Are homeschooled kids weird?
~ Written by Sarah Small

Admit it. Somewhere deep in your heart, you’ve wondered, especially if you’ve ever heard someone say, “I know a homeschooling family at my church. Those kids are weird!”

Prefer to listen instead? Look for Episode 86 of the podcast!

Haven’t we all asked ourselves: Are homeschooled kids weird? Will my kids be weird?

Weird. Normal. We all have our own definitions. You might say, “I don’t want my kids to be ‘normal’ by today’s standards!” And you might also say, “I don’t want my kid to be labeled as a weirdo!”

But here’s the thing:

All kids are weird.

That’s normal. I mean, when I was a kid—in the privacy of my own home—I stuck black olives on all my fingers and ate them off, one by one. That’s weird, right? Of course I didn’t eat black olives at public school, but if I had, I would not have eaten them off my fingers one by one.

I would have known that was weird because some kid would have announced to the entire cafeteria: “THAT GIRL IS EATING OLIVES OFF HER FINGERS LIKE A WEIRDO!” Even those kids that had a secret desire to emulate me would have shriveled and mocked me. I would have been forever known as Olive Girl.

Here’s what’s different about homeschoolers. At my homeschooling co-op, if one kid were eating black olives off his fingers, I can guarantee that the rest of them would be doing it within seconds. Because weird is good. Weird is normal.

I eat black olives like a “normal” person now, although my husband would argue that no “normal” person even eats olives. But you know what? Without any coaching from me, I swear, my youngest son does this.

Because 99.9% of kids (totally made-up statistic) are innately weird, creative, silly, funny, uninhibited, and terribly clever—if they are allowed to be.

I remember distinctly a day when my firstborn son was in kindergarten in public school. He wanted to wear his kilt and sheepskin vest to school. “Sweetie, you can’t wear a kilt to school,” I told him. I hated to tell him why, but I had to.

“You can only wear your kilt at home. Kids don’t wear kilts to school.”

I squashed his weirdness. I had to, for his sake.

Fast forward several years, when this same kid was 13 and had been homeschooled since we pulled him out of public school after first grade. One day we found, stuffed in the back of a closet, a llama-hair poncho that my husband once brought back from South America.

My son was ecstatic! For months he wore that poncho everywhere, including our homeschooling co-op. He also wore John Lennon-type sunglasses and t-shirts with ties.

And yep, I’m sure the kids thought he was weird. But they didn’t care because they were weird, too.

My son has graduated college now. I asked him recently what some of the best aspects about homeschooling were. One of the things he said was this:

“I had the chance to be a quirky, weird, and creative kid without intense ridicule. I was then able to develop that all into socially acceptable quirkiness as a college student.”

“Socially acceptable quirkiness” usually translates to “outside-the-box” thinking. What is one of the top qualities that employers in most fields look for in employees? Innovation and creativity—outside-the-box thinkers.

Childhood weirdos.

Homeschooling allows kids to be weird when it’s okay to be weird.

As your kids get older, chances are they will learn to corral their quirks and develop into creative young adults who refuse to accept mediocrity and challenge the status quo.

I think we need more weirdos in our world.

So ‘fess up. Have you ever wondered it, too: Are homeschooled kids weird? Do you harbor a secret fear that people will think your kids are weird?

* Read more of Sarah’s homeschooling tips and stories from over the years

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!

Stepping Outside the Grade-Level Box ~
Written by Sarah Small of Small World

Ask a homeschooled kid the innocuous “What grade are you in?” and you’ll often get a furrowed brow and an answer with a question mark at the end.

“Fourth?”

This response can be alarming to grandparents, non-homeschooling friends, and the cashier at Walmart. Their raised eyebrows ask, “He doesn’t know what grade he’s in?”

Well, no. Not exactly.

That hallmark of traditional schooling—the passing from grade to grade—isn’t of utmost importance in homeschooling. The age/grade correlation just isn’t necessarily present.

If your nine-year-old is reading at a post-college level, does that make him 23? Who decided, after all, that picture books are for preK-3^rd grade, that pre-algebra is done in middle school, and that high school takes four years?

Who came up with all this stuff? I don’t know the answer to that.

What I do know is that homeschooling allows us to provide learning opportunities for our children at their own pace.

Stepping Outside the Grade-Level Box

This might mean that:

• your nine-year-old is reading at a 10^th-grade level but has the fine motor skills of a kindergartener;
• or your 13-year-old daughter writes astounding stories but still doesn’t know all her multiplication facts;
• or your son finished high school at 16, but your daughter plans to take a leisurely five years and graduate at 19.

