What Do You Wish Someone Would Have Told You When You First Started Home Schooling?

Well, the AHEA Facebook Page continues on strong. I'm going to share questions asked and the best responses on the blog.

Question: What do you wish someone had told you before you first started home schooling?

Answers:

*Relax! And don't buy anything right away but maybe a membership to museums or swimming etc :)

*Find and commit to a homeschool support group! :) You will need a group of like-minded Mom's for support and to bounce ideas off of. Plus, as an added bonus of your new found friendships formed there, your homeschooled children will get to meet other homeschooled kids. :)

*Oh,and take a couple months or more to de-school and get used to being all together again (especially if your pulling from the school environment). And know there is no need to hurry to meet this/that goal or expectation. Savour the slow times :)

*If you start with a heavy "schooly" type schedule, more than likely your kids and you will not like it, and even more likely your kids will end up in school. Help them to read, focus on spiritual matters, keep them balanced on video games and enjoy the time.

*You have 12 yrs for them to learn, pace it out, don't snuffle out that love of learning because that's the pace of a certain curric.

*I wish I had been told that there is no such thing as a perfect homeschool. I was caught in the trap of comparing someone else's highlight reel with my reality when I compared to blogs etc homeschoolers posted. My kids were never going to be the image I had in my mind of of cheerful children at my feet eager to be drinking in the knowledge I was going to bestow upon them that day. And that is OKAY.
Also that is okay to be schooly, or waldorf, or playbased, or project based, or unschooling or whatever. In the beginning it felt like everyone felt their own method was best and if you didn't do it their way you were doing it wrong. It wasn't until I had my homeschool feet solidly under me, about 1/2 way through my 2nd year that I had the faith in myself that my method did not have to be their method and vice versa.

*I wish that someone had told me that homeschooling is NOT school at home. It took us 5 years to figure out that homeschooling is so much more and that the "school" part is not the most important aspect of our homeschooling.

*I wish I could have foreseen just how much stuff we would have, and create systems to keep on top of it all. Sometimes I drown in paper, Lego and markers...Lol. (Although I just go w it...all too soon they will be grown)

*I wish someone had told me that figuring out how my child learns and instilling a love of learning to is much more important than focusing on content. Took me a couple of years to figure out that content can be taught is so many interesting ways if I just figure out how to present the material to my child in a way that works for her and makes it interesting and fun to learn.

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What would you have said to this question?