Teaching My Own: Words To Live By

At the drop of a hat, my five-year-old quit kindergarten and suddenly my dreams of homeschooling became my reality.

I was surprised, excited, relieved, confident and grateful.

Yes, my patience had paid off, everything had worked out perfectly and now my grand experiment was about to officially begin.

And while I stepped boldly into this new world, I will not deny that there was a tiny little voice inside of me, just as there is in every homeschooling mommy, that was whispering fiercely, Just what in the world do you think you're doing?!!

Oh, I'll admit the whole truth. I don't know if it's courage, conviction, rebellion, or just plain insanity, but it takes a lot of guts to homeschool. It's like stepping off an aircraft carrier into a handmade birch bark canoe and saying, "Thanks for offering to help me out but I got this."

The biggest, scariest, worst fear was that somehow, I was going to ruin my kids.

Luckily, I had been meeting other homeschooling families, and those moms had some wise words for me. I still remember, word for word, the best pieces of advice I got from them:

In order to homeschool, you only need two things. You need to love spending time with your kids, and you need to love learning. 

Only worry about what you need to do in the next six months. If you can handle that much, you'll be fine.

Those words rang true to me then, just as they do now, and they calmed my fears and gave me hope.

And with high spirits, I officially began my career as a homeschooler.