This can be tough for those of us who went through the traditional education system. By nature most homeschooling parents are outside-the-box thinkers, but we still tend to second-guess our choices every now and then, as if some public school administrator is peering over our shoulders and wagging his finger at us.

I balk when I hear parents ask “Where can I find out where my child should be for his grade level?”

The beauty of homeschooling is that it just doesn’t matter. Our kids don’t have to be boxed into a grade.

I remember a story my brother told me once about his daughter, then in first grade in public school. The teacher called him and his wife in for a conference. “I need you to stop teaching her things at home,” she said to them. “She is reading too far ahead and doing math that we don’t learn until the third grade.”

My brother and his wife explained that they weren’t teaching her at home, but that they weren’t going to stop her from figuring things out on her own.

Last year I made the decision to skip over the next math textbook for my son. I compared the two consecutive years and realized that few new concepts were introduced in the 4^th grade book. The question for this particular child became: Why spend an entire year doing the same old thing?

We moved into and through the 5^th grade book easily, and then I looked at the 6^th grade book and saw a whole year of the same old thing, again. But skipping another book would mean going into pre-algebra.

Somehow I couldn’t wrap my brain around my 10-year-old doing pre-algebra already, especially since my 13-year-old just finished the curriculum. But, well, he can. “Move him up,” my husband said simply and sensibly.

My youngest guy likes math. He’s excited about it, figures it out quickly, and is thrilled to be moving on to pre-algebra. On the other hand, he still reverses the letters “b” and “d” every now and then, and he’s never written more than a paragraph on his own.

Is he in seventh grade or second grade? Does it matter?!

Grade levels are necessary for the structure of traditional school, certainly, and they are generally necessary for things like clubs, sports, camps, and church activities.

I think we should all teach our kids a basic grade-level answer (i.e., “I’m in fourth grade”), without feeling the need to explain to the general public that she’s doing 7^th grade math, 5^th grade science, and reading at a 9^th grade level.

But in our own homes, shedding our mental checklist of “what your child should know in each grade” can be liberating—and tremendously beneficial to our kids.

Homeschooling is all about finding the heartbeat of your family and following that pace—not your neighbor’s, not your best homeschooling buddy’s, and not the grade level expectations for your child’s age.

* Bio: With a master’s degree in English/creative writing, Sarah shared her beautiful words on Simple Homeschool for 4 years. Read more of her inspirational words here!

What’s your philosophy on grades? What do your kids say when asked what grades they are in?

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!

Our support group’s annual Homeschooling 101 is coming up soon, and I’ve been putting together notes and packets in preparation for my presentation.

I love looking out at the audience and seeing so many people; and whether their faces are eager, apprehensive, confused, or even terrified, they all have this in common: they desperately want to do the best for their children. Some of them will find out that homeschooling is the absolute best choice they can make; others will pursue different avenues.

Prefer to listen instead?

Invariably, sometime during the session, the question comes in some form:

what piece of advice would you give a newbie?

Much more important to me than choosing curriculum or having well-organized shelves or even deciding whether to keep homeschooling is the tremendous task of being a good parent.

My pieces of advice really apply to any parents, not just homeschooling ones.

1. Read aloud every single day.

Start when they are babies, and do it as long as you possibly can. There is research galore about why reading aloud to your kids is good for them. I think I would go so far as to say that reading aloud to your kids—not just until they are reading independently but throughout their childhood—is foundational to a lifetime of learning.  [Here’s my list of Top 25 Read-Alouds (for ages 5-12).]

2. Don’t get distracted by what someone else is doing.

3. Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t compare your kids to others.

These two go hand-in-hand. Hike your own hike. Stay true to your own family. Trust your gut, and know your kids. (More on this in my Guide to Navigating the Homeschooling Community.)

4. Get outside.

Take a walk or a bike ride. Play badminton, hop scotch, and jump rope. Look at insects, plant flowers, pull weeds. Breathe deeply. It doesn’t matter what you are doing: just get fresh air every day.

5. Be nice.

Most children reflect their parents’ moods. If you are distracted, grumpy, and/or irritable, they will be, too. That doesn’t mean you have to plaster a fake smile on your face all day, but monitor your own moods. If you think your kids are unreasonably crabby or anxious, take an honest look at yourself.

