Why We Decided to Homeschool – And It’s Not Why You Think | Part 1: The Background

When I’m a parent, I will never _______.

Fill in that blank. Everyone has one. When I’m a parent, I will never force my kids to eat vegetables. I will never yell at my kids. I will never co-sleep. I will never let my baby cry-it-out. I will never use TV as a babysitter. I will never whisper when my baby’s sleeping. Whatever your blank is, we all have filled in that blank in some way, shape or form.

Parenting seems easy on paper. It seems easy before you’re actually a parent. Honestly? It’s even easy to think you know what’s best for someone else’s kids. The reality is that parenting is replete with decisions, some big and some little. At times, we have to take another look at the blanks we have made in parenting. We need to reassess our blank and consider if, perhaps, we were too harsh when we made that initial absolute statement. We need to seek God and ask Him what is best for our children and our family. We may even need to humble our hearts and conclude something we didn’t expect.

What’s my blank? Before I was a parent, I just knew that I would never ever homeschool.

Ignorance allows us to form a faulty opinion on a topic, and in my heart, I allowed this to be true for me.

Why I Did Not Want to Homeschool

It Was Unfamiliar

There are several reasons I didn’t want to homeschool. The first is because it was unfamiliar to me. Things that are unknown to us are often scary or unapproachable. Even though I have family members and friends who were homeschooled, I was not. I attended a public school for the entirety of my education – and I had an excellent experience in the public school system. I did not understand the ins and outs of homeschooling. Ignorance allows us to form a faulty opinion on a topic, and in my heart, I allowed this to be true for me.

Academic Concerns

Teachers go to school for years learning how to educate young minds. While I was certain homeschoolers got a decent education, I was equally as convinced that students who went to a traditional school received a better education than homeschoolers. More than that, I did not want the onus of my children’s education on my shoulders.

Social Concerns

This is the classic concern when it comes to homeschool. It is necessary to include because I too had this concern. What about socialization? Would my kids be socially awkward if they were homeschooled? Where would they make friends? Would they learn how to relate with their peers? Nobody wants their child to be the one who is socially unaware, so this can really pull on a mama bear’s heart string.

Fear of Failure

With all things, there is a risk of failing. Before you take the risk, you have to understand the potential consequences of that decision. What would happen if I failed my children as a teacher? What would happen if I failed to get them enough socialization? Would I be able to send them back to public school if homeschool didn’t work out? Would they be able to adjust to public school after being homeschooled? Fear is powerful, and at times, it is crippling.

FOMO

Ah yes, my old friend FOMO. Fear of missing out causes grief. Homeschool would never be an option for me because it would mean my kids would miss out on so much. The excitement associated with the first day of school would be different. Picture day wouldn’t look the same. There would be no days when parents were invited into the classrooms. Say goodbye to school concerts, school dances, and even graduation. Sweet memories from my childhood would not trigger nostalgic moments for my kids. FOMO was blocking me from seeing homeschooling as an option.

Recap

I agree. Those are some solid reasons not to homeschool. I have to agree because these were all my reasons! To penetrate through these five big fears, something big would have to take place. But I have to admit, I didn’t go looking to homeschool. I didn’t want to homeschool, remember? I was confident that I would never ever homeschool.

The Events Leading Up to Homeschooling

Background Information

The year before my son entered kindergarten, my husband and I were immersed in school choice decisions for our children. We did extensive praying about whether to send my son to a private Christian school or to our local public school. Our biggest concern with public school was that sex education was being introduced in the curriculum at younger and younger ages. It included topics that we believed parents should teach, not school systems. With this in mind, we toured Christian schools, applied for tuition, and filed financial aid forms. We sought counsel from friends whom we trusted. What we knew for sure? We did not want to homeschool. If the topic was broached, it was quickly discounted.

