A Decade of Homeschooling: What I’ve Learned (and What I’d Tell a New Homeschool Mom)

I’m going into my 10th year of homeschooling! A decade! Would you believe me if I told you that I didn’t think I would make it this far? I had SO much fear around messing my children up because “I didn’t know what I was doing”. The pressure was immense and overwhelming at times, but here we are, 10 years later, and we’re all alive to tell the story 😂 I’ve learned so many things along the way that I have lost count! Come along as I reflect on the last 10 years and share some advice for the mom just starting out.

The decision to homeschool was many years in the making. I had it on my heart to homeschool when my children were very little. My husband, on the other hand, was not on board for some time after that. We had many discussions but ultimately, we were never on the same page about it. I prayed that if this was God’s will that he would change my husband’s heart. I waited many years, but we finally became on the same page.

Our oldest was in high school and felt that it was the best place to keep her. She had been in traditional school all her life and taking her out of that for a few years didn’t feel right for her. Our other two children were in fourth and first grade at the time of making our decision. We had already moved our son from public to private school because he was getting left behind in public school and not because he was behind, but because he was ahead! He was getting very little instruction from the teacher because she was busy dealing with lots of behaviors. She knew my son could handle the work, so he was left to just do the work on his own essentially.

We LOVED the private school we moved him to but couldn’t afford to put both of our younger children there, and we knew that we didn’t want our children in the public school system. So, this is where God changed my husband’s heart and decided that homeschooling would be the best option for our family at that time. We agreed that we would take each year as it came and assess if continuing to homeschool was the way forward.

There are some things that stand out to me when I think back over the 9 years that I have been doing this that I wish I would have known before starting. I don’t think that I would have believed them at first but hearing them would have been good for my brain.

1.       Curriculum is a tool, not the whole education in homeschool. During the first couple of years of homeschooling, I thought we HAD to do everything that the curriculum said, EVERYTHING! I was so strict about making sure we followed everything in the “books” that I missed out on some very important matters of the heart that were happening right in front of me. I was frantic most days thinking if we didn’t get through everything it said then my children were not going to get into a good college or any college for that matter!  And because of that, I was missing out on reaching them on a heart level, and allowing those conversations to lead us into all kinds of talks we could be having about life and the morals and values we keep. I allowed the fear of screwing them up override the connections I could be having with them daily. My point: Don’t overlook the small conversations and questions your children have thinking it will keep you from the schoolwork. These questions and the conversations that often come from them are the REAL work we have as their parents.

2.       The way you decide to school doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, and it certainly doesn’t need to look like traditional schooling at home. Trying to make your school look like someone else’s will just stress you out, trust me. Leaning in and figuring out what will work best for YOUR family is worth the time and effort it takes to figure out, I promise. Doing the things that work for you and your children are going to help give you peace in your day. So don’t follow to a “T” the way someone on the internet does it and do it the way it needs to be done for you!

3.       Not every day is going to be sunshine and rainbows, but that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. Homeschooling your kids is hard sometimes. Bad attitudes arise (sometimes it’s yours 🙃); motivation is fleeting from everyone, and some days you just don’t feel like it. But this is when it is a good time for a break and a regroup and a try again tomorrow. It DOES NOT mean you are doing something wrong, or you made the wrong choice. Ride the high on the good days and be patient on the hard ones and everything will even out in the end 😊

There were so many times I would go check on my kids’ progress and I would see my son helping my daughter. Those moments were so special, and my heart melted every time I saw it. We also would have SO many good conversations about life in general that I possibly would have missed out on if they were away from me for 6+ hours a day in traditional school. The closeness we all felt was made possible by the time we had together.

If I could tell myself anything as a new homeschooling mom, it would be this:

Don’t be meticulous. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to finish everything every day. It doesn’t have to look like what anyone else is doing. Some days are better than others. Relax.

This is school on your terms. And don’t measure yourself by other people.

I have two years left homeschooling my daughter and they will be bittersweet for sure. I have LOVED my time educating my children. It certainly has been the hardest thing that I have done, but it’s also been the most rewarding and I will look back on these years with many fond memories.

But right now, I’m celebrating. I’m celebrating that I believed in myself enough to do this and I’m celebrating with my kids that we did this together. I don’t know what the future holds and if they will choose to homeschool or not, but I do know this: the time we’ve spent together has been a gift I will never regret. Ten years later, the fears I had in the beginning seem so small compared to the joy, growth, and memories we’ve gained. If you’re just starting out, take it one day at a time. You don’t have to have it all figured out — you just need to keep showing up. And one day, you’ll look back and realize you’ve built something beautiful too.