6. Take trips.

Don’t wait until all the kids are just the right age or you have money for nice hotels and plane fare. Go now and do what you can. Be creative and adventurous! (See My Biggest Homeschool Mistake: Not Traveling More.)

7. Don’t try to control your environment by controlling your kids.

Stand back. Provide a safe place, but don’t hover. Let them make mistakes. Let them wear clothes that don’t match and dip their asparagus in applesauce if they really want to. Loosen the reins a little bit each year, but don’t be afraid to pull in when you need to.

If our ultimate goal is encourage our kids to be independent, unique adults, you must let them breathe and gets scrapes and even dent the car.

Photo by Stephanie Bowling

8. Let your kids get dirty.

Let them drag their feet in the dirt, roll in the mud, dig big holes, smear paint on their stomachs, run through the sprinkler, climb trees, and get mosquito bites. Being barefoot is good for the soul.

9. Don’t box them in with labels.

You know that widely circulated Albert Einstein quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Think long and hard before you define your child with a label, whether it’s “she’s my shy one” or “he’s the talker” to “he hates math” or “she doesn’t like writing.”

10. Remember that children are, indeed, wonderfully and fearfully made.

They come with their own unique personalities and needs, which will determine how they learn best. Be constantly aware that what works for one child will not necessarily work for another.

Don’t be tied to any particular curriculum if it isn’t working for one child. Homeschooling—and parenting—is all about flexibility.

11. It’s much more important to show love to my child than to finish the math book.

We have choices to make every day. We can scream at our kids to finish their work, or we can calmly and lovingly guide them and encourage them.

Some days are much, much harder than others, and choosing to love often seems impossible. Remember who they are and why you have them at home—and swallow your irritations.

12. Enjoy them.

It’s true what you’ve heard. Kids really do grow up fairly fast, and you really will miss stepping on Legos one of these days. Well, sort of.

Whether you’re teaching your little one to read or helping your teen fill out college applications, enjoy these precious gifts that you’ve been entrusted with. (See The Best Part of Homeschooling: Enjoying Them.)

What is the best piece of advice about homeschooling you ever received? What one piece of advice do you like to give to new homeschoolers?

This post originally published on April 17, 2013.

We started reading to our firstborn the day we brought him home. We didn’t start with Pat the Bunny or Goodnight Moon, although those both played an important part in our story time with all our children. We started with a college textbook, Western Civilization. We just wanted him to hear the sound of our voices and to get a feel for language.

Over the years we have read hundreds of books to our three children, from board books to great classics. Reading aloud comes in two forms in our family: as part of school (we have used Sonlight’s literature-based program for the majority of our years) and before bed.

Beginning at about age 5 with each of our kids, we moved from a diet of picture books and short easy readers to serious chapter books. Don’t worry about your child not “getting” a book that is “meant” for older kids. They will.

Around age 12 or 13 the evening reading aloud ended, followed shortly by the end of our school-time read-alouds. We are down to just one child who gets all of our reading attention now, and we are determined to have lots of reading time together until he, too, prefers his own voice in his head.

Below is a list of our Top 25 favorite family read-alouds. They are in no particular order, except that I listed a few series at the end. Why did these books make the list when dozens of others didn’t quite qualify? These are the books the kids remember with almost a tender fondness and sometimes almost awe. These were books we lived in, the ones that do, indeed, seem like part of our family.

