Homeschooling Fears – Will My Children Regret Being Homeschooled?
Welcome to the February 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting Fears
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories and wisdom about parenting fears.
***
I homeschooled both my children through high school. They’re 23 and 28 now, so I’ve gotten the answers to my homeschooling questions.
Interview with My Now-Adult Children
This was one of my biggest homeschooling questions: Will my children regret being homeschooled?
I could tell that my children were happy they were homeschooled, and they had told me before that they liked being homeschooled. But I decided to interview them for this post to get an exact answer to my question: “Did you ever regret being homeschooled?” Following are their answers.
Will, 28, said he liked homeschooling and didn’t regret being homeschooled. He said:
“Homeschooling made me a more independent thinker. Homeschooling was also more interesting. I studied a better variety of topics.
“Because I was involved in skating, I still had a social presence. I do think homeschoolers need to be involved in some sort of social activity for their kids.”
Christina, 23, also said she liked homeschooling and didn’t regret being homeschooled. She said:
“I really liked that I was able to graduate two years early. That meant that I was able to graduate from college at age 19, which is extremely rare.
“I loved the freedom of being able to do my schoolwork at different times of the day so that I could keep up my busy schedule of ballet, skating, workouts, and karate.
“Being homeschooled also meant that I didn’t have to spend lots of extra time on homework and inessentials. Instead, I was able to focus and spend more time on what was important for me to learn.
“I enjoyed being taught by my mom. She’s an excellent teacher, and it was always nice to be around her more.
“Homeschooling also helped me be more independent as I grew older and was able to take more responsibility for my studies.”
Homeschool Resources
If you’d like to know more about our homeschooling experience (and more about my inadequacies as a homeschooler), here are some posts you might enjoy:
- How to Be a Relaxed Homeschooler
- The Overwhelmed Mom’s Guide to Montessori Homeschooling
- Top 5 Homeschool Lessons My Children Taught Me
For a list of many of my homeschooling posts and resources, check out my Homeschooling Resources post.
Following My Children’s Interests to Adulthood
Because I used Montessori principles in homeschooling, following my children’s interests was a major focus of our homeschool. If you’d like to see some examples of how my children followed their interests, here’s a video of Will and his pair partner, Aaryn Smith, performing their “Phantom of the Opera” long program at their first Junior Grand Prix in 2004.:
Here’s a video of Christina and her ice-dance partner, Mark Hanretty, performing their Scottish Folkdance OD at the 2010 World Figure Skating Championships in Turin, Italy:
Here’s a video of Christina and Mark performing a show program to Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”:
In addition to being successful skating coaches now, Christina and Will have followed their interests in other areas. Will’s B.A. is in Communications with his minor in Music Industry Studies. He uses both his communication skills and music knowledge in his successful DJ business, Dancing DJ Productions. Will loves his combination of being a skating coach and a DJ.
Christina’s B.A. from Sheffield Hallam University in England is in Performance and Professional Practice. Christina always enjoyed writing and is a book author. Also, Christina and her British husband are both fitness experts who co-founded Fit Body Full Life. They are having fun right now performing in their 1- and 30-day challenges on YouTube and enjoy their entrepreneurial adventures.
So, I learned that I didn’t have to be perfect. Everything turned out fine … better than fine! Based on my experience, my number-one advice to homeschooling parents is simple … realize you don’t need to be perfect.
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
- When Parents’ Fears Escalate — If we didn’t self-doubt, we probably wouldn’t care enough about our children to struggle with understanding them. But how do we overcome self-doubt? Read advice from Laurie Hollman, Ph.D., guest posting today at Natural Parents Network.
- What ifs of addiction — After seeing how addictions of adult children is badly hurting a family close to her heart, Hannah at HannahandHorn shares her fears for her own child.
- Sharing My Joy — Kellie at Our Mindful Life shares her fear that others think she is judgmental because she makes alternative choices for her own family.