To help make the decision between Christian school vs. public school, my husband and I called the director of curriculum for our school district; we asked specific and candid questions to understand the scope of how our district would handle the new state laws regarding the sexual education requirements. My husband also attended a board of education meeting addressing this topic. We were encouraged that our district took a conservative approach, allowing the parents to be the educators on these sensitive topics in the earliest years. This assuaged our fears and eased our minds.

The ultimate decision to send our son to public school came down to three things: cost, commute, and a clear conscience. Costing nearly $8,000 per child per year, Christian school wasn’t financially sustainable for our family of five. What’s more, the nearest private school is 20 minutes away. This means that my infant and I would spend 400 minutes in the car every week driving between school and home. That’s a total of 1,600 minutes per month – or 26 hours. Did I mention that at the time my infant hated being in the car and sobbed continuously every time we went anywhere?

Compare and contrast this with our local school that is 3 minutes away and free. Yup. Now you understand.

Ultimately, we believed public school was the right choice for our family for practical reasons and because it wouldn’t directly compromise any core beliefs our family maintains. So with a clear conscience, we signed our boy up to go to kindergarten in the Fall of 2022!

Our Boy’s First Day of Kindergarten

I think parents anticipate the first day of kindergarten more than the child. At least, that was true in my case. With a bittersweet hug, my kid disappeared into the new world of elementary school. He trotted off with his backpack bouncing on his back. I made it home before the tears encased my cheeks; my baby boy was in elementary school. I was simultaneously proud and grieved.

The hours ticked by slowly; I eagerly awaited seeing his face and wrapping him in a warm embrace. I couldn’t wait to hear how awesome kindergarten was and just how much he loved it! Finally, the time came and . . .

Annnnnnd he did not love kindergarten. His exact words were, “I am terrified! We didn’t play at all!”

My heart sank. That’s not the response I expected from him. I encouraged him, acknowledging that it is different from preschool, and he would adjust soon. I think I was comforting myself at the same time. The problem was, even though he adjusted to going to school, he never loved kindergarten.

Homework & Assignments

Then homework started. In addition to working for six hours every day with only a 20 minute recess, my son came home to do more school work. All of the work was a lot for me to keep up with as an adult. I felt overwhelmed at times. He was asked to do the following assignments:

• Complete a homework packet consisting of 4-7 double-sided pages in a four day time period
• Read for 20 minutes daily
• Go on two different computer programs daily for 10-20 minutes each
• Practice sight words
• Practice math facts
• Complete additional assignments occasionally

Our boy was tired after learning all day, so it is no surprise that sitting to do homework was challenging. Eventually, I created a token board with clear expectations as well as a specific amount of time allotted for homework. Though our homework time improved greatly, it was still a lot to expect from a 5-year-old.

One example of an additional assignment for which he was responsible was to write a four page (1-2 sentences per page) narrative story with illustrations. The narrative story was supposed to be true, include who was in the story, what happened, and how my son felt as a result of the events. As his parent, I was supposed to encourage that he use capital letters, spacing, and punctuation. He was given two days to complete this assignment, and we were informed that he would be tested on narrative stories at the end of the week. He still had a homework packet to complete that week too. Have you ever asked your 5-year- old to summarize an event? They aren’t quite sure how to pick out the most important details. This assignment was so taxing to accomplish with my son that after powering through it, I literally uttered the words, “I will never homeschool.” That, my friends, was only three months ago.

Tests and Report Cards

The other shock that came with kindergarten? All the tests. I did not expect tests to happen at all in kindergarten. Sure enough, my son was coming home with completed math tests, sight word tests and, as previously mentioned he was being tested on narrative stories. My kindergartener’s report card was so thorough that it was four pages long!

I Hate Kindergarten

I didn’t notice it happening in the moment. Hindsight is 20/20, right? Throughout the early months of school when I asked my son if he liked kindergarten, he would comment, “I do, but it’s a lot of work.” I heard what he said but only listened to what I wanted to hear. I was more comfortable with the idea that he liked school. Eventually, it became harder and harder to pretend. In January our son started to express how he disliked school. It started out slowly. Occasionally, he commented that he didn’t like kindergarten. Other times, he asked why he had to go to school. Over time, it progressed to an emphatic statement: he hated kindergarten. The comments were toxic and began infiltrating the home. My 4-year-old daughter caught on and started parroting this sentiment about her beloved preschool, despite her adoration of school.