Our Top 25

1. Maniac McGee (Jerry Spinelli): A boy ignores boundaries in a small town, soothing racial tensions.
2. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken): Wolves, an evil governess, nasty villains, and two girls who escape terror to find their true inheritance.
3. Across Five Aprils (Irene Hunt): A boy grows into manhood as his brothers leave to fight in the Union and Confederate armies.
4. The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Elizabeth George Speare): An orphan comes to live with her relatives in a Puritan town, befriends an outcast Quaker, and becomes an outcast herself.
5. Caddie Woodlawn (Carol Ryrie Brink): Features the Woodlawn family, pioneers in Wisconsin. Caddie and her brothers have continuous adventures from possible massacres to prairie fires.
6. Cheaper by the Dozen (Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey): Forget the popular movie and read the incredible true story of the Gilbreth kids and their parents.
7. Little Britches (Ralph Moody): In the early 1900s, eight-year-old Ralph and his family move to a Colorado ranch. Their life is full of hardships and lots of love. A huge tear-jerker!
8. Hitty, Her First 100 Years (Rachel Field): From one owner to another, the doll Hitty sees tremendous changes in the world over the course of 100 years.
9. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster): The classic story of the boy Milo, who finds his boring life interrupted when he travels to Dictionopolis and the lands beyond.
10. The Wheel on the School (Meindert DeJong): A Dutch village joins together as it seeks to bring storks back to the rooftops of Shora.
11. Follow My Leader (James Garfield): Jimmy is accidentally blinded by a firecracker. With the help of his guide dog, he perseveres.
12. Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio (Peg Kehret): Tells of the author’s battle with polio as a young girl. Mesmerizing.
13. Number the Stars (Lois Lowry): Annemarie and her family are part of the Danish resistance in WW2, helping to smuggle their Jewish friends to safety.
14. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Jean Lee Latham): The story of Nathaniel Bowditch, an ordinary boy who becomes a pioneering navigator.
15. The Sign of the Beaver (Elizabeth George Speare): 13-year-old Matt is left alone to guard his family’s new cabin in the Maine wilderness.
16. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson): The six horrible Herdman kids turn the annual Christmas program upside down.
17. The Cricket in Times Square (George Selden): Chester Cricket tours NYC with his new friends Tucker, Harry, and Mario.
18. Watership Down (Richard Adams): The classic story of rabbits who flee the destruction of their home, searching for a safe haven.
19. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien): Trolls, goblins, dragons, dwarves, and, of course, hobbits. This is the incomparable adventure of Bilbo Baggins.
20. The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis): My own personal favorite of all the books on the list. If you haven’t read them, well, please do.
21. The Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling): Adored by our kids and by us parents, as we experienced them together for the first time (and many times since then).
22. Little House on the Prairie series (Laura Ingalls Wilder): I can’t imagine a girlhood without Laura and the rest of Ingalls family.
23. Ramona series (Beverly Cleary): Ramona, Beezus, Henry, and the rest of the gang should not be missed. Henry Huggins and Ribsy were also favorites.
24. The Boxcar Children (Gertrude Chandler Warner): Orphans Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny solve mysteries and have many adventures. The first four books were our favorites.
25. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Roald Dahl): Willy Wonka, Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and the Oompa-Loompas: what a crazy adventure. The books are madcap and hilarious but poignant.

I hope you’ve found a few new titles to add to your read-aloud time. What are some of your family’s absolute favorites?

This post originally published on April 6, 2012.

I am blessed to live in an area where homeschooling is not at all unusual. Everyone knows at least a few homeschooling families; nonetheless, we aren’t immune to the naysayers, the critics.

I used to be outraged. I used to bristle. I remember one of my first encounters with a lady who was quite vocal about her disgust with homeschooling. I had just moved to town and was attending a new church. Here is how my conversation went with this woman:

So where does your son go to school?”

“I am homeschooling him.”

“Oh. Well, I would never do that. We have the best schools in the state right here.”

That was the end of the conversation. She actually turned her back to me, quite literally, and never engaged me in conversation again for the decade I attended that church.

Most of us have had that conversation or one similar. We’ve heard the common babble about socialization to the audacious “why aren’t you using your degree?” and its strange partner, “do you even have a teaching degree?” comments.

We wonder what would actually possess someone to say, “I am a better mom because my kid is in school.”

We inwardly flinch when we hear, “My kid would like to be homeschooled, but I would kill him.” Our hearts break a little when they say, “I could never be around my kid all the time. She frustrates me way too much.”

I have zipped my lips a hundred times over the past 13 years. I have rolled my eyes to the back of my head while wearing a beatific smile and maintaining eye contact with someone who sounds exactly like Charlie Brown’s teacher to me. (“Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.”) In my head, do you know what I’m saying? Please stop talking. Please, oh please, stop talking.

If you are a homeschooler, you’ve been there. And you’ve experienced that dilemma: should I keep my mouth shut, or should I respond? I think often we feel like homeschooling traitors if we don’t respond, as if somehow we need to launch a counter-attack to set the critics straight.

For me, there is absolutely no advice better than that given in Colossians 4:6:

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (ESV).

Years ago (and keep in mind, this is my 13^th year of homeschooling!), I would stew on negative comments for days, pondering what I should have said, regretting what I did say, or having imaginary conversations in my head in which I set that person straight. (Oh, come on. You’ve done that too, right?)

