Almost two years ago the thought of homeschooling, although intriguing, completely terrified me. Sooo many questions and concerns regarding, well, basically everything. Will I have patience with him was perhaps my biggest concern. Lets face it, we love our children but they can be very trying on your patience some days. My son, my oldest, is probably every day. =p love him dearly but lord have mercy. The truth is, no, I DO NOT always have the patience for him and for his studies. I was really hard on myself in the beginning. I found that I am slightly more ODC than I had ever thought! I had this idea in my head that homeschooling should be exactly identical to public/private schools.
We needed to have a set time for everything and it needed to be done and mastered by that scheduled time. We needed to sit quietly (and still) at a desk. So many things that I felt like that was how it had to be done or it would fail. What I didn't realize was that was what made that year fail. Homeschooling is homeschooling for a reason after all, right ?
I am not good at schedules or keeping track of things to a T. I'm just not. I try. It doesn't work for me. I am a working full time nurse and mom of 3. We have speech, counseling and homeschool co-op. We have to be flexible.
Flexibility. One of my most favorite things about homeschooling; while also being something that took me a year to realize we needed this most in our lives in order to be successful! Schedules are great, especially if you're a scheduler! If you're not, it just creates more anxiety. Even if you are a scheduler, please understand that sometimes you just need to be flexible, and let it go. Don't make yourself crazy over it. Believe me, you can do this easier than you would think. Never did I feel so much on the spot as a parent by everyone I know until I began homeschooling. Seriously. Now it's all eyes and ears and people looking down on you. So, that alone will generate anxiety and you will feel you have to have everything together "perfectly".
So plan things out, but allow flexibility. Everyone will love you for this, including yourself!
One thing I have also worked on with forgiving myself for is not knowing everything. I know, that seems so silly. But again, everyone is extra watching me and my supportive friends will ask me questions (and the kids) and I feel like I should know everything, after all I am a teacher now, right? Truth is, sometimes I have no clue. That's completely OKAY. Truthfully it makes the entire learning/teacher process that much more beautiful. That is what homeschooling is, beautiful. Watching your children learn and love to learn and then learning and exploring TOGETHER... You just don't get much better than that.
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