Why homeschool?

This is the time of year I meet many people who ask me why do I do this crazy thing, keeping my kids with me all day and never having any time to myself.

The answer is it is a lifestyle and I am thankful to another homeschool mom who I met at our chiropractor's office who reminded me of this fact. It is a decision we made when Denali was little and it just grew into homeschooling. Michael and I decided to co-sleep with the kids (many countries do not consider this a choice, but a necessity), nurse on demand, choose our (and their) food wisely and carefully, not leave our children until they were ready to be left, and with all this we are hoping we are giving them roots and wings as Michael commonly refers to our parenting style. We love Dr. Sears and I personally have read more parenting books than most people even know exist, but I have taken this job seriously from the very beginning. We have grown and changed with each child- most especially becoming of the philosophy of everything in moderation so we do own plastic toys now, and they have eaten fast food more times than I can count.

Back to the title of this post, the schooling for me is about being with the kids and influencing them every day. I its my goal to have them fully understand and know our values and right and wrong as we determine it. We are teaching tolerance and perspective ( a big one I think because you must understand where someone is coming from before you can decide right or wrong). It would be hard for me to squeeze all this in in only a few hours each day in between school and extra curricular activities. I fully realize that this does not work for everyone, I would like the assumption to be that my family is not judging others but instead choosing what is right for us. My kids see us reading and learning about new things each day ( we are ordering cheese making supplies at the end of the month and Michael is trying to build a hydrogen run Barbie car with the kids). They help set the goals for their school year and the methods to reach them. We spend a lot of time allowing them to make choices under our roof so that when they leave, they can make informed choices for themselves.I choose not to grade the work they do yet because the fear of failure outweighs the willingness to risk trying at this age. That being said , I have very high expectations that they must complete their work and correct their mistakes. This lifestyle for me does require that I need very little sleep, that I be involved in everyone's everything, that my free time mostly comes in ten minute spurts and that Michael and I must use our time wisely and discuss our days late in the evening after the sun has set. Hopefully what my children will remember from their schooling years is an endless amount of curiosity stemming from the large amounts of curriculum ( I collect books because I think they offer inspiration and remind us of things we have learned or want to learn) offered to them and a desire to continue learning about many of these topics well beyond a college degree. At the health talk on Monday, the conversation I had with the other homeschool mom reminded me that in fact, I don't homeschool strictly for educational purpose but in fact it is a lifestyle that Michael and I have chosen thanks to some very positive influences in our lives. Not everyone can or will make this choice, but for us it is a perfect fit.