When my husband and I were newly married, over 15 years ago, we had many conversations and plans for our life. We had a five year plan for starting a family, which really turned out to be more like a four year plan! During my pregnancy with our son, we discussed a lot of things that we “planned” to do as parents. These are a few we had discussed.
1. Make our own baby food. Well, that worked out great until the poor little guy threw up his pea purée that wasn’t as puréed as it was chunky, thus scarring him for life on textures!
2. Layout the perfect foundation for him to learn. This one came easy. Kids are little sponges, soaking up just about everything, including the time you let one bad word slip and then suddenly it is the ONLY word they say!!
3. We would hands-down homeschool our kids. I am happy to say that we have, indeed, been homeschooling our kids since they both started kindergarten, which has been over 6 years now.
We are asked a lot of questions and receive some criticism from time to time. For example, "Why would you choose to homeschool?," "Aren't you concerned with development and not keeping up with other kids their age?" Oh, and let us not forget my personal favorite, "How will they be socialized?" I cannot speak for everyone, only from my family’s experience, but homeschooling has been an easy choice for us.
Please allow me to enlighten you. As homeschoolers, we are on-the-go learners. My husband’s work schedule has not been a normal 9 to 5, Monday through Friday job. He works several days followed by several days off, which has afforded us the opportunity to get out and do things as a family, including school on the road. The world is, literally, our “classroom” and our kids are very much socialized! They love to meet new people, young and old, ask questions, and explore their surroundings. I can find teachable moments in just about everything. Yes, we have our “class” time. It may be at their desks, the dining room table or in a restaurant. We do research projects, they use computers and encyclopedias, and we frequent the library….often! We watch many documentaries. It's amazing how many different shows there are for every subject kids have ever wanted to learn about. Whether it is watching the city workers check the sewers with their robotic rover or seeing how they flush the fire hydrant after replacing parts, there is always something to learn. It is lots and lots of free play, park time and let us not forget, field trips!
Homeschooling to us was the best decision because we could see the passion for learning in both of our kids, and we have the power and tools to help nurture that love of learning. We have discovered that our son is great in math, science and engineering while our daughter loves writing her own stories, conducting experiments and dancing around the house. With homeschooling, we can focus on the subjects they love and at the same time, we can pinpoint the areas where they struggle or just don’t like doing. That being said, homeschooling is not for everyone and there is certainly no judging from here. At the end of the day, we are all parents who are trying to do what we think is best for our kids. Navigating them through this crazy-awesome world we live in, all while charting the map, because I don’t know about you, but our kids did not come with a manual!
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So, as all of our kiddos are getting ready to embark on a new year of learning, discovering, and embracing, let me leave you with this thought....we are all in this together, and together we can make amazing things happen! Wishing everyone a super awesome 2019-2020 school year!!
Mary Brown
Assistant Publisher
