If you gather a group of 100 homeschoolers together and ask them why they made the decision to educate their children at home, you will likely get 100 different answers. Although there are certainly similarities in the reasons that we jump into this endeavor, the heart of the matter usually comes down to specific needs of a child, values of a family, or (in many cases) a series of events that made that family decide to abandon public school.
Before I begin, I want to be clear about something. I am not “anti-public school.” I went to public school. I had a positive experience in public school. I know that, for many parents, public school is the best choice for their family. I support public school teachers and administrators, and I believe that the decisions we make about educating our children are highly personal and vary greatly from family to family, and even from child to child. But this socialization argument needs to go.
Let’s get one thing out in the open, right from the start:
Curriculum is there to work for you. You are NOT bound to work for it.
No, you do NOT have to follow it, verbatim, as-prescribed, day-by-day, task-by-task. No, you are not going to mess up your child’s entire education if you veer from it from time to time. No, you are not “ruining everything” if you ditch it after six weeks because it’s making you or your child miserable.
Every week, the same question comes up in one Facebook group or another: “Does anyone here work from home and homeschool?” A chorus of responses rolls out with every kind of answer. Some homeschoolers work a farm while homeschooling, some parents run an Etsy shop full of beautiful hand-made products. Some sell essential oils, make-up, or health supplements. Some work as a VA or an editor. Some are transcriptionists, some are writers, and some run in-home daycares. In this day and age, and in this economy, I suspect many
