My Experience Being Homeschooled

I’ve shared that I was homeschooled before, and I’ve had a number of women respond by asking me to share my experience. 

So, this is for those of you who might be thinking about homeschooling your kids some day. 

First, the back story. 

My mother was a stay at home mom from the time I was born. I’m the second child and at that point it made more sense for her to stay home with my sister and I instead of my parents paying for two kids in daycare. 

I also have two younger brothers, so four kids in total. Both my sister (who is 21 months older) went to preschool and kindergarten roundup (a week long thing before kindergarten). But from kindergarten to 5th grade both my sister and I were homeschooled by my mom. 

And technically I “skipped” kindergarten and started 1st grade at the same time as my sister even though we were a grade apart. I don’t think I missed out on too much skipping my kindergarten education. 

Looking back I have nothing but positive memories of being homeschooled. 

Because it wasn’t a matter of keeping us busy for 8 hours while our parents were at work, we were able to get our school work done in just a few hours (depending on how focused we were that day). 

And then we were free to go outside, play and explore, which I think was worth it’s weight in gold. I grew up on 90+ acres of mostly forest, with horses, cats, dogs (and two pigs and three cows at one point.) 

Not only the time we were able to spend with our mother, which is beyond valuable and I will be forever grateful for, the life skills we got from being able to spend so much time outside in nature and with animals is an amazing thing looking back. 

Because there were only four of us vs. a normal class size, my mom was able to devote so much more attention to our individual needs and interests. Whenever there was something we were curious about my mom did such an amazing job of helping us investigate whatever it may be. 

There was one summer where I went to art camp while my sister attended a theater camp at the playhouse. There were countless art classes I was able to attend where I was the youngest in the class by about 50 years. (Let’s just say that made me pretty popular). 

Another benefit was our mother’s patience with us. The public school system has obvious constraints when it comes to learning styles and needs, and if you don’t fall within the norm you can be penalized. 

We were all fairly energetic kids, and while in a normal school setting we may had been punished for our excess energy, our mother taught us how to focus on what we were doing, learn when to take breaks and that after completing whatever it was we were free to do as we pleased. 

If I fell out my chair from squirming too much, she didn’t yell at me. She would let me fidget, get it out of my system, climb back into my chair and get back to work. This only took maybe 10 seconds, and could have been a much longer ordeal. 

The only downside I can see to my homeschool experience, which I think has an easy fix for those of you interested in homeschooling your kiddos, is the social aspect of it all. I had my siblings, and the kids from our homeschool group, but I didn’t really have my own friends. 

I was slightly socially awkward when I went into public school in 5th grade, but quickly adjusted, and now I’d like to think I’m fairly social. And this is definitely something you can take care of easily for your own kids. 

Who else out there was homeschooled, and what was your experience?  And what about parents who homeschool or want to homeschool their kids? 

The Switch From Homeschool to Public School

When my mom told me that she would be putting us into public school I remember going to my room, throwing myself onto my bed, and sobbing for all that would surely be lost. 

I was 9 or 10 years old, and I loved being homeschooled. 

When would I ride my pony? When would I have time to play outside? I thought my life was over. 

So, after I had finished my fifth grade year at home my mom made the decision to put me in fifth grade again the next year at public school so I would be with kids my age. Looking back I’m really happy she made this decision. The kids, especially the girls, in the grade ahead of me were m-e-a-n. 

And public school wasn’t all that bad I came to realize. 

I finally made friends that were just my own. I had shared my sister’s friends up until that point (I wasn’t a very social child to say the least). 

I went home sick a lot that first year. Turns out I wasn’t accustomed to all the germs kids carried around. So, that was pretty good for my immune system to build up it’s defenses. 

I was able to join band, choosing the saxophone as my instrument of choice. I really enjoyed learning how to play it, and it was an unexpected workout every time I had to lug it home. (Our driveway was a 1/4 mile long with a pretty big hill).

Going to public school gave me social interaction, the ability to join extracurricular activities (like band and sports), and do teenage things like get a boyfriend and go to school dances. 

I don’t regret any of my journey through school. I enjoyed all elements of it. But looking back if I had to choose one part to relive it would either be homeschool or college, which were both by far my favorite parts of my education. 

I’m really excited and curious to see what I decide to do for education when I have children of my own.