These days I have a checklist I run through in my head when I find myself involved in one of these types of conversations. My mental checklist goes something like this:

• Is the person just making conversation?
• Is the person actually interested in homeschooling?
• Is the person completely off track and needs some gentle correcting?
• Is this a waste of time and energy?

Recently homeschooling came up in a conversation with a new acquaintance—one with whom I’d be sharing a fair amount of time. His confident assertions about homeschooling (he’d “met a few homeschooling families”) irked me. His opinion went something along the lines of “homeschooling can be successful if the family is highly structured and runs a tight ship, but those families that just go to the store and call it math are bound for trouble.”

In my head I’m saying, “Did you really just say that? Seriously? Because your copious research into homeschooling has allowed you to make such a grand declaration?”

What I really said, while smiling, was something along the lines of “Each family is different. Some work well with structure and some don’t.” And then I changed the subject. The conversation wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t mean any harm by his comment, and I knew that. He was just making conversation. He wasn’t asking for my philosophy of homeschooling, and I wasn’t asking for his.

My friend recently had an encounter in which I think she responded admirably. While getting her hair cut at her usual salon, she (as well as everyone else in the salon) overheard the older woman in the next chair ranting about homeschooling. The stylist appeared to agree with her, offering encouraging remarks now and then.

As my friend says, “I didn’t want to show disrespect to this woman, but I felt like I needed to address this for my own sake.” So after the woman left, my friend approached this stylist with a few pictures of her kids on her phone. “Do you see these kids?” she asked him. He nodded, smiling. “They are smart, beautiful, friendly, well socialized kids. They are mine. And they are homeschooled.

“I’m not very outspoken, but I think you have the wrong idea about homeschooling. There are a lot of things I need to keep my mouth shut on because I don’t know enough about it, but I do know homeschooling. And I know that my kids are very socialized and educated and I feel lucky to keep them home with me.”

She was pleasant, kind, and level-headed while presenting her own views on a topic which the other client had made quite public. She stood up for her own choices without tearing down the other woman. I totally high-fived her.

We want to defend our choices. We want to make them see how wrong they are. In our ardor, we may get angry, defensive, and hypercritical. We may find ourselves engaged in a battle, determined to convince someone that homeschooling is best!

But you know what? Homeschooling is not best for everyone.

Be confident in your decision, and resist the urge to shake some sense into everyone who has a word “against” your choice.

That doesn’t mean you should never respond—but just respond thoughtfully, graciously, and with the right seasoning.

And practice your own beatific smile.

So what’s your tactic? How do you respond to the homeschooling critics in your life?

The sky is just starting to lighten. From my regular perch I watch a new day come, wait for the riot of color as the sun pops up over the mountains. The next few hours are mine. This is the “me” time that stay-at-home moms crave: my creative time, productive time, devotion time, exercise time. I write, pray, run, plan, catch-up, check things off—and add things to—my to-do list. I shower quietly, without my ears tuned to the cries of “Mommy!”

You with little ones don’t have this—I know. Your little ones are your alarm clock.

But one of these days, you’ll have middle and high schoolers who sleep in late—and you won’t.

My kids often sleep as late as 10:15; in fact, I have to awaken my 12-year-old most of the time. I have heard variations on this statement more than once: “They’ll need to wake up early in the real world! You’d do better to prepare them for that now!” Indeed they will. Possibly for the rest of their lives, our children will have to awaken by 7 a.m. or earlier. This is a luxury I can give them as teens, when they need sleep even more than they did as children.

My kids’ school day begins roughly at 10:30 or 11.

My goal is to get two hours’ worth of school in with my seventh-grader before we break for lunch. On Mondays we have a full day of co-op classes, so we follow the same schedule Tuesday-Friday.

• Bible. He’s currently working through various reading plans on youversion.com.
• Math. Teaching Textbooks (algebra).
• Language Arts. Easy Grammar, Spelling Power (Wednesdays), basic essay writing (my materials), reading comprehension workbook (for ACT prep).
• Independent reading. My 12-year-old does not love reading independently, so we have to actually schedule this in.
• History. We are studying World War II in depth this year, so we’ll read together from a history book and our novel du jour. (See my 2012 curriculum fair post to read more about our specifics.)

My daughter, a sophomore, completely sets her own schedule. She takes all her classes through our co-op (my husband and I each teach one of hers): American literature, U.S. history, U.S. government, ecology, and geometry. She knows what she needs to get done and when. I check in with her periodically throughout the week, but she is a responsible, well-organized, and self-motivated girl. She gets it done and asks for help if she needs it.

