I started out looking for a solution for my son. I was not as quick to help my child as many of you moms were, and even though my son for 3 years hated school, and we had to bribe, threaten, and physically force him to go, I did not question the wisdom of sending him. Homeschooling was not even located in my brain. The behavior at home was atrocious, and we started taking him to a therapist. The therapist wanted to know about his behavior at school, and whenever I asked the teachers in school, they always said he behaved fine at school. I figured it was me who was messing up my kid. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong at home, if everything was going so smoothly at school!
I prayed a lot, and was led to the book, Unconditional Parenting, by Alfie Kohn. It was a crazy philosophy from my point of view, but I tried it and it worked, so book after book of Alfie’s I read. The more Alfie I read, the more I hated what they did in school, because I started to see that my son’s behavior and learning problems were actually because of what they did in school.
The therapist advised to look into charter schools for a better fit for my son’s learning style, so I did. Like crazy. I signed onto 6 waiting lists. None of them were right, though. They all did the same wrong things I did not agree with.
I made a list of all that I was looking for in the perfect school. With time, I finally realized it did not exist. I knew I would have to teach all of my kids at home, or none of them. I knew I could not go through the stressors of both public school and homeschool worlds, simultaneously. I told my daughter, who was older than my son, and asked her to pray about it. She did. She felt happy that I was considering it, and liked the idea.
I knew that the only way to have this school I wanted, would be for me to be in charge. I started researching about how to start my own charter school. I was willing to go to all lengths to find a solution. I could see that starting a charter school was way too much work, so I prayed really, really hard about what to do, and cried a lot of tears.
The Holy Ghost reminded me of those posts from a friend, which I had seen on facebook, just scrolling past them, about her homeschooling her kids. All the details of her posts were clear in my mind, as if I had just seen them, although it had been a year.At this time, I began thinking that it was impossible and I would not be able to do it, like she had been able to. I just know I am not amazing enough to be such a supermom, as I saw homeschooling moms to be. I looked her phone number up and called her.
I asked all the same annoying questions everyone asks, about socializing, teaching all different ages at once, how I would deal with the extra housework and lunch at home, etcetera. To me, they were all brand new questions.
She had great answers. I started watching youtube videos and reading books, about homeschooling, without telling my husband. One time, he saw me reading a book about homeschooling, and asked about it incredulously. I told him I was not crazy like these people, but just curious about them. I just wanted to know about a different culture, that’s all. He was fine with that.
A couple months passed, and I told him I wanted to homeschool. By then, I had read many books. I had answers for all of his arguments against it, but that did not matter. I could not convince him. I understand, as he had not been reading all these Alfie Kohn books or researching all these charter schools. He had not been reading the homeschool books. He had not talked to my friend about how she did it.
I called my friend again. She said to pray together about homeschooling, before and after a visit to the temple. That is what we did. My husband, while in the temple, felf God was telling him that it was my job to nurture and teach the children, which meant academics, too. He said he felt he should trust me, as God wanted him to.
We started to homeschool without any preparations, the next morning. We had pencils and paper. That is what we started with, and it went well, even with just those two things.
Since then, I have discovered numerous reasons to homeschool, and I cannot even narrow down my reasons when asked why I home educate my kids, enough to form a coherent sentence for an answer!
Relaxed Homeschool Utah 