I had no idea what I would have to learn to be a homeschool parent.
Some days, I think back to my idealizing notions of homeschooling and I don’t think I knew what I was signing up for (no, I don’t think…I know I didn’t).
I wonder if I would have had the fortitude or the willingness to learn everything I needed to learn had I been a fly on the wall to many of our days in the last eight years.
Here’s what you need to know as a homeschool parent.
You’ll be relearning a whole bunch of things you didn’t know you’d be relearning.
However, I didn’t know I’d be relearning a whole bunch of stuff I was initially taught in school.
I remember studying Russia in 1989 as Mikhail Gorbachev entered leadership.
I remember discussions of the Iron Curtain. And a whole semester of the Soviet Union in Grade 6 social studies. I don’t remember a lot of details other than the gargantuan size of the country or the dissolution of the states.
There are math concepts I was exposed to as a child and I relearned as a homeschool mom. There are grammatical concepts that seemed like a hazy mess back in the day, and now I could sentence diagram most sentences (if I wanted to, but I’d rather spend my time keeping the kitchen floor photo worthy: much more fun).
But these are some of the things I thought I might have to relearn.
My learning isn’t just Russian history, conjugating French verbs, writing algebraic equations, or memorizing geological time periods.
Kid you not, that’s the easy stuff.
There will be stuff you definitely didn’t know you’d have to relearn:
Learning how not to let my spirit rise to a child complaining for the bajillionth time that day, or organizing French learning when everyone in the room isn’t at the same level, or incorporating exercise and writing time into a kid-focused extracurricular schedule?
There’s the learning.
Learning to let go of my expectations that I can be god to my children:
- I can’t always listen to everyone’s thoughts on everything,
- I don’t always not get mad,
- I can’t love them unconditionally,
- I can’t, and don’t want, to multitask most days: I find it exhausting.
Letting go of my expectation of perfection is definitely something I continue to learn.
Amidst the mess of real homeschool parenting and the actual homeschooling, I get to do exactly what I always wanted in my homeschool days:
- to be with my kiddos at the best times of their day,
- to lap up their happy juices (when they’re having happy days),
- to enjoy their energetic juices,
- to get to see them consume books like potato chips,
- to write short stories as quickly as they consume the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid offering, and
- to conquer math concepts like Napoleon on a colonial mission.
- to watch them spend time together,
- to play games together
- to help each other with tricky math concepts.
I get to watch them grow right before my eyes.
Melanie Wilson, on her homeschool podcast, Homeschool Sanity, told her listeners: “I got to squeeze every last drop of my kid’s childhood as I homeschooled him for eighteen years.”
There’s no doubt about it, just as I am squeezing every last drop of experiencing my kiddos, I’m also squeezing every last drop of learning about my world too.
- The subject could be world geography, or it could be patience.
- It could be botany, or it could be kindness.
- It is definitely algebra, and often dissecting my emotional projections of internal struggles onto those I love the most.
So many lessons, and yet so much time to learn them.
No worries that I might not get the lesson the first time, I’ll have so many repeat opportunities to learn them.
And in the meantime, I get to squeeze every last drop of my kiddo’s childhoods.
So what do you need to know as a homeschool parent? Don’t worry about it, you’ll learn as you go!
Grappling with Overwhelm Journaling Workbook
Journal questions & workbook that aid in your self-exploration to help address your needs, gain satisfying relationships and shift your homeschool perspective.
This can be a self-coaching workbook can be a self-coaching tool to help you discover the barriers getting in the way of your satisfying homeschool life, create a plan to address your relationships, needs & homeschools, and thereby, shift your homeschool experience.
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Teresa Wiedrick
I help overwhelmed homeschool mamas shed what’s not working in their homeschool & life, so they can show up authentically, purposefully, and confidently in their homeschool & life.
Great post!!!
Thank you.
I relate so well to this! Enjoy every moment it’s gone all too quickly!
My favorite part of unschooling is the same – getting to squeeze every last drop of my son’s childhood. It makes it so that when he is ready to snip an apron string, I am prepared, too. It makes it so that I know intuitively that he can be trusted with one thing or another (e.g., online) because I have been there the entire time. I know how he learned, I know the questions he asked. I know him so well that I now know myself – as he is an artful reflection of all my good and bad (never-ending onion peeling and personal growth). He truly understands that we are connected, that long after I am gone – we will remain so.
Haha, I’m not sure I can let them snip apron strings so easily. Actually, yes you’re right, folks around us marvelled that we would let our 17 yo travel to Mexico independently—but she really was ready and perfectly capable. 💗