Things I've Learned While Homeschooling
I think when I started homeschooling I really thought I was teaching my kids things they would need in life (like reading, math ect…). And while this is true to some extent I think the one really being taught most days is ME! Things like patience (oh boy, I really need that one), perseverance, creativity and prayer (Lots of prayer).
It would be quite simple if all homeschooling entailed was teaching your children academics, but really academics are a side note to what we are teaching and learning while homeschooling. I read the other day that the entire government school experience could be learned in 4 years of applied learning. So what are we teaching our children the rest of the time?
We are teaching them things like character which will be with them the rest of their lives (unlike the obscure facts that get shoved at them so often). We are teaching them people skills and how to negotiate with hostiles (aka siblings). This will come in very handy later on in life! And while I don’t approve of bullying (physical or mental) growing up with brothers and sisters as your peers teaches you to appropriately deal with people who tease or taunt you (because face it, it happens to everyone).
I’ve learned that discipline can’t wait and when I’m lazy and put it off it only escalates. Homeschooling has brought to the forefront my own inadequacies in my character. Honestly, many days it would be easiest to just pass my children and their problems off to someone else but I know its not the best for them or myself to do that!
When I started homeschooling I was doing it “instead of” because I saw how many problems the government schools contained. Now I homeschool because I believe it is a mandate of God for Christian parents to teach their children as they rise up, sit down and walk. It would be rather difficult to do that if they weren’t with me! I have learned to have a passion in nurturing our children’s education (both character and academic) and while I am by no means perfect at it I feel I am improving.
Homeschooling has taught me to be less of a procrastinator. It has taught me to be more thorough. It has taught me the meaning of true education, which is not a meaningless memorization of useless facts like dates and names. It is the integration of knowledge that can be applied with only true wisdom which comes only from God!
The goal of our educating must be to point our children to the one true God or we will have wasted our time and negatively impacted them for eternity!