I am protective of our mornings at home, keeping appointments and activities to the late afternoon hours as much as possible.

About once each week we have a golden day spent entirely at home. Those are days that we’ll do a week’s worth of science in a couple of hours, work on a Boy Scout merit badge, or just spend some time playing a board game with my parents.

But normally, once afternoon hits, my day is most often spent being a chauffeur. We have something different every day, from regular activities like guitar lessons and geometry class, to bi-weekly orthodontist appointments and teen outings with our homeschooling group. We also have regular evening activities like Boy Scouts, youth group, dance lessons, and government class. Our schooling is by no means limited to daylight hours or weekdays.

At this point in our homeschooling career, our focus is on:

• Working independently
• College prep
• Self-discipline
• Clear thinking
• Thoughtfulness
• Service to others
• Deliberate academic, social and spiritual maturity

If you are a parent, you know it: learning happens all the time, not just in the traditional school hours of 8-3, and certainly not just between the pages of a textbook.

A look back on Sarah’s homeschool day:

• 2012: with an 11 and 14-year-old
• 2011: with a 10-, 13-year-old, & a graduate

Do you find that your determination to “get things done” in a certain time frame ever undermines your homeschooling vision?

Written by contributor Sarah Small of SmallWorld at Home

As I write, three teenagers in Santa hats are in the kitchen loudly singing, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” It is 7:15 a.m., and I hush them because I don’t want them to wake “the baby.” The baby is almost 12, and like most tweens, he likes to sleep in.

We’re a long way from reading quietly during the baby’s naptime. We’re a long way from making handprint wreaths and salt dough ornaments.  My daughter and her friends are making their lunches before they head out to co-op, where they’ll have a full day of classes: ecology, American literature, American history, geometry, ACT Prep, and drama.

They leave. My 12-year-old still snoozes; the cat snores softly on the couch. The house is almost perfectly quiet. There is not one single toy visible to me, not even a Lego guy head.

Bustle changes as the seasons of our life shift.

It is at times like this I hear the choir of older mothers who used to warn me.

You know them—the ones who sing, “Enjoy them now! They grow up too fast!” ad nauseam. For me, they always seemed to choose exactly the wrong time—after a particularly sleepless night, at the supermarket check-out line when the youngest was screaming for candy, or after an hour of trying to keep them quiet during church—to express this quaint but obviously erroneous sentiment.

“Grow up too fast?” I’d think to myself. “This goes on forever and ever and ever! If only they’d grow up just a little!”

It was true, what they said, for the most part. 

The days do go by quickly, although we can’t see that in the midst of crumbled cookies, sticky hands, and scattered toys. When we spend half our day refereeing fights, commanding kids to “PICK UP!” and counting to 10, we fantasize about just one hour of quiet or even a shower without a kid banging on the door. An hour’s trip to Target without kids is the equivalent of a weekend at the ritziest spa.

We can’t imagine, as we read his favorite book aloud for the zillionth time in a row, that one day he’ll be raiding your bookshelves, “borrowing” all your favorite novels and taking them to college. It’s true.

I am not quite to the stage where I can say I miss stepping on Legos, but I do feel a twinge of grief when I toss the unread American Girl catalog into the recycling bin. I don’t even ask my 15-year-old daughter if she wants to look though it anymore.

But you know what the best thing is about homeschooling? And yes, I mean the best part of homeschooling?

When I remember all those ladies warning me to “Enjoy them while they’re young,” I think to myself: I did.

We seized the days together.

I got to enjoy the ins and outs and ups and downs of their every day lives. My husband and I nourished them, nurtured them, and watched them grow. We didn’t have to send them off so that someone else got to enjoy them—or worse, not enjoy them. Forget about academics and socialization and all that stuff.

The essence of homeschooling is so simple: we get to be with them.

We are privileged to really enjoy them while they are young so that it doesn’t all go by too fast.

And so as one of those older women now, I will say this to you: keep enjoying them. In the bustle of this season, treasure these moments up in your heart. Snuggle on the couch and read your favorite Christmas story a dozen times in a row. Let them get messy decorating sugar cookies.

One of these days, they will head out the door in a flurry of goodbyes, you will have enough quiet moments for reflection.

What moments are you treasuring in this season of your life?

Written by contributor Sarah Small of SmallWorld at Home

At a recent roundtable discussion organized by our homeschooling support group, a brand new homeschooling mom raised her hand and asked the perennial question: What counts as homeschooling?

