One Year After Making the Decision

My goodness, is this a homeschooling parent's struggle or what? Looking at lists, catalogs, book recommendations, manipulatives, multimedia and feeling dizzy all the while! It might just be the custom homeschooler's plight. When I first started considering homeschooling (a year ago!) a prepared curriculum was all that I wanted. I didn't "trust" myself to provide wise curriculum choices for Camille.

What a difference a year makes! Now I'm cruising catalogs and book lists, pulling from this source and that source. I feel like with all that I've chosen, Camille will have a very thorough education, the best of all the classical curriculum available!

Last year, I was being told that Abeka was the best homeschooling curriculum and I was anxiously awaiting their catalog's arrival. This year, I have three bookcases filled with "living" books we've bought in the last year.

Last year, after realizing Abeka wasn't for us I discovered Sonlight. What a love affair I had with Sonlight, it seemed to be the best among prepared curriculums! A wonderful literature approach, worldly Christian focus and it even had P.E. classes! We were going to use Sonlight forever. What more could a new homeschooling parent want! This year, I'm using anything that fits Camille's learning style and my teaching style, most of it fits into a classical approach. This year, I know what a classical education is.

I have more confidence in our homeschooling selections this year than I did in my pinky finger last year! And I owe a lot of that confidence to my online friends, the wonderful homeschooling publishing community and most of all God. Without His answers to my prayers for discernment and guidance, I would feel alone in making such vital choices for our children. I've been involved in various conversations with homeschoolers from different perspectives, religious affiliations and educational philosophies in the past year. While at first it made my head spin, it has produced a lot of growth and maturity. After being tested quite a few times, I have a stronger faith, a clearer sense of what I believe and why and the strength and confidence necessary to fully apprecitation other's opinions without entertaining self-doubt. This is a continous work in progress.

Learning about yourself is just part of the process of homeschooling. Homeschooling highlights the parents' strengths and weaknesses as well as the childrens'. I know more about my children in this past year than in the collective eight years I've been blessed to take care of them. I am not the same person I was a year ago and my children aren't either, life is good. God is good.