Home Ed Questions: do you ever doubt your choice?

This is the third part (of many, I expect, but far apart and slowly accumulating) in my Home Ed Questions series - here's Part 1: What about socialisation? and Part 2: How will they ever learn to read and write?

N(then 9) reads to D(then 8)

This entire blog is about thinking out loud, giving the reader a bit of an insight on what's going on in my mind. So this is going to be an open, vulnerable post as I think through my doubts and fears.

Do I ever doubt my choices?

You bet I do. Going against what the vast majority of people are doing, and are deeming necessary, is not easy and I'm not a Lone Ranger by nature. I have always craved community, people to walk alongside me. And luckily, there is a great community of home educators where I live - many of whom I have little in common with besides our choice of education, but because it's a large enough community, I do find there are a few that I can walk with closely. Of course there's online as well, the 'global village' we live in; I found this for the first time when I was 19 and wanted to quit smoking! There was a message board called 'Freedom From Tobacco - Quit Smoking Now' which had a great community of regulars and much encouragement, I leaned heavily on this and it's a big part of how I managed to quit (which was hitherto the hardest thing I had ever done!)

In the same way, there are communities of home educators who share my approach and values, that I can lean on, online. These are the main reason why I can't quit Facebook, much to my chagrin... but, I digress. I listen to podcasts, communicate with others on the same path and particularly those who are slightly further ahead, and it's very helpful. Not as helpful as having people in person, in the flesh, to spend time with, but it all helps.

Fundamentally, however, I am settled.

While I sometimes tinker around the edges of how exactly I approach home educating - as mulled over in this post - I have no intention of ever sending them to school. Particularly as they get older and I begin to see the fruits of this approach, I find myself more at peace. It's unnerving, for sure, to take a five-year-old and decide to just trust in their curiosity... but when you have a 9, 10, 11 year old who has somehow learned to read and write without ever having to be tortured with phonics; who continues to be curious about the world; and who interacts confidently with people of all ages - then it's much easier to trust in their future growth.

Often, people ask me if I intend to continue home educating for Secondary. Of course - and all the more so! Why would I interrupt their natural growth and learning in order to have them moulded into a uniform of both clothing and thinking? They are so individual now, confident in their individuality and strengths. 

Bell ringing at a recent outing - it's all learning!

'Begin with the end in mind.'

That's from Steven Covey's book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - an old classic, mostly for business, but certainly applicable here too. The end in mind for me is: for my children to become well rounded adults who are confident and comfortable in their own strengths while knowing their weaknesses, and who love their God and other people. 

Where do grades come into this? They only feature negatively, as in, I would not want my kids to measure themselves against an artificial yardstick and/or their particular cohort at their local school, and decide they are either better or worse than these. 

This isn't to say I am against education! - It's not education, it's school in particular, that I would not want to put my children into. If they want to go to university, great! School is not that.

The mental picture a friend once gave me of home education - and this was long before I even had kids of my own, but it's stayed with me ever since! - was that of gardening. My children are like young plants, they are vulnerable, tender, young. My job is to look after them in a greenhouse (home) so they can develop, grow and strengthen until they are ready to be planted out. So yes, I will shelter them! Once they are mature enough, they will then be able to know who they are in the world, and walk into it with that resilience and confidence - and succeed.

That is where we are going, that is what we are building here. Having the end goal in my mind - when the little doubts come in, the niggles of when I see the highlights of what others are doing (and only the highlights, if it's online, because that's naturally what people post about their lives!) - I go back to the end goal. A day at a time, I am building adults, so help me God.