Once upon a time a mother sat with her child and contemplated the thoughts going through her small ones head…….

Ok really it started out because Jr. is an October baby. And in Iowa that meant he could not start school at 5 years of age. Which I will agree may have been a tad to soon in the first place, but I digress from my story. It seems amusing to me now that such a silly thing would set myself and my husband on a journey that left us in a completely different place than we had anticipated. I think it began with a phone call with one of my sisters. We started discussing her kids in particular her new kindergartener. We were comparing what our two-year-olds knew in comparison to what her kindergartner was being taught. In that moment, I flashed forward to when Jr. would be school-aged and I was suddenly overcome with the terrifying idea that we already had a “boredom” problem.

It was shortly after that moment when we started researching our schooling options. We anticipated that Jr. would probably be intellectually “ready” for kindergarten at age 5. We had thought to try to enroll him in a private school since they are not necessarily constrained by the birthdate law. However with a brief investigation our options went from slim to none since the private school we’d thought to look into moved an additional 30 minutes away. That’s not to say that our area doesn’t have private school options, there are just none by our standards that are within a reasonable driving distance. So there we were with our precocious then two and a half-year-old and nowhere to go. Somehow and I am not even certain at this point where, I got the idea we could homeschool him for the kindergarten year and enroll directly in to first-grade. Off I trotted to my local library to learn more about this “homeschooling” idea. Little did we know what we would not only learn about homeschooling but also about ourselves as parents and the ideas we had about what an education should and shouldn’t be.

I started out by reading “So Your Thinking about Homeschooling” By Lisa Whelchel which turned out to be a relatively nice book to introduce some of the terminology as well as illustrate the diversity that you can find in the homeschooling community. Almost every family in the book was homeschooling for a different reason and/or using a different method. We then picked up a few more books and by the time we had finished with the third we were well on our way to becoming homeschoolers. I was almost instantly attracted to the idea of actively participating in my child’s education. And my hubby wasn’t far behind me though a bit more skeptical.

I think perhaps the slide toward homeschooling was easier for me because I stay at home with my children. I was already incorporating “preschool” into our daily lives in small ways. We as a family were already enjoying the natural learning that happens everyday. We continued our reading as well as investigating our local homeschool community. What helped us along to reach our ulitmate destination was our continuing education about what our school could provide and the environment in which it was available.

Some of our chief concerns were that we had a BOY and in today’s school it often seems like BOYS do not function well. We also had a BIG school not the biggest school that is out there but by Iowa standards it is a large school with the average class size of 30+ for kindergarten and 500+ by 7th grade when the school in all its infinite wisdom shoved all the area children together for Junior High. No Child Left Behind, yes that became a check mark in the “cons” of school when it became apparent that our local district was having many subtle changes in instruction and content to make the student body “ready” for the annual test. The list goes on but that gives you a general idea of what we were thinking about our local school.

When we looked into homeschooling we found that in many areas it matched up with our ideals as parents. We enjoy being with our child. We have higher educational goals than the school can provide. We wanted a year-round school calendar. A flexible educational option that we could pack with as much as we wanted to teach and adjust accordingly to the needs of our boy was exactly what homeschooling could provide. Sitting still for long periods of time wouldn’t be an obstacle here. Moving faster in math than reading wouldn’t be a problem. And most importantly his natural drive to learn would continue to be fostered. Our little squarish peg wouldn’t be forced into a circular hole. We as squarish parents could continue to revel in the joy that is our child. We wouldn’t have to give up watching the “lightbulb” moments. Instead we would help them to develop and flourish. Homeschooling made our family-centered life more complete.

In the end it became a conversation not so much about public school vs. homeschool. But more about what kind of lifestyle we wanted. We found that homeschooling would be a compliment to the family lifestyle we had already set in motion. Homeschooling offered us the opportunity to challenge our kids intellect, have flexibility in our schedule (calendar) and most importantly it would allow us to continue to be supper-together family.

And that in a brief nut-shell was how we got here from there.