My kids attended public school through their fourth and sixth grade years.
In Florida, where we live, middle school starts in seventh grade, and hearing moms with older kids talk of how stressful middle and high school would be filled me with anxiety.
I wanted something different for my soon-to-be teenagers — a schooling experience full of travel and exploring their interests. Homeschooling intrigued me, but I had just as many worries about making the change as I did about sending them off to middle school.
Armed with books from the library, including one titled “Homeschooling for Dummies,” I started researching homeschool in the months before the pandemic. Once public school went virtual that year, I decided the following school year was as good a time as any to make the change. We started my kids’ fifth and seventh grade years as a homeschool family and never looked back.
Come to find out, the things I worried about weren’t a big deal after all. My son is now in his senior year of high school, and my daughter is a sophomore. I know now there were misconceptions about homeschooling I couldn’t have been more wrong about.
Misconception #1: My kids will be socially awkward and have no friends.
I worried my homeschooled kids would struggle socially without a public school environment for making friends. Once we started homeschooling, I connected with online groups for homeschooling families in my area and started taking my kids to park meet-ups and theater classes for homeschoolers.
Years later, they’ve made friends who live close by and are also homeschooled. We’ve even found local groups that put on homecoming dances and proms for homeschool kids, so there’s not much of the high school social experience my kids have missed out on.
Misconception #2: I’m not qualified to teach them, and I’ll be thrown in jail for messing up their education.
I was more than a little nervous about choosing the right curriculum for my kids and being the one to do all of the grade-keeping. While each state’s guidelines for homeschooling vary, things are pretty relaxed in Florida, and I realized quickly it’d be simpler to homeschool than I thought.
I’ve used a combination of hands-on curriculum I teach my kids and virtual curriculum, and found a good blend of the two that works for us. I keep a portfolio of each kid’s work and end each school year with an evaluation with a teacher who certifies we’ve done the appropriate amount of work to advance to the next grade level. Then, they send their findings to our county. The entire process was easier to figure out than I anticipated, and so far … no jail time.
Misconception #3: Other homeschool moms are nothing like me.
While I never made a ton of friends through my kids’ classmates, I did have the occasional pal who was mom to one of their classroom besties, and I was always in for social activities like mother-son game night or volunteering for bake sales. I worried my kids wouldn’t be the only ones losing social interactions when we switched to homeschooling, especially since I had no idea what other homeschool moms would be like.
Years later, some of my closest friends are moms who homeschool and, surprisingly, we have a lot in common. While my teens aren’t in need of structured playdates these days, I still see many of the moms I met early on in my homeschool journey around the community or when we meet up for coffee dates. And no, I don’t miss staying up until midnight baking brownies.
Misconception #4: If I homeschool my kids, they won’t have friend drama or get bullied.
In our final year of public school, my son was bullied by a classmate and, despite our going through all of the appropriate procedures, the school did little to stop it. It was frustrating, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t picture homeschooling as a perfect utopia where there was no friend drama or bullying.
I was wrong. Both my kids have continued to have disagreements with friends or run-ins with mean girls while being homeschooled. The perk is that we have the option to pull our kids from a not-so-great social situation or help them resolve their friendship issues without the added stress of high school hallways.
Misconception #5: Homeschooling is too hard and I could never do it.
The truth is, homeschooling my kids has been empowering for me. Before we became a homeschool family, I had friends who’d homeschooled, and I’d tell them I didn’t know how they did it. Sure, I had concerns about my kids’ education and social lives, but I also thought it might just be too hard for me.
Now, in my sixth year of homeschooling, I realize how wrong I was. It doesn’t have to look exactly like public school, and it’s customizable for each family. Once I figured out the curriculum we’d use and how we’d structure our days, the only thing left to do was keep track of my kids’ progress so I could report to our county each year. We’ve found a groove that works great, and I’ve learned homeschooling is absolutely something I can do — and do well.
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