Whether you are thinking about beginning to homeschool or have been on this journey for years it is crucial to remember WHY and to have a vision for the task at hand because home schooling is not just teaching academics from 9am-2pm, it’s a lifestyle, a way of life.
Maybe you don’t homeschool, but you have a daughter who is, grandkids who are being homeschooled?
Maybe you have friends who homeschool and you are curious why?
What ever the reason is for bringing you to this article, I want to encourage you that this post will give you insight into many reasons why people have chosen this path of education and raising their families. I pray that it reveals ways you can be supportive and a deeper understanding of the mission behind it.
Drum Roll Please… counting down… I will list our top eleven reasons for choosing to home educate and then I will explain each of those in a summary below.
11. The PERKS
10. Customization Of Curated Life Skills Training
9. It’s What Works for Our Family
8. Out of the Box Education
7. It’s Sanctifying, Producing a Rare Fruit- John 15
6. Stewardship – Best Use of Time
5. Leaving a Legacy of Kingdom Focused Impact
4. Indoctrination
3. Home Discipleship
2. Socialization-Relationships
1. Calling/Mission
Homeschooling is part of our family’s identity, NOT our identity. Our identity is founded in Christ Jesus.
Homeschooling doesn’t guarantee our kids will be saved. Our only Savior is Jesus Christ.
Teaching our children is our way of life. It isn’t something we do from 9am-2pm. It is in all we do, how we interact with them and one another. The love for learning is caught, not taught.
The PERKS
- witnessing your children’s firsts like reading, losing a tooth, and learning how to make brownies
- celebrating with your kids when they conquer a hurdle
- taking family vacations when it works best for YOUR family
- You GET to spend more time with your kids, developing strong bonds
- Moving along at a pace that keeps your kids stimulated and interested
- Delight directed study (no one telling you what to study lends to being able to curate education that is intriguing)
- These are just the perks you DO get, there are many more perks that come from NOT putting your kids in school (such as bad influences)
The reality is that homeschooling isn’t easy. It takes intentionality, decision-making {choosing curriculum}, discipline to get it done, determination to keep going when it gets hard, but it can also be such a joy!
Customization Of Curated Life Skills Training
Homeschooling can be a catalyst in preparing our children with the tools they need for their futures. As our children grow in age, they dream and discover their interests. We get the opportunity to help them develop life skills that will give them the tools, skills, knowledge, and experience they need to thrive in whatever industry they pursue.
Instead of throwing our kids into college with a dream and no experience of insight into that industry, part of their education can be training as an apprentice through networking.
Life skills our kids have learned so far:
- Self-defense (currently taking Krav Maga as a family)
- Homemaking (every aspect of managing a home)
- Cooking
- Baking
- Cleaning
- Ironing
- Gardening
- Farming (We cultivated a hobby vineyard with our kids over a decade ago to teach them work ethic)
- Video editing
- photography
- Painting (Acrylic & Water color)
- Music (Piano, Violin, Guitar, and Voice)
- Drama/Theatre
- Entrepreneurship (from both my husband and I. Our oldest son, who is 14, runs our RV rental business)
- Editing Skills, Social Media, Graphic Design, and Technology
- Customer Service
- Teaching (as the olders help with homeschooling siblings)
- Theological Training
The cool thing about homeschooling is that YOU GET TO BE THE VISIONARY!
It’s What Works for Our Family
Enabling Our Family and Individual Missions
Homeschooling is the catalytic vehicle that empowers our family to prepare every member our team for the missions God has for each of us in the future.
My husband has always been an entrepreneur and so his work schedule has never been in alignment with school breaks. This isn’t why we homeschool, but one example of how it works for our family. We also highly value having the kids go to work with dad as often as his schedule allows. As well as imparting as much knowledge and understanding that we have in both of the areas of expertise that we work. His influence on the children, teaching them biblical leadership skills, and exposing them to all the different facets of running a business {with a kingdom focused vision} is essential in our mentoring them up into leaders of the next generation.
We believe that it is necessary for our children to have a confidence that they can create income with their minds and hard work. That they don’t need to rely on any man to provide them a job. Teaching them entrepreneurship and following God’s call is a HUGE passion of ours. The kids wouldn’t get to witness what we do at the same level if we didn’t homeschool. Plus we meet some pretty cool people in what we do and we love that our kids get to meet them too!
Out of the Box Education
Delight directed, diligent, and independent study opportunities. Adapted to each child’s unique learning style and core nature. And the teacher to student ratio is really good!
- Curriculums chose for each child in alignment with their learning styles and interests
- The freedom to change curriculums when one isn’t working for a child
- Freedom to go over a concept until they have mastered the material
- Freedom to progress with the child and keep them stimulated so that they don’t get bored but love learning
- Ability to add in cool opportunities like debate, mock trial, science fairs, and fine arts which are often cut from public education
- Power to choose friends for my children when they are young and to cultivate friendships with like-minded families to learn and grow beside
Because I am with my children nearly 24/7 and am intentionally trying to build authentic relationships with each of them through spending time just talking about life, I have a pretty good spiritual thermometer on what their gifts are now, where they are at spiritually, their learning styles, their hopes and dreams, and what they need to work on.
