Well hi! If you landed here, chances are you have thoughts of homeschooling your kids floating around your mind (or you’ve been doing it for a while and need a little encouragement). That might either make you excited or ready to run for the hills! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the About Me page to get a good idea of what we’ll be talking about on this site.

My goal in this series is to give you some things to ponder as you embark on this journey. I’ll take you through the basics of getting your own homeschool started, and give you a lot to think about before you even choose your first curriculum! But don’t worry – when it comes to teaching your kids, you are the leading expert. You know them better than anyone. And if you find something not working as you hoped, you can try something new the next day! So whether you’re excited or terrified – let’s jump in.

I need you to think about something – I mean, really think about it. Actually, let’s take it a step further. Write it down. Handwritten paper, typed and double spaced, a napkin that you promise you won’t use on spaghetti night, whatever works best for you. Seriously – you’ll need to come back to this in the near future. Ready for the question?

WHY?

Yep, that’s it. But I want you to be specific with the details. Why do you want to homeschool your children? What is your motive? What are you unhappy with in your current schooling situation, and what do you want to see change? If your kids are still little and haven’t started school outside the home yet, what are you hoping to avoid? It can be tempting, if not the default, to read over those questions and have a glossy, fluffy, almost difficult to put into words answer in your mind, but don’t fall for it! Write it out. Take a few minutes and really think about what is driving you to even consider this option. It’s ok – I’ll wait. I’ll be here for you when you get back.

How did that go? Do you have a good idea of why you are doing this? I’m asking you to be specific for a few reasons. One is that the task of educating your kids is one of the greatest assignments you have. Taking control over it is a tough decision that will require some hard work from you. But, as I hope you will discover, it can also be one of the best decisions your family makes! If you have a clear idea of why you are doing this, it will help you stick to it with joy and purpose even if the days get hard. You’ll need to re-read your WHY a few times a year. It will help keep you focused on your goals and grounded in your vision.

I’m here to tell you there will be hard days. There will be times that you wonder why you are doing this. But there will also be times you couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Times that you see the light bulb click over a tough math problem, or hear the connections your child makes between two different events in history. There will even be days that you just relish in spending quality time with your kids playing, gaming, exploring – whatever your family thrives on. Knowing your WHY will keep you going no matter HOW things are going.

Another reason to be specific right now about your desire to homeschool is that it will drive many of the decisions you will need to make about setting up your school, choosing curriculum, and how you will teach. There is a dizzying array of options when it comes to homeschool resources, and unless you have a solid vision to stand on, you’ll just get, well – dizzy! So articulating your WHY now will help you stay on the right course over the next steps of getting started.

The beauty of all this is that your WHY can be completely different than that of the family down the street. And that’s ok. We all share the goal of educating our children in the best way we can, but that way doesn’t always look the same. Nor should it. Every child has different things that make them tick. They have different needs and learn in different ways. They have different passions, hopes, and dreams. They have different weaknesses and respond to failure in different ways. But as their primary teacher, you can determine best how to structure their education to set them up for success.

Knowing your WHY will keep you going no matter HOW things are going.

If you have already been homeschooling for any length of time (ok, for more than 2 days), you have probably wondered what you got yourself into, and whether you are getting anywhere. Just because homeschooling has a wonderful way of getting us connected with our kids and invigorating our family life, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. If you have never taken the time to write out your WHY, do it now! Doing so will re-center your focus, help you identify unnecessary things that are distracting from your purpose, and serve as a springboard to breathe new life into your homeschool. It will help you refine your curriculum choices and – most likely – encourage you by bringing to light the things you have been doing all along that support your WHY without even realizing it!

Until next time, keep your WHY in focus. Refine it if you think you need to. Talk to your spouse about it. Mull it over and give it some real thought. It’s going to be important as you take the next steps to get your homeschool up and running. And if you felt terrified going in to this post, I hope you are inching towards excitement! There’s an exciting journey in store for your family and I can’t wait to walk through it with you!