Homeschool – am I doing enough? This may be the most common question a homeschooling parent worries about. I believe it is a fear that plagues every homeschool mom.
Being responsible for educating our children is a serious responsibility, so being concerned about whether we are doing all we should is understandable. We want to do our best and give our kids a good education while also preparing them for life. Pointing them to God, training them in Godly character, and teaching them academics takes time and effort. It requires being intentional in how you use your time daily.
Sometimes even when you are focused on your priorities and staying intentional, you have times when you wonder if you should be doing more.
What To Do When You Are Questioning if You Are Doing Enough:
1. Put the Lord first.
The most important subjects to teach are the Bible and Christian character. Focus on these areas first every day, and give them top priority.
This shows your kids what your most important goals are, and teaches them to put Christ first in their own life.
When you give God the first part of your day, He will bless the time that remains and make your academic time more fruitful.
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2. Focus on the 3 R’s.
They are the foundation of life-long learning, and if your children are proficient in reading, writing, and math they will be able to learn other subjects independently.
If your kids know and love God and His Word, know the 3 R’s well, and loves to learn, then what else do they need?
3. Focus on giving your kids a LOVE for learning, rather than trying to teach them EVERYTHING.
Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes... in You and Your Kids
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Keep things simple, and don’t make homeschooling more complicated than it should be. Simpler is more effective, and enables you to focus and achieve mastery in key areas.
Learning is a lifelong process, so you’re simply laying a foundation, teaching them HOW to learn and to LOVE learning.
Do you worry about gaps or things your children will miss?
You will have gaps in your homeschooling because there is simply too much to learn. No one can master it all. However, when your kids have character and know how to do research, they will be able to fill those gaps by independent learning.
According to Joyce Herzog, 90% of what a child learns before they enter 7th grade (age 12/13) will be forgotten. So during the early years, our focus should be to instill a love of learning that they can take with them. This love of learning will fill in the gaps they will need to know later in life.
4. Go back to WHY you are homeschooling, and what your homeschooling goals are.
Often the devil tries to discourage us by planting seeds of doubt, causing us to question if we are able to do a good job teaching our kids, if we need to be doing more, etc. With those doubts he tries to draw our focus away from what really matters, and get us busy with too many things, causing us to neglect our priorities and goals.
If you have accomplished these goals in your homeschool, you are doing enough:
- Encouraged a love of learning
- Encouraged a love for God & His Word
- Helped your kids pursue and develop their interests and talents
- Prepared your kids to serve God
- Taught practical living skills
I remember a time when I was questioning my success as a homeschool mom, and wondering if what I was doing was enough. I emailed a dear friend of mine, who was a veteran homeschool mom.
I absolutely LOVE the answer she gave me! I shared it in my post: When You Hit A Wall In Your Homeschooling.
I’m going to end this post with a quote from Diana Hopkins which sums it all up quite well:
We want to pass on our heartfelt values to our children, and as Christians that’s usually the ultimate reason we decide to homeschool. Somehow we all come to the point where we realize that someone else is impressing their values on our priceless children: that we are being robbed of the most important privilege of parenthood. Homeschool begins because we are unhappy with what we see happening to our children=s values daily in the public/private school. Somewhere in the piles of books and assignments of homeschool, we forget that our original complaint has been wonderfully solved. We begin to worry instead about keeping up academically. Even if we are only able to keep our children pure and unspotted by having them in homeschool, we would be successful beyond our wildest dreams! Nothing is more important than learning to be faithful and true to the Lord. But, some of the academics will rub off, along with love of brothers and sisters and parents, joy at being together daily, a zeal for learning, and many other Christlike attributes. When homeschool seems overwhelming, return to your original reasons. Are you accomplishing what you set out to do? If it was to remove your child from an ungodly environment, has homeschool done that? Is your child=s testimony and personal purity increasing since you began to teach them? Finally, is homeschool keeping your children unspotted from the world? If so, it is succeeding! Diana Hopkins
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