Why we stopped homeschooling

Today our kids headed off to school.

As I wrote yesterday, it’s been quite the journey. My kids and I have spent so much time together the last six years, doing everything, and I pretty much mean everything together.

I promised you I would write today about why we decided to stop homeschooling. So, here it is.

Have you ever been on one of those people-movers in the airport? You know the moving sidewalk thingy? When you’re going the right direction, you can literally just stand there, and it moves you from one end of airport to the other. Pretty much zero effort on your part, except to slide out of the way if someone wants to pass you.

Have you ever tried turning around and going the opposite direction on one of those? If you haven’t, you probably have at least at some point in your life tried to go up a “down” escalator. It’s very similar. It doesn’t go very well. At least, you can’t easily get to your destination if you are trying to move in the opposite direction as the flow.

That’s kinda how I’ve felt for the last six months or so. Like I was going the wrong way on a people mover. 

You see, 6.5 years ago, God called us to homeschool our kids. And even though we’ve been taking it “year by year,” I always kind of assumed we were homeschooling for the long haul {mistake number one–never assume}. We’ve been gliding along, on the “people mover” of life, if you will, until last fall. Sure, we had rough days, and sometimes constant bickering, and a short-tempered mom at times, but overall, things were going pretty smoothly.

And then, this school year began.

Normally,  I am all giddy when a new school year starts. I love the freshness of new beginnings: school clothes shopping, new school supplies, new backpacks and new plans. But this year was different. This year, I struggled to find the joy in homeschooling.

The first few months, I trudged along. I even wrote THIS post about how I was struggling. But I thought I was struggling with our new schedule. And that was just a symptom of what my real problem was: I was trying to go the wrong way on the people-mover.

See, God had planted some seeds in my heart. I had felt little nudges that our season of homeschooling may be over. But I kept resisting. I resisted for a few reasons:

First, I kinda felt like I was failing if I put my kids in school. This is obviously my own personal hangup, but I felt as though if I sent my kids to school, it was saying I couldn’t handle schooling them. You may recognize this behavior as something called pride. Yup, apparently I have some of that stuff. I believed that I was failing my kids if I sent them to school, like I wasn’t living up to my responsibility as their mom.

Secondly, I believed my kids would feel like I was “sending them away.” One of the things I’ve prided myself on (whoops, there’s the “P” word again…) is that my kids know that I chose to homeschool them. They knew I could be doing other things: working, eating Bon Bons…you know. But I always told them how much of an honor it was for me to spend this time with them. And I didn’t want them to think that I changed my mind if I sent them to school.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, I had fear. Not fear of bullies or lack of friendships or bad influences. I had fear that my kids wouldn’t be able to make it academically. The last six years, I have focused on building relationships with my kids. I spent many, many hours on character development. I helped them develop their prayer life. Sure, we did math and reading and writing and other “schooly stuff,” but ultimately, I had no concern about state standards because I didn’t plan on sending them to school. I taught them where they were at, tailoring their education to meet their needs, not mine. And I know there were people who disagreed with my method of homeschooling, people who felt like I should be more rigorous. But I truly believe that letting kids spend hours outside building forts and getting dirty has its place in education. And so, because of this, I was terrified that I would send my kids to school and they would be so far behind that they wouldn’t even have the option of going back into the “regular” world. By the way, I didn’t admit this to anyone. As a matter of fact, I’m admitting it right here, right now, for the very first time. Yup, I let fear dictate my behavior.

And so, after nearly four months of gritting my teeth, hanging on for dear life on the people mover, trying to force my way in the wrong direction, God finally said, “Shanti, just quit it. Turn around, face the right way, and everything will go much more smoothly.” 

And then it was like a flood of insight rushed through my mind. My kids needed to go to school. Here’s why:

They needed a break from each other. Our kids’ relationships with each other were suffering. We have a lot of kids. Well, at least it feels like a lot of kids. And up until this year, they really got along pretty well. But this school year, it seemed like I was constantly playing referee. It wasn’t because of lack of involvement, I honestly think they just needed some space from each other. I’m sure there are some that won’t agree with that, but for us, it was abundantly clear to me that it was time for them to step out on their own. In our quest to foster individual growth and play, we decided to hire playground surfacing from https://www.playground-surfaces.com/ to create distinct play areas, allowing each child their own space to explore and enjoy without constant interaction.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I needed a break from them. I was getting burned out. Instead of waking up excited to spend time teaching the kids, I was often dreading it. I felt tired and beat down and discouraged. I felt guilty if I spent time writing a blog post during the day because I felt like I should be spending every waking moment with my kids. And that was draining me like nothing else.

God was telling me my time as both teacher and mom was coming to a close. I have spent the last six years wearing two hats: teacher and mom. The problem is that neither was mutually exclusive. When I was teacher, I still had to be mom. And when I was mom, I still had to be teacher. And I honestly felt like it was time for the teacher to retire. It was time for me to be mom. It was time for me to drop my kids off at the bus stop at 7:45 am, and pick them up at 3:30 pm. It was time for me to bake homemade cookies for them to snack on when they come home. It was just time.

So when I turned around on my people-mover and let Him guide me instead of myself, doors began to open. The most obvious of them being that I stepped foot on the Forest Lake Christian School campus. Have you ever gone somewhere and just felt like you were…home? Well, that’s pretty much what happened. The moment I walked into the halls of that campus, I felt like I had come home. And I knew my kids would, too.

Of course, I still had that ol’ thing called fear in my back pocket, and that was definitely going to play a role in how the next few weeks looked.

Stay tuned for my next post, all about how my kids transitioned from homeschool to private school, and whether my fears were valid or not. {Spoiler alert: they weren’t.}