The Truth About Homeschooling

The Truth About Homeschooling

Do you ever feel that you could never do that when you read a homeschooling blog post? You’ll never be that organized… Your kids will never be that attentive… That good… That anything? Guess what?

The truth about homeschooling is that you can’t be… and neither can anyone else!

The Truth About Homeschooling

 

 

And, if you decide to homeschool a child with any type of special needs, you need to let go of your expectations right now. There is no way that your days will be picture perfect.

I’m a pretty organized person, and I share lots of the fun and educational things we do here on the site. We have great days living, learning, and exploring together and with our amazing local homeschool community. We have days filled with happy children, focused on and engaged in their work, enjoying a snack while they look up time zone differences between us and Beijing.

And then there are the not-so-great days. The days where everything’s a struggle. Math. Takes. F.O.R.E.V.E.R. “This is the worst day of my life,” a certain child year old shouts. The sweet preschooler refuses to budge off the couch. And so you put the work away and try something else.

The Truth About Homeschooling

 

That, right there, is the reason homeschooling can be so right for gifted and twice-exceptional kids. When things are clicking, work a little longer that day. On the days where activities are met with resistance and nothing’s working out right, you can put it away and try again tomorrow. The work will still be there. Your bright child will pick it up on another day.

Change what you’re doing and enjoy each other.

 

The truth about homeschooling is this… It’s hard.

Parenting is hard. Teaching is tough. Put them together and you have bunches of challenges all put together in one place. There will be days where you want to walk out the door the minute your husband walks in it. That’s okay. It’s okay to have bad days because we all have them.

We all have days where the dishes are piled up, the kids have eaten cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the most exciting thing you children learned was whatever the Kratt Brothers told them about on Netflix.

 

The Truth About Homeschooling

 

The truth about homeschooling is this… It’s thankless.

Your kids aren’t going to stand up and thank you at the dinner table each night for the lessons you prepared, the  meals you made, and the experiments you facilitated. They’re not going to happily do their chores and ask for more. Your kids may never thank you for homeschooling them or parenting them the way you do, but accolades are not what you got into parenting for, right? Each mama is doing the best she can with the sweet kiddos she’s been blessed with.

You are a fabulous mom. You know that, right?

 

The truth about homeschooling is this… It’s worth it.

All those tough days. All those fights. All the bickering and fussing and late nights of planning and doubt… they’re all worth it. You will have had the largest hand in growing and teaching those sweet kids you’ve been entrusted with.

It’s worth it. 

On the day I’m writing this post – we clicked along beautifully. That oldest of mine, the same one who often complains about sharpening his pencil, let alone wielding it, zipped through 22 pages of math. “It was fun today; kind of like a puzzle. I might do another chapter or two tomorrow,” he says with dimpled grin. And the rest of them? They shared the LEGO.

The Truth About Homeschooling

 

You just never know what the day will bring…

Now it’s your turn. What homeschooling truth do YOU want people to know when they look at other homeschoolers and try to compare themselves?