As many of my friends and family know, I find great enjoyment in children. A soft kiss on the cheek, a loud squeal of delight, the quick embrace of a child, a long cuddle before bed, the creative stories they tell, the animated account of their latest field trip, their not-so-funny jokes that throw them into fits of laughter, and their all around contagious delight in everything all throws me into raptures. Once again, the children in my life have not failed me. There is another lesson being taught to me by them. And I am here to share this lesson with you. I am so grateful that God has given me such love for children, and the ability to interact with them with such careless freedom. It is only by His gifting that I have room in my heart for them. And I know that my life would be so different without them. So, once again, bear with me.
Because of my interaction with children, as a baby-sitter and as a friend (and yes, I consider myself friends with babies and young children), I have been learning a lot about life, parenting, sin, joy, patience, and homeschooling. I have interacted with children from public, private, and home schools and have had opportunity to notice the differences in them. I also have had opportunity to observe the different parenting styles and seen the affects of those, as well as observed the different personalities different children have. I won’t go into my observation between the different schooling and parenting choices, but I will tell you what I have been learning about homeschooling…from children.
Before I do, I would just like to say that I have always enjoyed being homeschooled. I have always thought that I would homeschool should the Lord give me children of my own. However, I had never really given homeschooling a whole lot of thought other than “yes, I will also homeschool.” I have had the opportunity over the last year to help tutor children from two different familes; my own, and another homeschooling family. I have learned so much from these opportunities.
Because I work every morning, I have not had a whole lot of opportunity to help my Mother homeschool my brother. But there was a period of time when I had several mornings in a row off of work, and I was able to be involved with his homeschool. I really enjoyed those mornings helping my Mother teach my brother. Bobby is a lot like Danny was, always moving and wiggling. Daniel was pulled out of school because of some learning disabilities that the school in Asia was not equipped to handle, and I really don’t think Bobby would do well in a public school either. It is so great to be able to work with him and not force him to sit in a class room for hours on end.
My other experience with tutoring has taught me so much. Sitting there with the two other kids helping them with their home work has been such a joy for me. It has been a great opportunity to observe how another family other than my own “homeschool.” I just love the creativity I see coming out of these kids. The older one is able to read and write, etc. and the younger one is learning to read and count. One day I brought some games to play with them (when they’re not doing school) as a change of routine, and I was surprised and pleased to see how it became a great “school” lesson for them. The game included dice, so they both had to count the numbers, and it was a great counting tool for the younger child. It’s awesome when you can take a game and turn it into “school,” sometimes without their knowledge 
I play games with these boys, and one of the boys likes to write reports and stories to go with the games. I was reading his latest report recently and thought “Wow, this is awesome! He doesn’t even need a creative writing assignment. He already does it on his own!”
Seeing the creativity oozing out of these three boys, along with having my eyes opened about how you can “homeschool” has really taken my excitement for homeschooling to a completely different level. I’ve always known in my head the things I’ve been learning through experience, but experience teaches in such a different way than head knowledge. I think I have now made Homeschooling my own, in that it is no longer just a way to teach your kids. It is a legacy to be passed on, a lifestyle to live. It is something to be excited about, not just part of your routine. I think sometimes us Homeschoolers can base our decision to homeschool on the fact that our parents homeschooled, just like we Christians sometimes assume that we’re Christians just because our parents are Christians. Or maybe we decide not to homeschool our kids, because we haven’t caught the vision of what homeschooling could really be. I think we need to take homeschooling and make it our own. We need to really think about what homeschooling has meant to us, and what are some things we would like to do with our kids. What are the things we enjoyed about homeschooling, and what did we not enjoy? Don’t base your decision on homeschooling off of your parents, but off of your own experiences and calling. It excites me to think of a unified family working and learning together. What excites you? So all you Homeschool Grads out there, allow me to challenge you to make homeschooling your own.
