What Makes Us Different
Our family rarely does things the typical way. It certainly makes for some interesting adventures! Of course, homeschooling is no different! Three things make our homeschooling adventure a little different than the typical. I’m not saying that we’re completely different from all other homeschooling families but, from what I’ve seen as we’ve done research preparing for this transition, we definitely aren’t the “norm”. Here are the three:
- We are just now beginning to homeschool our son, at 10 years old and after four and a half years in public school and many years before that in outside-the-home daycare and preschool. I do realize that many parents start homeschooling their children later in their education, so this isn’t maybe as unique as the other two ways that we are different. On the other hand, as we’ve done research we’ve found a lot more resources geared toward younger students, or at least toward starting homeschooling with younger students.
- We will be homeschooling an only child. Again, I know there are other families that homeschool only children, but the “typical” does seem to be at least two children. In some respects, the fact that NDEW is an only child is probably one of the reasons that we haven’t homeschooled before now. As we really started reading and learning about homeschooling, and especially about the resources available in our area, we decided that this fact shouldn’t hold us back and that NDEW will have plenty of opportunities to be with other children. It might even turn out that he actually has more opportunities to get to know other kids at a deeper level.
- Lastly is the thing that, at least as far as I can tell, is least “typical” in our homeschool situation-my husband will be the primary educator for our son. I will be doing a lot of the planning for them, but in the day-to-day learning environment of our home, dear hubby will be the one hitting the books. Again, I do realize that there are other dads that are the primary homeschool instructor, but let’s be honest, most of the resources, especially those available online, are geared toward moms. As we have been preparing for this transition I have been looking for articles to pass on to hubby about supporting kids transitioning from public to homeschool, and, overwhelmingly, they were addressed to “homeschool moms”. One great article we read was even from a blog called “Homeschooling in High Heels”. Hubby and I both decided that it was a really good thing that high heels weren’t mandatory for homeschooling. As hubby said “I would make a really ugly woman!” When I searched specifically for articles for homeschool dads, they almost all talked about “supporting your wife” in her homeschooling of the children and in making sure you stay involved in your children’s educations during the evenings and on weekends. Again, I know there are other dads that act as the primary instructor, but they aren’t highlighted much out there. Maybe that’s another thing we can do with this blog-show an example of what it looks like when dad’s your teacher!
Our Homeschool Adventure Blog 