When we first started homeschooling over 8 years ago, I kept saying to myself and others, “We’re just taking it year to year, I’ll change my mind if the situation changes and my children require something different.”

In a homeschooling situation, parents are students, too!

At some point, and I can’t exactly put my finger on when it was, I realized that we were in this for the long haul. We decided to COMMIT to homeschooling, not simply test it out from year to year.

That decision changed my whole perspective on education, curriculum, and my own schedule. Knowing that I would guide and manage their ENTIRE pre-college education caused me to re-evaluate numerous things….and to come up with a PLAN for the future.

Many people consider the high school years to be the most intimidating when it comes to homeschooling. And it’s true, the subjects are heavy duty, particularly if your children are college bound.

But there has NEVER been a better time to homeschool through high school than right now. So many options exist that make the process easier for the homeschooling parent.

In the FREE report, “A Declaration of Home Education,” (which you can get by entering your email address in the box on the right hand side of this page!) I discuss how learning in a home based venue is vastly different from the “teaching” that happens in schools. Home schooling is less about “teaching” and more about “learning.”

When I say, “learning,” I really mean just as much for the parent as the child. I am simply not an expert in all subject matters, to which most parents can probably relate. Therefore, I cannot “teach” many things to anyone.

However, I do love to learn. So, my children and I can BOTH learn together. In this way, we are ALL students embarking on self education using excellent resources. I have learned so much as a result of homeschooling my children!

As we moved through the years and it became clearer to me that we were in this for the duration, I realized with a sense of doom that my dreaded subject would rear its ugly head…

All along, I always told my children that I would learn along with them, or re-learn subjects as needed. But there is one subject that I intensely despised in high school. I really dreaded the idea of having to endure it again with my children.

So for years, I’ve told them, “I’ll re-learn any subject with you, be it calculus, trigonometry, literature, whatever……EXCEPT geometry!”

I hated geometry in school. I loved algebra and trig, and parts of calculus I also enjoyed.

But I knew in my heart I could not “do” geometry again!

Luckily, with all of the resources out there, I knew I could find help! Our county has a very large homeschooling community, so I signed my 15 year old son up for a co-op class in geometry! What a relief!!!

But if that hadn’t existed, there would have been Tablet Class or Teaching Textbooks to get me through, in addition to many of the curriculum providers listed on the curriculum page on this site.

The take home message here is that even for things that you don’t particularly enjoy as a parent, you CAN find numerous alternatives to fill in. You may still have to bite the bullet and engage a bit in the subject (my son still asks me to help him figure a few things out in his geometry homework), but the sacrifice and effort will be worthwhile.

And 10 years from now,  you will be VERY grateful for the strong influence you took in your childrens’ lives….and you may have even improved your own education in the process

Tags: Education, family, freedom, homeschool, homeschooling, learning, parenting