- Building My Tribe Fearlessly — A meteorite hit Jaye Anne at Tribal Mama’s family when she was seven years old. Read the story, how she feels about that now, and how she is building her tribe fearlessly.
- Fear: Realized — Laura from Pug in the Kitchen shares how her fear of car accidents was realized and how she hopes to be able to use her efforts to overcome the remaining fears to help her children overcome their own.
- I’m a Negligent Helicopter Parent — For Issa Waters at LoveLiveGrow, the line between helicopter parenting and negligent parenting is not so cut and dried.
- My Greatest Fear For My Child — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama admits that she has struggled with not allowing her fears to control her and how the reality of this was blown wide open when she became a mother.
- Proactive Steps to Calm Parenting Fears — Every parent has certain fears related to dangerous situations, That Mama Gretchen shares ways she is preparing herself and her children for emergencies.
- Homeschooling Fears – Will My Children Regret Being Homeschooled? — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares an interview with her now-adult children that answers a question she had throughout their homeschooling.
- An Uneasy Truce — Homeschooler and recent convert to unschooling, Tam at tinsenpup shares just a few of the things she tries to keep in mind when fear and insecurity begin to take hold.
- Fearing the worst, expecting the best — Tarana at Sand In My Toes writes about fears that come with parenting, and why we must overcome them.
- Can I be the parent I want to be? — Amanda at Postilius confronts her struggle to peacefully parent a preschooler
- Out of Mind, Out of Fear — How does Jorje of Momma Jorje deal with her pretty steep, long-term fears regarding her son’s future?
- I Don’t Homeschool to Manage My Kids’ Transcripts — One of Dionna at Code Name: Mama’s fears of parenting is that she will get so caught up in the monotony, the details of homeschooling, the minutiae of everyday life, the routine of taking care of a household – that she will forget to actually be present in the moment with her children.
- Beware! Single Mom Camping — Erica at ChildOrganics shares her first adventures as a single mom. She laughed, she cried, she faced her fears.
- Parenting Fears And Reality Checks — Luschka from Diary of a First Child shares her three biggest fears as a parent – that most parents share – looks at the reality behind these fears, and offers a few suggestions for enjoying parenting.
- Parenting fear : to kill a pink rabbit… — Mother Goutte tells us the story of a pink rabbit that disappeared, came back, and became the symbol of her worst parenting fear…
- Roaming — sustainablemum considers whether allowing your children freedom to explore the world safely is harder now than in the past.
- Meeting my parenting fears head-on — Lauren at Hobo Mama had many fears before she became a parent. Learn how they all came true — and weren’t anywhere near as scary as she’d thought.
- Don’t fear the tears — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger worried that letting her children cry when going to sleep was tantamount to the dreaded parenting moniker, CIO. She discusses what actually happened after those teary nights, and how she hopes these lessons can carry forward to future parenting opportunities.
- Will I Still be a Good Mom? — Mercedes at Project Procrastinot worries about her mothering skills now that breastfeeding is no longer the top priority.
- Pregnancy Fears: It Happened to My Sisters, It Will Happen to Me… — Kristen at Country Fit Family discusses the difficulties with pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding that the women in her family have had and how she overcame them.
- Fears — Meegs at A New Day talks about how her fears before parenting led to a better understanding of herself and her desires for her daughter.
Learn more about Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy!
If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), Twitter (blog posts by me and others along with the Parent/Teacher Daily and other interesting information), and Google (post updates and Montessori Community). You can find me on bloglovin’ now, too. I’m also a Parenting Expert on Sulia. Thank you for following me there. And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter in the right sidebar. You’ll get two awesome freebies in the process!
May be linked to Afterschool Express, Thoughtful Spot, Tuesday Tots, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co., Mom’s Library, Craft & Activity Share, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Homeschool Link-up, Hearts for Home Blog Hop, Learn & Link, TGIF Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Ultimate Homeschool Pinterest Party, Sharing Saturday, Saturday Show & Tell, Share It Saturday, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn.
