I had the privilege, the pleasure and the challenge of homeschooling our children for two years. While I felt led to do so, this was also somewhat necessary and practical for our family of four as we embarked on a season with lots of changes. This included a three month stint living in Vanuatu villages.
I say privilege because of its higher calling as well as wonderful familial connections that resulted from the experience. As a Christian I was impacted by verses in the Bible that reminded me that my children were a gift from God (Psalm 127:3) and as parents we were responsible before God for raising them; especially teaching them God’s commands (Deuteronomy 6:7).
The revelation for me was that up until this time, I had abdicated my responsibility to others. My children had been receiving a private Christian education along with after school music lessons; sporting activities along with church youth group and Sunday school-by others. These were undeniably good things and I had no doubts that teachers were better educated than me to teach our children. This homeschooling journey taught me that it would have been okay to delegate but I had been abdicating. The pendulum had fully swung to the other side and I was now wholly responsible. It was a timely intervention and helped rebalance my responsibilities and attitude towards parenting.
My automatic response to squabbling siblings in the backseat of the car on school holidays usually started with a reprimand and finished with “I can’t wait until you two go back to school”. On the first day of homeschooling I caught my myself in time and my response changed to “You two are going to have to learn to get along.” And get along they did; and we did. For those two years we learnt to be a family and enjoy a shared life together instead of being a bunch of individuals cohabiting.
I confess there were challenging times; quite a few actually. I regularly doubted my ability to do this well. I sometimes wished it was another and not I who was responsible for handling one child’s headstrong personality or the other’s procrastination tendencies. I learned how different and unique my children were. I discovered some of their strengths and weaknesses; likes and dislikes. I came to appreciate their created uniqueness and was a part of the journey to foster that. I was able to do that as a parent who was involved in my children’s life twenty-four seven.
I feared I was doing it all wrong, even though the curriculum was set out by a distant school. I worried that my children were not doing enough when they finished all their school work by lunchtime. I worried when my son was behind in his mathematics. Five years later I trained to be a teacher and chided myself for having worried at all. Our son, who was behind one year in his mathematics units caught up with his homeschooling lessons overnight and went on to get A’s at high school. The same child is now an Engineer with an uncanny ability for mathematics. In hindsight I wish I had trusted God with His leading and enjoyed the journey more. Perhaps I could have learnt this lesson better.
There was pleasure in homeschooling. I enjoyed the absence of the morning chaos, which included searching for clean and paired socks, ironing uniforms and making lunches that would not be eaten. Instead I enjoyed a calm start to the day with morning devotions and reading a chapter of their favourite book. Some days, school work was completed under a tree and other days at the kitchen table. We had fun together growing veggies and flowers, incubating eggs and raising chickens; and selling them onto Granddad. We baked together, we had morning tea with grandparents and we visited science fairs together. When overseas, the children spent their afternoons swimming with the island’s children, kicking a soccer ball or playing marbles in the village.
This season of our life ended and our children started at local State schools. I grieved for months. It was right at the time, as the extroverted child was seeking friendships and the introverted child, I had noticed, was getting shyer. I was not their tutor anymore however I was still their parent. I did not let go altogether this time. All during the following years of high school and university I remained interested and supported their education and their teachers. I had learnt to delegate not abdicate.
The wonderful bonus is that shared family holidays and activities remained and developed. We learnt to enjoy each other’s company during this season. We learnt to be family. Given the choice again, I would do it in a heartbeat.
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