My husband and I made the decision—no more public school. We couldn’t afford private school, so we chose homeschooling as our alternative. Then the panic set in. What if I ruin my child’s life? I remember what my friend Beth told me during our final conversation before deciding. “Before long, it will feel like falling off a log.” I’ve heard that same fear from so many people beginning the homeschool journey. It’s normal. Almost every parent feels it at some key junctures in a homeschooling journey. We fear we can’t handle the administrative tasks of creating transcripts or issuing diplomas. There are guidance counselor things that happen in a school, like signing up for AP or SAT tests or driver’s education, that now rest squarely on our shoulders as parents. We fear the great, widely-held myth of socialization—that our kids will end up being weird.
While it is an enormous responsibility you take on when you choose to homeschool, it is genuinely not one that most of us are unequipped to handle. Let’s talk about these fears.
When did you begin homeschooling? The answer we tend to forget is that it’s the day a child was born. We go through teaching our child to eat, drink, talk, potty-train, play with friends, enjoy books, color, help us around the house, share with others, dress themselves, and… The list goes on. By the time a child reaches school age, you’ve already taught them an unending list of things, and you are going to continue doing just that. So why do we hold fear in educating our children?
Most of us were not homeschooled. When I grew up, no one was. There were small one-room schoolhouses in the country, but everyone went to school in some form. That reality shaped our perception of how children, from age five on, learn: someone else teaches them. We never thought of ourselves as performing that job. People go to college to learn how, and we did not. We can’t possibly know how. So, it’s insecurity and our worldview that hold us back, not ability.
If your child is young, do you really not know more than they do about counting, adding, subtraction, multiplication, or division? Do you not know how to recognize letters or read bigger words than they do? Do you not get excited about something new you see outside with its beauty or weirdness? Do you not know how to look something up to find out more about it? Of course you do! How did your toddler learn to Swiffer the floor or eat an ice cream cone? You worked with them, and they watched you do it, too! If they wanted to try something you had never done before, didn’t you learn it right along with them? Of course, you did! Homeschooling is no different.
We tend to fear ruining our children a second time when they are about to enter middle or high school. That old insecurity pops back in. We, once again, feel totally unequipped to handle the academics. I have to admit that I hated counting barrels in first grade, and math never got better for me. I still don’t love it. It was unsettling to me. Did I refuse to teach it? No. Our co-op had math classes for upper elementary (Math Olympiad) and middle school (Math Counts). I volunteered to teach Math Olympiad, which made me refresh a few pre-algebra things. I paid the teacher for extra supplies so I could be one of her students, right along with my son for Math Counts, which gets into both algebra I and algebra II concepts. I refreshed again and, to some degree, learned it right along with him. I got good grades in math in school, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. Teaching it to my kids was daunting until I realized I understood it now. I had to step into the water to swim. Then, for more advanced math after algebra, we handled that through concurrent enrollment at our community college—I used other resources. There were other things, like physics and philosophy that I had to learn right along with them. Consider this: your kids learn from your learning process, too!
Along with core subjects and knowledge fears, there are frequently expressed concerns about the administrative elements of getting a child to graduation and on to a job or into college. It’s parent learning time again! Of course, tools like Google or your favorite search engine are worth their weight in gold for finding out the hows of all these things. A better option? Come to the Thrive! Conference in May and catch excellent talks on many high school topics. Or, be part of a co-op where you associate with parents who have knowledge and experience they are happy to share with you.
Other people have navigated high school administrative tasks. They can offer advice, but if you don’t surround yourself with mentors, you will go it alone. Now that’s scary! NCHE has also put a lot of effort into making sure you have the information you need, and nche.com offers a wealth of help for the high school years that walk you through various elements, such as transcripts and driver’s education.
We also fear the perceived damage of the age-old socialization myth. If you’ve been homeschooling, you know it’s a myth. Society, to a large degree, still holds that myth as truth, and if you are new to homeschooling, it’s easy to buy into it. What if I ruin my child’s life because they weren’t around other kids all the time? Won’t they be weird?
Yet, what is a weirder socialization model than locking a child in with a group of same-aged kids and relatively few adults for thirteen years? From whom will they learn behaviors? Counter that with the homeschooled child who has most of their interactions with parents, other homeschool families (including parents), kids of all ages, adults in various professions, adults in museums, libraries, art and music classes, co-ops, etc. Which is the richer social environment?
I rest my case. A homeschooled child will have an infinitely richer social development than any child in a school system, unless you try hard not to involve them in anything. (Yes, then they may be weird.) That is a substantial reason that colleges love homeschoolers, by the way. They generally arrive at college ready to interact with professors and handle collegiate pressures at a much higher level than their peers from public and private schools. They’ve been doing it all through their schooling. They are well socially adapted!
To sum it up, let me turn to Scripture. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Just like fear of jumping into water, it isn’t until you do it that you realize it’s not what you thought it was. Jump in. You’ve got this. Fear not!
