Last week, I shared part 1 of the story of why we quit homeschooling. This post is the continuation of that story. Despite my fears, my school aged kids went off to school. That first day was a long one for me.
Guess what? Not only have they survived, but they are thriving.
And all those other things I was worried about?
The worries about how they would adjust, how it was wrong for a homeschool mom to “give up”? What about the Common Core, for goodness sake!
Well, let me tell you how happy I was to be proven wrong. We found other Christian moms with kids in our school. My kids have way more good days than bad ones. The teachers are phenomenal. I can tell how much they want to help my kids succeed.
Even the Common Core hasn’t been what I feared – the only things I’ve taken note of are that the second grade math is confusing and the word problems take care to use diverse names.
Before quitting homeschooling, I fell into a trap of black and white thinking.
Homeschooling was “good” so other schooling options must be “bad.” I honestly felt like I had no other option than homeschooling.
A virtual school wouldn’t solve the problems we were having. Private school for 3 kids was not in our budget. When homeschooling wasn’t working well, it was a real struggle for me to decide that public school could be an option.
I realize that public school may not work out for everyone. Our schools are quite small and almost embarrassingly well-funded. Class sizes are small and my kids are getting plenty of individual attention. Certainly this isn’t the case in every school.
I’m writing this story, partly to explain the big shift for our family, but also to encourage other moms, homeschool or not, who may be feeling trapped or needing a change.
You should know that:
Just because homeschooling works at one point, doesn’t mean you are tied to it forever.
