If you had asked me a year ago if I would ever homeschool my kids, I would have bust out laughing.
I truly never considered homeschooling as an option for our family. I had no desire to homeschool and never gave it a second thought. Up until last November I was a working mom who couldn’t fathom being a stay-at-home-mom.
It’s amazing how quickly things can change.
Over the course of the past year the Lord has really worked in my heart to embrace the calling that I have as a mother to my two precious daughters. Last November I felt called, very clearly, to stop working in our family business and stay home 100% of the time with our kids.
I was already “home” since our business is fully remote, but we had an au pair living with us who took care of the kids during the workweek.
I remember one Friday night when my husband was out of town and our au pair was off work and I decided to take the girls out for a walk and a dinner date in downtown Sarasota (where we were living at the time).
As we sat at an outside table at our favorite Mexican restaurant, I felt deeply the brevity of this season of life. Our girls were 1 & 3 at the time and it dawned on me just how quickly this phase was going to pass.
That night, I decided to be done working and become a stay-at-home-mom.
I gave my husband my two week’s notice 😉 and let our au pair know that we would be ending her contract early. Actually, I didn’t give my husband any notice. I said, “I quit effective immediately – let me know if you need help with anything.” haha. All jokes aside, my husband was incredibly supportive of me stepping down from the business to be with our girls.
Since then, November 2022, I’ve been navigating this role of SAHM and have grown more and more confident that this is what God wants for me and our family.
Not only have I witnessed incredible growth in the lives of our children, but my decision to stop working and focus solely on raising the kids has filled a void in my own life. I have been chasing external success for a long time without feeling fulfilled. It has only been since I embraced my calling as a mother that I’ve found true contentment and peace in my life.
Fast forward to today
Our girls are now 2 & 4, with our oldest daughter being Pre-K age.
Our 4-year-old was diagnosed with autism earlier this spring. We’d been navigating the decision of where to send her for Pre-K this year, trying to determine which school environment she would thrive best in. We landed on the preschool that is a part of the church that we attend. It’s a great preschool with a wonderful staff.
However, even before she started this fall, I was still having doubts about whether or not we were making the right call. The idea of homeschooling had been brewing in my heart over the last 6 months or so, but I wasn’t ready to commit to the idea. I told myself that since pre-school is just three days a week it will be a sort of trial run for school; we’ll do it for a year and then make a formal decision about schooling afterwards (thinking kindergarten and beyond).
While the preschool that she had been attending is wonderful in and of itself, we realized early on that it wasn’t going to be where our daughter thrived.
While she loves to learn and was initially excited to go, the feedback from her teacher was that she was getting frustrated often during activities that the class was engaging in that she couldn’t quite get the hang of. There were too many things that she just wasn’t quite ready for, and it was causing a lot of undue sadness and frustration.
I didn’t want my daughter feeling self-conscious, ashamed or embarrassed by her differing abilities than those of her classmates. I wanted her to be able to play to her strengths and not have to worry about fitting in with a classroom of neurotypical kids.
I don’t want to squelch her love of learning by trying to force her into a mold she doesn’t fit into.
After the first initial week of preschool, she became less excited about it and put up a protest each morning before leaving. If homeschooling hadn’t already been weighing on my heart, we could have pushed through it, but that’s just not what I wanted for her.
Having spent a lot of time in prayer about it, we decided to pull her out of preschool and begin our homeschool journey right away.
Fostering a love of learning
One of the primary reasons I decided to homeschool my kids is to foster a lifelong love of learning.
While preschool certainly isn’t academically demanding, there were already things that were required in the classroom that our daughter couldn’t keep up with that were causing her to become upset and frustrated. This translated into her being less willing to participate in other tasks.
I found her less interested in engaging with me on alphabet exercises at home, whereas previously she loved practicing her letters.
I didn’t want to squelch her desire to learn because it was getting muddled up with the frustration of trying to keep up with a neurotypical classroom.
It’s only been a week since we pulled her out, but already I’ve seen a shift in her. She’s happier and seems to be loving spending her days with mom and little sister again.
We are only at the beginning of our homeschool journey, but I am excited for what’s to come.
Playing to our kids' strengths
As I mentioned earlier, when raising our daughter with autism I want to be intentional about playing to her strengths. I want to play to the strengths of my neurotypical daughter too! She’s only 2 though, so she’s got a long way to go. 😉
Instead of watching my oldest daughter struggle with saying the pledge of allegiance every morning, and then getting frustrated and putting her head in her hands when she can’t do it, we are going to fill our days with learning activities and adventures that are just right for where my kids are at developmentally.
With homeschooling, I can give my daughters the one on one attention that they need to help them thrive. I don’t have to worry about my oldest daughter getting left behind in a classroom where the teacher has 10 other kids to pay attention to.
More bonding time as a family
It’s not all about the academics. In fact, academics are not even in the top three reasons why we decided to homeschool.
By choosing to homeschool, my kids will get more quality time with their mom than they would if they were attending school. Sure, we’ll all get on each other’s nerves at times, but I find it hard to believe that our bond as a family won’t be stronger due to the increased time together.
My daughters absolutely adore each other and I’m so glad for them to be together all day. My younger daughter definitely missed her sister when she was at school – she would constantly ask, “Where’s ____?” “Where’s ____?”
Not to mention all of the fun adventures we’ll be able to go on throughout the week. I’m willing to bet my homeschool is going to be way more fun than going to school. 😉
I’m looking forward to the journey and documenting it here on my little blog. Being mama to my girls means the world to me and I can’t wait to dive into being their teacher too!