One of the most popular questions or conversations I see with homeschool families is “why did you decide to homeschool”.
It seems like every family I know that homeschools has different reasons for doing so. Bad school districts, children with special medical needs, religious reasons, problems with other students, desire to personalize their child’s education… the reasons are as varied as the family involved.
Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a mom. And I wanted to be a teacher so that I could have the maximum amount of time with my kids. I went to three colleges in three states working on my teaching degree. But as I was a full-time flight attendant eventually my classes no longer worked with my schedule. So I stopped school just short of having my Bachelors degree.
When I was pregnant with my son my husband and I decided we would homeschool him. My husband’s work schedule is wildly different from week to week. Homeschooling means that when my husband is working every weekend three months in a row we still get plenty of quality time with him. We school on weekends. We have even schooled on holidays. We school year-round.
We homeschool for the freedom of movement as well. We are non-rev travelers which means we have an easier time traveling when others are in school. So when your school is out for the summer we are in session! When you take spring break we are hitting the books. When you go back to school we start looking for our next adventure. Paris was blast, but never would have happened without homeschooling. NYC was far less crowded while others were heading back to class. Helen was also during school. PCB was far less crowded after spring break and just before summer vacation. Fort Wayne wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t able to travel when we wanted. And of course Madrid… it didn’t happen because while our local schools were in session there were many out for spring break.
We homeschool because my son loves to learn. He is a fast-learner. He is pretty obsessed with robots and science. We are able to personalize his learning so that he frequently works with his robots. As a travel loving family we also find Spanish an important part of his schooling. So Rosetta Stone also frequently finds its way into our school. He isn’t too crazy about learning his “times-tables” but when I explain to him how useful it can be in Minecraft I can assure you his attitude will change and his struggle with learning them will turn into one of his biggest strengths.
Yes, I know it is possible to live the life we live without homeschool. We could try and work it out with my husband’s schedule, we could do less traveling (I would go nuts without travel though), we could learn at home after he finishes school. We live in a great school district. I could go back to school and become a teacher and put them in public school. We could do all these things and our lives would still be amazing. But the most important reason we homeschool…
We couldn’t have gone to Paris if we weren’t homeschooling
We want to. My husband and I have taught our kids their ABCs, we have taught them to count. We are teaching my daughter what the letters look like and her colors. We are teaching our son Physics, parts of speech, multiplication tables, and American history. And we love it. We got to teach my son to read and see his “aha” moments. Teaching a child is insanely rewarding (teachers aren’t doing it for summers off or the money). We want to teach our kids. We want to experience those “aha” moments. We want to be the ones to explain something different ways until it “clicks”.
Why did you decide to homeschool?
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I love that you knew from the beginning you would homeschool! I didn’t start until my oldest just finished second grade. I am so glad we made the transition even if it was a bit late. Rosetta Stone, robots, and Minecraft are favorites over here too.
I have found if I can relate a math lesson to robotics or Minecraft they seem to go a lot better. 😂