Our Home School Why

At the beginning of this year, start of the new semester we made the decision to pull our oldest child from school and begin the journey of homeschooling. I casually made some comments about it here and there with people but I never made it into a big announcement. It was something that began tugging on my heart since before he started the school year but I wasn't ready to commit to it back then. I have been praying about the decision since then and will continue to pray about it as we go along. Since then I have had some questions asked...."was he struggling academically?" "was he struggling with behavior?" "Did something happen?" While not that I feel the need to answer to anyone, I did want to share a little bit of why...

First off the answers to all of those questions are no. He was/is ahead in most subjects and has an amazing eagerness to learn.... teacher's words not mine... and he always had excellent behavior reports...and no not one single event occurred that pushed me to this decision.

We simply want something different for now. We don't want the strict schedules and attendance. Kindergarten days are so long compared to where they once were. We want more play! We want to be able to travel without having to worry about missed days. With the exception of a grandma, we have no family where we currently live. So if we want to pick up and leave to go visit family across the state or road trip somewhere, the only schedule we have to worry about is Daddy's. In the future I will return to work but since I am home anyway with the younger babies we have to take advantage of the flexibility. We live in an amazing area. There are endless parks and things for kids to do with most of them offering learning opportunities too. I don't have to rush all of the kids out of the house for a 7 am departure, I don't have to spend my afternoon in carline at pickup or worry about driving in bad weather for school. And we all get amazing naps in most days.

We have the freedom to explore, to play, to go to the museums or to the zoo when we feel like it. I read article after article about the concept of giving your children more experiences versus buying them things. I completely agree. But how are you supposed to do that when everything has to be revolved around the school schedule, weekends, bedtime?

We have the freedom to cater to each of our child's learning needs. We have four boys. And let me tell you... they are each so very different. They each have very different learning styles and process things differently. So I have the ability to take the time to figure out each one of their learning styles and go with it. That option is not available in school when there are 20 plus kids to one teacher.

We also want the freedom of what to teach. Yes I will of course follow the state requirements on what to teach but I also want the the religion aspect. My sons are still very young and we are developing the details and the beauty of our faith in them. We want to put an emphasis there. Since we have started homeschooling I have also been able to incorporate "extras". We are learning Spanish and Sign Language. He can practice coding and keyboarding. We can do so much more of life skills... cooking...gardening...etc. And we have much more time for extra curricular activities so they can explore various interests and sports. We have so much more hands on learning.

I am not saying all of this as to persuade or convince that our choices are the right ones. They are the right ones for our family...right now. Things can change in the future and we will continue to gauge. It is not a secret what some of the complaints are about public schools now a days. These are all factors for us too. Teacher student ratios are ridiculous. Long days. My son had one 15 minute recess per day. No where near enough in my opinion. Teachers are burnt out or for some are simply in the wrong profession and not giving the effort or passion that it takes to be what children need.. I have amazing teacher friends that have such a great intensity for what they do...my son actually had a really good one but there are so many bad ones too. Parents send kids sick to school constantly because they don't have childcare options. I get that kids need to be exposed to things but there has to be a fine line. My son hasn't been sick once since we pulled him out. And the social pressures... my boys are still young but I have witnessed enough to know that these scary things are happening at a younger and younger age, the bullying and peer pressure, and just plain meanness. If I have the ability to shield them for as long as possible then so be it.

So right now we are having fun...we are learning lots...reading constantly. We have joined some home school groups and met some cool people. The boys are socializing with kids of all ages. We are able to attend mass during the week.  We have park hopped all over the city and upped our physical activity. We have caught up on sleep! We have time for loads of other activities. We will re-evaluate our decision every year and continue to pray about it. But for now we are loving our stage of life <3