My wife and I have been homeschooling for thirteen years. Initially, we tried homeschooling hoping it would work out, but if it didn’t we had a backup plan of putting our children into public schools. At the beginning, we weren’t committed or true believers. As the years went by, we became more and more committed to homeschooling. We became aware of more and more problems with public schools. In the end, we became true believers of the value of homeschooling.
But for the longest time there was still a certain amount of faith and hope that homeschooling would really work.
Now we are starting to see the fruits of homeschooling.
Our oldest daughter is now eighteen years old. She is doing well at the local community college. Her teachers like her. She is on top of her school work. One teacher made it a point to say that our daughter was the only one diligent enough to have done all the homework.
Our daughter is able to handle challenges. A friend recommended our daughter for an eight hour babysitting job. She watched four young children, one with a server developmental problem. Our daughter had never met this family before. She dealt with a number of problems while watching the children, but came sailing through.
I am catching myself talking with her more and more often like she is an adult. It is kind of a weird feeling.
And we can see the hints of similar fruits in our other two daughters who are 12 and 15.
If you are considering homeschooling, or have been homeschooling for a while and are having second thoughts my advice is to stick with it. It can be hard at times. It is challenging, but it is worthwhile. And as the years roll by you will also come to see more of the fruits of homeschooling.
3 comments:
Yes, there is homeschooling fruit here at our house too. My oldest is 19 and in college and he is very diligent with his school work as well. My 2 youngest are 14 and 16 and they are showing quite a bit of maturity.
It is a wonderful feeling, isn't it?
I put my 3 oldest children in Catholic school this year. After only 2 weeks my children report that they are called on to read more frequently than others because they are such great readers. I chalk this up to homeschooling, not pressuring them to read by age 6, and many hours of being read to aloud by me. The girls also read aloud to their younger siblings and they are better at it than many librarians at storytime.
Fatcat - yes it is a wonderful feeling.
kat - there is a lot of evidence that waiting for children to be ready to read, rather than pushing them to read three to five, leads to children who love to read and are voracious readers.
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