Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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It’s the middle of the school year, and your child is not thriving or growing. You think it is time to pull him out of traditional school, but you aren’t sure you can do this. You might be wondering, can I homeschool? What will my family think? What will my friends think? How do I start?

I found myself in this same quandary a few years ago when we took the plunge and started on our homeschool journey. Okay, it was eleven years ago, but time has whizzed by like a shooting star.

I felt like I was literally stuck “between a rock and a hard place” when my oldest son was in kindergarten. It just wasn’t working out—he was unhappy, and I was unhappy. It was really due to a combination of things, but I could see the difference in his attitude and in his enthusiasm for learning. School was a requirement, not a joy. It was a place where he was under the care and influence of others all day without me. I would ask him how his day went and what he learned and did each day, but all I usually got in response was, “okay” or “I don’t know.”

After meetings with the teacher and the director of the program, and talks with other students' moms, I began to discover what some of the problems were. Basically, however, he was not thriving in the classroom setting, and it was doing damage to him.

So, here I was, seven months pregnant and with a toddler in the house, bringing my six-year-old home to school. What was I going to do with a newborn and a toddler while I learned how to “do school” with my son? How were we going to break the news to the grandparents?

Well, you know what? We did fine. After a month or so of decompressing from the school routines, we began to find a rhythm in our days. We started off slow, with a simple curriculum to guide us, and my son eventually found his joy in learning again. My only regret is that we didn’t start homeschooling sooner.

So, if you find yourself stuck in that hard place, I’m here to tell you that you CAN do this. And, there are a bunch of us who have been at it awhile who would love to share our successes and failures with you.