We believe that every child has been born with a unique purpose. Because of that, we look for the differences in our children and view them as good and special, while being aware of the challenges and trying to deal with those head on. I have never done well with using one type of curriculum for all my children because they are all so different. My goal is to adapt what I am focusing on with each child to stimulate an authentic desire for learning.
Combine the invaluable insight from spending the time with the children along with a mama’s love, desire for them to be the best they can be, what makes them tick {what do they want to learn about what interests them}, and opportunities to practice or try them out in an environment where they are afraid of failing… you’ve got a great recipe for success. Our homeschool won’t look like yours because we are different to the core and have been called to different family missions. But home schooling enables all of us to pursue those unique callings.
It’s Sanctifying, Producing a Rare Fruit- John 15
I really don’t like the phrase, “You must be so much more patient than me, I could never homeschool.” Why does it bother me? Because I am NOT all that patient, not in my own flesh. In fact, I think at the beginning of my parenting journey I could have won a contest for the most selfish and impatient parent EVER. BUT, God has refined me and continues to do so daily as I take on this privilege of being my children’s teacher, mother, caregiver, and mentor.
Being a homeschool mom is sanctifying, challenging, and produces a good fruit that lasts.
I cannot do it in my power and there are so many times I think about giving up. Sometimes I wonder to myself, why I have to make my life so hard by choosing to homeschool. I really actually don’t like teaching children. I would never have chosen that profession. However, I have a vision for the fruit it will produce in our family, in my children, and in my own heart… if we each submit to that pruning.
The good fruit I talk about is not just about what it produces in the educator. When we decided to homeschool, it was largely based on the fruit we saw from the public and private schooled children compared to the fruit we saw in a few home schooled children. {no offense to those who have kids there… I’m sure your children are angels} We didn’t know many homeschooled children, but those we did know, we more respectful, and seemed to have a confidence about themselves. Those were the first fruits we saw. Still unconvinced, we simply dared to dream. My husband and I are both anti-system. Him more than myself for sure. Isaac has influenced my thinking greatly on this topic. But we have decided that if we want our children to be independent/creative/innovative thinkers, putting them in a boxed system would potentially kill any chance of that.
The Good fruit Jesus talks about in John 15 is a fruit of the soul, spiritual fruit. Ultimately, this fruit was not something we witnessed in our education or see as a priority in the education system today. In fact, if anything this fruit is attacked and undermined more and more every year. Now that we have older children, we are able to truly see the fruit that homeschooling can produce and we are so pleased.
Stewardship – Best Use of Time
I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that investing in children is the highest calling and best use of one’s time on earth.
I took this deeply to heart and it has left a deep impression on my mind for many years. Whenever I am yearning to do more, to serve, to get out and work for the furtherment of the Kingdom of God when I have that restlessness deep within my soul… I look at my children and see that the greatest use of my time truly is in investing in them. The exponential impact is made through the next generation if they catch the vision. If they accept the call. If they catch the vision is my responsibility to teach and God’s responsibility to impart. If they accept the call is my responsibility to show by example, and their responsibility to surrender to. But I have to do my part first.
We can be extremely efficient with learning and get things done when we put our minds to it. This is a skill I want my children to live. Living a life of discipline is hard, especially if you don’t have a track record of it. My goal is to remind my children we have all been given the same thing in this life, an unknown amount of time on earth… and to be wise with what we do with it so as not to live with regrets from the past but to build upon our history. We are all writing our history… and contributing to one another’s. Great source of accountability.
This is one of those things that is just as much caught as it is taught, kind of like a love for learning.
Leaving a Kingdom Focused Legacy of Impact
We all leave a legacy, intentionally and unintentionally. We have a responsibility to be aware and live in that reality. But we also need to realize that the legacy we are leaving isn’t about us… it’s God’s legacy. It’s the stories about what He has done in our lives, what He is doing, what He promises to do and Who He is. As Christ followers, we all have a mandate as ambassadors, co-heirs with Christ, to teach our children about God, His word, His commands, and to train them up in the way they should go. That mandate includes passing down His legacy through focusing on the advancement of the Kingdom. Advancement in both making disciples and leading disciples.
When I think of God’s legacy passed on from one generation to another, I am aware that the enemy of God’s people is ready to attack and try to steer His legacy among His people off course at any given opportunity.
I believe that history and the Word of God predict and warn us that the culture, its teachings, and the desires for sin will get much worse in the coming generations. (2 Tim. 4:3)
I homeschool not just for my children, but for my grandchildren, great grandchildren, and the generations to come. I homeschool because it is my best attempt at leaving a legacy of faith.
Indoctrination
The truth is that education, wherever it is given, whatever the topic, is indoctrination.
The government understands this better than any of us and so did the patriarchs of our faith. The bottom line is that, if all children are indoctrinated, I don’t want my children indoctrinated with beliefs that contradict our faith or that will inhibit them from fulfilling their purpose for which God created them.