I have heard the same questions dozens of times through the years: Can I count playing board games? Can I count hiking as PE? Can I count the afternoon we spent talking with a veteran about WWII? Can I count our trip to Washington DC? Yes, yes, seriously? and YES!

I know the question that is being asked. It comes from a deeply ingrained assumption that if it is school, it must be ___________ [boring, tedious, difficult, taxing, mind-numbing, repetitive—you choose]. For some reason, we feel that we must put an official stamp of approval on an activity in order for it to “count” as “school.”

At this point, a redefinition is necessary. Since most of us were public schoolers ourselves, we have trouble confusing the word “school” with its intention, “education.” Education is, at its core, developing the abilities of the mind: acquiring general knowledge and skills, developing clear thinking and good judgment, and ultimately working toward navigating in the world at a mature level.

Instead of asking ourselves “does this count as school?” we should be asking, “Is my child learning something worthwhile?”

Our job as educators is to be able to recognize what is worthwhile. Ask yourself if a particular activity serves to help your child acquire general knowledge and skills, or develop clear thinking or a new perspective in some way.

Did your six-year-old learn how to crack an egg into a bowl while you were baking cookies today? That is a skill that some adults haven’t yet mastered. Does your teenager lead devotions at youth group? She is learning organization and leadership skills that absolutely “count.”

Some use the mantra “learning happens all the time.” I’m not convinced that any learning goes on while a child is watching “Sponge Bob,” but the idea behind the mantra is valid.

The world is full of opportunities for learning new things. Seize them. That is what counts!

Some of us will need to mentally (or physically) check a box: museum field trip = history; letter-writing = language arts; going for a nature walk = science; finding and measuring every rectangle in the house = math. Don’t apologize if you need to keep track of these things in a formal manner. Some of us are wired that way.

If you have someone in your life who is skeptical that “learning happens all the time”—or if you are doubting yourself—try recording every little detail of your child’s daily life. Put each activity into a category (math, language arts, science, health, art, music, etc.). I think you’ll find that those things that seemed so un-school-like are, indeed, worthwhile learning opportunities.

As home-educators, we need to focus on the “worthwhile” part and not on the what-looks-like-school part.

We shouldn’t be teaching to the test; we should be teaching to the mind, to the heart, and to the soul.

Because that is what truly counts.

Do you have trouble deciding “what counts”? How do you define learning?

A note from Jamie: Now that we’re in the swing of another academic year, it’s helpful to remember the reasons why we’ve chosen this homeschooling lifestyle. Sarah sums it up so beautifully in this post, which originally published on August 12, 2011. Enjoy!

Where I live, the public schools begin in early August. Summer still—the hottest month of the year—and kids are sitting in slick chairs, pencils sharpened, new shoes still a little tight. I imagine a little boy just my son’s age watching a fat bee hover outside the window. He can’t hear it buzzing, of course, because the air conditioner drones at high speed, drowning out the sounds of bees and the smell of sunshine and dry grass.

We started homeschooling 12 years ago because…

• We thought it was silly that our then-first-grader spent time each week in public school devoted to filling in bubbles on a test page. He and his classmates were practicing for the standardized tests they would have to take in second grade.

• We didn’t like being warned that we were not to go away on vacation—that doing so would be an unexcused absence. But, we asked, what about all the learning that comes with traveling? They’ll miss too much at school, we were told.

• Our six-year-old would come home from a long day of school and have to do homework. He would sit at the table, folder of worksheets in front of him, looking stressed out.

• Our state ranks near the bottom of the barrel, year after year, in education. Even the “best” schools, when held in comparison to other states, are only mediocre. And we do not strive for mediocrity.

We started homeschooling for a bunch of reasons, and the list has grown year after year.

But sometimes it is just one reason that stands out above all the others. Forget academics, test scores, long days, busy work, and tedium. What we give them now is this: an August day. A river to wade in. The feel of dry grass beneath our feet, and a sliver of silver moon at night.

Sometimes that whole stack of “reasons why” comes down to a knowing feeling—a conviction that this is the way life should be.

That’s how I like to start each new year of homeschooling: knowing that for every tangible reason why, there is an intangible one as well. For every study that points to higher ACT scores among homeschoolers, there is my own memory of my three little ones playing in the sandbox while I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond to them. For every argument that homeschoolers become more responsible adults, there is an afternoon spent hiking in the glorious autumn sunshine.