To be honest, I kept dismissing my son’s reaction to school. Then one day, it dawned on me – a kindergartener shouldn’t hate school. Kindergarten is supposed to spark a love of learning and be a transition into school. Something was off.

I got on the phone with my best friend, who happens to be a fourth grade teacher. She helped me process what the problem could be. Is he struggling academically? No. He’s scoring 100s on math tests, reading at an age appropriate level and doing well on his report card. Does he need to be more challenged academically? No. He is learning at the proper academic level for him. Is he doing well socially? Yes. He has friends. So then what was the problem? What it came down to was the amount of work for this little boy. From day one, my boy felt the stress of the long school days, lack of play time, and amount of school work. Expectations had only increased since that first day.

And then the timed math facts quizzes started.

Timed Math Facts Quizzes

WHAT IT IS

Timed math facts quizzes are quizzes given every week and consist of 30 addition problems. Five- and six -year-old kids are givn 60 seconds to complete as many problems as they can.

BREAKing IT DOWN FURTHER

To break it down for you, this means that kindergarten students who just learned how to recognize numbers, write numbers, and understand the concept of addition are being tested in a pressurized manner. In order to achieve a perfect score, children must compute a math equation and write down the answer in only two seconds. Was sixty seconds a fair amount of time? What was actually being tested, – knowledge of math or something else? In order to find out, I conducted my own experiments.

Experiment Number 1

My first goal was to see how long it would take my son to complete the quiz if given more time. I made an exact replica of a quiz he already took at school. I handed him the worksheet and instructed, “Complete the worksheet.”

As soon as he saw it, he said out loud, “Oh, I only have one minute to complete it.” I didn’t comment. Silently, I observed him. Up to this point, my son’s highest score was 12/30 completed answers. This is worth noting because while he was taking the quiz, my son displayed visible signs of distress at problem number 11. He clenched his fist, bit his lip, and audibly grunted. I couldn’t read his mind, but it appeared to me that he thought he was running out of time.

As soon as he completed the quiz, he said, “I did it!?!” Calmly, I told him he did a great job finishing the worksheet but that he finished it in 2 minutes and 51 seconds. He sighed with disappointment. “Oh”. It was evident that my son associated success or failure with accomplishing this quiz in one minute.

While completing this quiz, my son did not use his fingers to count. He also answered all 30 problems correctly. He was absolutely capable of completing the quiz. The sixty-second time frame was simply too much pressure.

Experiment Number 2

The second experiment I did had the purpose of understanding how many problems my son could realistically answer in sixty seconds. To test this, I wrote the numbers 0-5 in a random order thirty times on a piece of paper. It looked something like this:

2 ____	3 ____	1 ____
0 ____	4 ____	3 ____
4 ____	1 ____	5 ____
5 ____	0 ____	5 ____
0 ____	2 ____	5 ____
1 ____	0 ____	0 ____
3____	5 ____	1 ____
4 ____	3 ____	2 ____
0 ____	4 ____	3 ____
5 ____	4 ____	3 ____

I instructed my son to copy the number on the blank line. I set a timer for sixty seconds. The results? My son copied 19 numbers. This experiment tested his handwriting speed. The conclusion is that it is impossible for my son to score 100% on the math facts quiz. Since he can’t even write 30 numbers in 60 seconds, he certainly cannot compute a math equation and write the answer in 60 seconds.

My son was being set up for failure. And this Mama Bear had a problem with that. What I would do about this is the next part of our story. Continue this story here: Why I Decided to Homeschool – And it’s Not Why You Think | Part 2: Heart to Hearts