In a couple weeks I will start a new chapter in my life, teacher. But here's the thing, as parents we are always teachers, I'm just becoming one more officially as I start homeschooling my oldest daughter Mia.
I will start with my disclaimer, I'm not anti-school, anti-teachers, this is just a decision we have made for our family for our reasons.
Homeschooling is something we had always thought about but my decision was confirmed when I decided to not work full time anymore after Melody was born. I still do my radio show but the rest of my time is with my girls. I wanted to pour into their lives 100%. Deut. 6:5-7 says "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and wen you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." How can I do this when they are gone 80% of the day. Then they come home burnt out and your
opportunities with them are less and less.
It's so easy to get caught up in the business of life. Kids have after school activities, hours of homework piling up on them. Homeschooling is my opportunity to really spend time with them. No laundry, cooking or dishes getting in the way. It's just us one on one. I don't want to look back on their lives and have any regrets that we didn't spend enough time together. These few years have already gone so fast I feel like it's only going to go faster. We can pick up and travel without worrying about taking them out of school, we can take school with us. We can set our own schedule. Do school through the summer if we want and take Friday's off through the year to do this. We don't have to be up at 6am to get everyone ready to rush out and be on time for school. We can do what we want and that's awesome!
One question I do get asked about in regards to homeschooling is "socializing". I don't really know what people mean exactly when they ask this but I'm assuming it's about them having a social life and friendships. We are committed to making sure our girls are involved in enough organized activities outside our home like swimming, dance, or whatever they want to get involved in but not too much that family is no longer the priority. I do think it's important that they spend time with friends. They will have their friends at church as well as the wonderful homeschooling community that we are involved with. That's the great thing about how far homeschooling has come. We have a group that we will meet with each week where the girls can make friends. So there will be lots of "socializing". Some other homeschool moms told me they had to pull back on all their activities because there is so much to get involved with.
What are we hoping for our kids from this? We want them to learn to trust in the Word of God, to have it hidden in their heart. We want to train them in the way they should go, so it may go well with them. We want them to be healthy, confident, and to know they are beautifully and wonderfully made. We want them to keep their childlike faith, and we want them to be a light in this world. We want them to be confident, to have good manners, to be compassionate, to be respectful, and to be humble in spirit.
It's an exciting journey can't wait to start!
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