As I prepare to begin my 12th year, I hold on to the conviction that we are made to hear the bees buzzing and smell the late-blooming flowers. And sometimes that’s reason enough to homeschool.

What intangible moments have made you grateful to be homeschooling? What reason do you give most often when asked why you homeschool?

I keep counting on my fingers, so I must be right: we are beginning our 13^th year of homeschooling. Thirteen years! And I have to be honest—I’m not always exuberant about starting back.

It isn’t that I want to send my kids to school or anything like that; I just like having lazy summer days. I am reluctant for all our activities to resume, and I really just want to go to the pool, hang out by the river, or travel across the country.

I recently co-facilitated a session for brand new homeschoolers. They were so eager! They shared ideas, suggested websites, exchanged email addresses, arranged play dates, asked about clubs, brainstormed field trips, and, of course, talked curriculum.

My kids are in middle, high school, and college now. I miss those days of anticipation, of bright construction paper and M&M math. I miss sticky crafts, our giant box of inventing supplies (e.g., toilet paper tubes, shoeboxes, and popsicle sticks), and reading by the sandbox while the kids played.

Some years I have missed being excited about starting our new year. With that comes the mommy guilt of lacking enthusiasm.

After all, shouldn’t we be eagerly anticipating another year of instilling a love of learning in and molding the minds of our children?

When you reach year four or five, you might have one of those years when you just aren’t thrilled about teaching. I am here to tell you that lots of us—probably most of us— understand, and also to suggest a few ways to get a little excited.

Here’s why:

Your kids’ excitement for learning is directly influenced by your excitement for teaching them.

It’s not rocket science, I know. But I think sometimes we forget how much our attitude affects our kids. We wonder why they are reluctant to start the day or why they grumble about doing math.

Photo by Laura Dye

I wish I could offer a magic potion that would instantly turn us all into Super Homeschooler; not only would I be rich, but I’d be really popular! Instead I will offer a few tips for an attitude adjustment, whether you are starting a new year or somewhere in the middle.

1. Clean your house. Decluttering and cleaning does wonders for everyone in the household. Throw out old papers, clean the windows (yes, really!), and dust every surface. Think spring-cleaning clean. You will be amazed at what this does for your sanity!
2. Buy yourself something new. We all get the kids new markers and crayons, right? But what do you get for yourself? Buy yourself a new pair of shoes, a sharper pair of scissors, or an amazing pencil sharpener. Little things can make a big difference!
3. Fix up your school space. Whether you have a whole room or a corner in the dining room, do something to transition to the new year or season. Add a small nature table with leaves and a bird’s nest, buy a globe, hang a new map on the wall. You don’t have to go Pinterest crazy; just make a few changes that add a little sparkle to your space.
4. Get dressed. If you are a pajama or sweat pants schooler, try getting dressed now and then. Put on some shoes (maybe even those new ones) and a cute outfit. You might be amazed at how differently you feel about yourself when you aren’t in your jammies at 3 p.m.!
5. Get outside. Take a 15-minute walk or pull a few weeds in your flowerbed. Better yet, take a whole day off to go hiking or explore a new park. Vitamin D does wonders for the psyche!
6. Make a schedule. If you are a come-what-may homeschooler, try switching things up by making an actual schedule. Ironically, sometimes a lack of structure can be stressful. On the other hand…
7. Ditch the schedule. If you feel confined by a schedule, rip it up. Give yourself permission to spend a day or a month or longer without having every minute scheduled. Breathe in, breathe out, and stop crossing things off the list.
8. Refuse to play the comparison game. Just don’t do it—don’t compare yourself to other parents, your family to other families, your kids to other kids. You are exactly who they need.
9. Surprise your kids. Take them out for ice cream or to a movie. Declare a day a “game day” or go for a day trip. Stepping outside your normal routine is exciting!
10. Remind yourself of why you are doing this. Why are you homeschooling? My guess is that, among 50 other reasons, you want the best for your kids and you believe that you can offer that. Repeat that to yourself—and believe it.

I am excited actually about starting this new year; and I mention this because it is important to understand—and to be reassured— that homeschooling for the long haul is a roller coaster ride.

Some years you are way, way up; some years you are at the bottom; and some years you are just moving ahead at a steady pace. Whatever season you find yourself in this year, remember: attitude adjustments aren’t just for kids.

Do you ever find yourself lacking excitement about homeschooling? What are your pick-me-up techniques?