My personal belief is that the current curriculums in public schools do not equip children with critical thinking, value creativity, or inspire ingenuity. I firmly believe what they produce are grown children who have learned how to regurgitate the information the system desires, who often lack inspiration and innovation for building a future. Thomas Edison said to his mother upon quitting school, “Mother, school simply gets in the way of my education.” Mothers of Famous Men
Home Discipleship
This is an essential part of why we homeschool.
Home Discipleship alone is worthy of being more than enough of a reason for homeschooling.
If we could spend all of our education focused on biblical mentoring, teaching, discipling, and practicing I would be in heaven. Home discipleship includes everything from the devotions and family worship we enjoy together, to the bible curriculums, and even the 15-45 minute conversations required when character traits are being cultivated or simply taught.
Home discipleship happens all day, wherever we are, no matter what we are learning about or doing.
When a child has a bad attitude about doing something as simple as dishes or not wanting to do their math, we have an opportunity for discipleship.
When our children have a temper tantrum, we as parents need to view it as an opportunity for training in righteousness.
Good fruit doesn’t just grow, it requires hours of pruning, weeding, vinedresser, watering, and care before you can harvest. It is the same with discipleship.
The gift of purpose in this life is the best gift you can give a child, and purpose is only found in our Creator, Savior, and Counselor.
Socialization/Relationships
This is often one of the first things people ask you when you begin the homeschooling journey. What about Socialization?
Honestly, this is one of the main reasons why we do homeschool! Peers have a massive impact and influence on who children become, their self-esteem, and what they believe. I grew up in the education system and would be naive to think that the culture has gotten more holy and God-fearing since I was there.
I know what you are thinking, “Oh, she is one of those who had a hard time in school, maybe a nerd; that’s why she homeschools.” Well, I am sorry to burst your bubble but I was actually pretty average. I was friends with almost everybody, not really a part of clichés for very long as I quickly discovered how they hurt people. I was a great student. I got enough scholarships and worked hard enough to put myself almost all the way through University with almost no debt. But I saw the truth about what was going on in school. I saw kids being mean to kids, and yes at times I was a victim of it as well because I was the nice girl who cared what people thought. But most of the time I sneaked under that radar. I wasn’t a strong leader but had seasons of mediocre popularity. The truth is though, that most of my time was consumed with caring about the social aspects of school drama. What a waste.
In addition, within a growing family, there are many seasons of opportunity for relationships to be established and strengthened. If we are blessed to add another baby, or someone in the family goes through a medical emergency, there is a flexibility with homeschooling that allows us to prioritize relationships, those things that are eternal, over other things which are not.
The bottom line is that I want to like my kids when they are older. Socialization impacts whom a child becomes. The truth is that Isaac and I are abnormal, weird, extreme, think out of the box kind of people. And we want to give that gift to our kids. So we are socializing them to us and each other. It is also deeply important to us that our children are best friends with each other. Their family will always be in your life. Learning to value the gift that siblings can be is something our culture doesn’t usually teach. We want that deep, rich support for each of them. Lord knows they will need other like-minded believers to have their back. Building relationships take time and I only have around 17-20 years per child to help them develop those bonds that should last a lifetime, therefore, I NEED to homeschool.
Will Homeschooling Make My Kids Socially Awkward? Read this post!
Calling & Mission
Whatever education choice, lifestyle choice, occupation choice, or mission you are on needs to be in alignment with your other missions and calling in life.
Every year we evaluate, for each child, is this the right choice for them, for us, for our family? We give homeschooling back to God over and over again. Sometimes even crying out to Him asking Him to take this cup from me.
When He calls you to do something it becomes a matter of obedience. For our family, for me, this year and for every year in the past decade and a half we were called to homeschool.
One year, I struggled with vision and expectations of myself and my daughter, so I put her in school. While I don’t regret having put her in school that year because it further cemented our conviction, the truth is that choice was based upon fear of failure. It was a wrong reason to put her in school. I doubted myself and what God could do through me. I was scared of the unknown and feared the opposition from the culture and community we were a part of.
I mentioned before how homeschooling can be hard, and because of that… you need to know WHY you homeschool. You need to have VISION. And you need to be on a MISSION. Nothing is more life fulfilling than living out your calling and being on a mission. Homeschooling is a calling, for many and it is what God has called our family too.
Hold your personal convictions open-handed, always in submission to the Lord. This life is a journey, an exciting adventure that sometimes has unexpected turns and curves but it is best enjoyed when in alignment to our calling.
Much love to you all! I have listed a few thoughts and favorite verses which I blog about here often below. I think you can figure out where my heart is with these ones.
Homeschooling is hard work, but it’s so worth it.
Three passages of Scripture that have forever impacted our perspective on home education:
“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son(s) and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I commanded you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them to your children, and shalt talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Duet. 6:1-8
My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart...Keep your heart with vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path at your feet; then all your ways will be sure.” Proverbs 4:20-26
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:11-14
