My Story is probably similar to yours…

I didn’t plan to homeschool my children. Like most of you, I started by enrolling my oldest child in kindergarten at our local public school. It went well. The next year I enrolled the second child in kindergarten and the oldest in first grade. We had some issues with the second child being sick a lot. Don’t most kids get sick when they start school? At that point we enrolled them in private school thinking the smaller class sizes would be better. The oldest was put into a reading resource room for extra help.

Everything changed…

The next year is when everything changed for us. The oldest was in a second/third grade split class and was tested as “gifted”. At that time the children had to be testing at gifted level in every subject to qualify for that program. As with any child, he became bored. He would do his work and then be allowed to play educational computer games with his remaining time. Except, he found it more challenging to try to guess the teacher’s password to the grade book. Expelled for three days.

That’s also the time when the learning disabilities for our second child were showing up. When I asked to have her get help from the resource room we were denied services because she wasn’t two years behind. She was in first grade!

You may just want to get through this year…

If you are like I was, you may just want to make sure you cover everything you child needs until school is an option again.

I was never against public or private school so as the children became older, we tried again. Junior high was no challenge for the oldest and the second child became sick again. 

We tried again for the oldest when he was in high school. You know, the whole high school experience I didn’t want him to miss. He had a great time the first year, but was not academically challenged in any way.

The next year he wanted physics and robotics classes but those were reserved for juniors and seniors. That is when he asked if he could take those classes at the local community college. So we jumped through a LOT of hoops and he started college at 14 years old. 

Our success story…

We had six children. The oldest is now 35 years old and the youngest is 17. Each child was different. We used different curriculum when necessary to meet their needs. We also started businesses for each of them to use a a teaching tool, life experience. 

Now we have an engineer, a self-employed hair stylist, a metal fabrication business owner, a memory care caregiver, a teacher, and a photographer. All of them graduated from our homeschool between the ages of 14 and 17. Most of them are married with their own children now.

You may only decide to homeschool for a year. You may decide to make homeschooling a lifestyle, as we did. Either way, I know you are doing what is right for your family and your child/children.