a robot? What if the neighbors called the police?  What if they really did score below the 13th percentile? What if they lived in my basement forever?  How would they get into college?  Was I messing them up forever?

Last week I took Aislin to the college to take the accuplacer.  If she could prove by means of this one test on a computer that she was 'college-ready', she could register for classes at the college in the Fall.  I told Aislin not to worry.  Just be calm.  Do her best.  It wasn't that important.  If you don't pass the first time, then at least you know what the test is like now and you go home and study and come back to take it again later. No big deal.  Start classes this Fall or start classes next Fall.  There isn't really a required timeline for these things.  And I really believed everything I told her.  Except that, no matter what you tell someone, they will never really believe that it is ok to not pass a test.  No it is devastating.  So I sat in the little room outside the testing room and watched her take the test and was so nervous.  Because what if I had failed her?  What if my homeschooling had not prepared her for this day?  She wanted to take art at the college THIS fall.  Not next Fall.  And if she couldn't, it would be All. Our. Fault.  No one to blame but us, we made sure of that when we decided yeas ago to buck the system and do this all on our own.  We accepted then all the responsibility.

Homeschooling has been one big, long, complicated... experiment for us.  We have tried various things.  we have stuck with some, we have trashed others.  Sometimes we have done it one way for a long long time. Sometimes we have thrown out one idea before it has even had the chance to become a habit.  We don't have a lot of very concrete examples around us that we can turn to and say..look, now THAT obviously works.  What we do have is a very strong belief that this is the right thing for our family.  And by 'this' I mean learning at home together.  I don't mean Saxon math or Apologia science or The Story of the World.  And I don't mean classical education or unschooling or Charlotte Mason.   And that belief is what keeps us going when we are sure that we really are messing them up for life.  That belief is what keeps us going when it seems like everything is against us.  That belief is what keeps us going when nothing seems to be working. When we wonder if one child will ever learn to read or if another will ever write a coherent sentence...  or a legible one. When someone cries day after day over a math lesson.  When we wonder if it really matters if they know this or if they know that or if they have to learn this before they can learn that.  That belief is what keeps us going when we worry that they will grow up to be TOO different from everyone else.  Sometimes we just close our eyes and move forward with the faith that our children belong home with us and with one another and the rest will fall into place.

Aislin passed that test.  She will be taking Drawing 1 and Western Civ at the college this Fall.  She will continue to work on math and writing at home.  She will attend her second year of seminary.  She will work part time.  She will blog when she feels like it. She will doodle on every available scrap of paper in the house. And probably keep trying to figure out how to fix the photo at the top of my blog.  She will cook dinner sometimes and breakfast a lot and cookies even more often.  Best of all, she will still be home with me a lot.  She will still play with her little brothers and sisters and occasionally stay up way to late watching movies or playing games with her not so little brothers and sisters.  And I can breathe a small sigh of relief, because for right now, this homeschooling thing really does seem to be working.  And, so far, no one is messed up for life.