I have a kindergarten graduation photo from First Baptist Christian School, even though I didn’t technically graduate from that kindergarten. I am wearing a baby pink cap and gown (though I have always hated pink) and a sweet yet mischievous grin. When I see this photo now I am always amused by the fact that they took cap and gown photos months before the end of the school year. I feel like I played the system–it looks like I finished kindergarten with flying colors, and yet I “dropped out” after one semester.
I didn’t actually drop out. I did indeed finish kindergarten. I just did the rest of the year at home instead of at that school.
There’s another picture of me during the spring of the year I was in kindergarten, the day after my 6th birthday. I am hanging upside down from a trapeze my parents hung in our playroom, red hair flowing down and a huge grin on my face.
This is the kind of kid I was ALL THE TIME. I never sat still. Climbed on things and asked lots of questions. Doing “homeschool” sounded more fun to me than going to “real school.” So my parents decided to homeschool me for the rest of kindergarten and what ended up being the rest of my schooling until I went to college.
My mom homeschooled my two sisters and me for almost twenty years. In reality, my hyperactivity was not the main reason I came home. For my parents, the decision to homeschool was more about our spiritual lives than anything else. My mom viewed homeschooling us as a calling from God, not solely a strategic decision or a fun idea.
The Why of Homeschooling
Playing an active role in our discipleship from an early age was really important to my mom. She wanted to be able to teach us about God and the Bible. My mom had observed from older moms who had homeschooled for years just how much influence a parent has when they are home all day with their kids. She wanted to build a close and trusting relationship with us and in doing so, point us to Christ. Homeschooling is one of many ways parents can do this.
What was most important to my parents then and now is Jesus. My parents’ number one goal was to glorify God and raise us to love Jesus and glorify him too. They felt that the Lord was calling them to homeschool in pursuit of that bigger mission.
That commitment was the foundation for every aspect of our home, including the decisions about our schooling. The end goal of forming people who love and serve Christ shaped how my parents went about homeschooling. It affected the content we learned and the curriculum from which we learned.
The How of Homeschooling
Every year we had a Bible class. When we were younger this looked mostly like learning Bible stories and memorizing weekly Bible verses. As we got older, we learned about other religions and read and worked through books like I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, an apologetics book that responds to skeptics’ common questions about Christianity with close examination and logic. In addition to our Bible classes, our other classes were informed by a Christian perspective. Through textbooks from various Christian publishers, we learned how to recognize the hand of the Creator in how the world works–from microscopic cellular functions to global events.
My parents’ faith didn’t just determine what curriculum we picked but the way that we structured our days. For as long as I can remember, I have seen my mom read her Bible and pray everyday. My mom prioritized her own relationship with God above all else–including her responsibility to parent us or school us. My dad led family devotions every night. We were always heavily involved in church. We made time for learning about Jesus and serving the church, as a family and as individuals.
The Impacts of Homeschooling
In our daily routines, my mom was intentional about wanting us to have time and space to spend time with the Lord on our own, especially as we got older. This flexibility allowed me to prioritize my relationship with Jesus when I became a teenager. In high school I didn’t have to be up and out of the house by 7:00am, so I could follow my mom’s faithful example of reading my Bible every morning without having to be in a rush. I’m confident my relationship with Christ would not be what it is today if I had not had the freedom and time to start that discipline from a young age.
I am who I am today because of those habits and because of all I learned while being homeschooled by my parents. This upbringing has not only shaped how I view the world but also how I view myself. There’s something powerful and formative about spending so much time, day after day and year after year, hearing the same truths from God’s word.
One critical advantage of homeschooling is being able to know and determine the major voices and influences in your kid’s life. The biggest voice in my head and in my heart as I was figuring out who I was was God’s. I knew I was loved by God and loved by my family no matter what. Years of faithful teaching from my parents and other adults in my life gave me this foundation. This is not to say I never struggled. I was still very awkward and insecure in middle school and well into high school. Even without some of the negative pressures and influences of a typical school experience, I still felt a lot of self-doubt.
While I definitely cared what other people thought of me, I think it’s fair to say I experienced less social comparison than I would have if I went to school all day. I wasn’t constantly measuring myself against my peers. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter other negative social factors such as bullying. I often felt like the odd one out since I didn’t go to “regular” school; however, during those critical teen years, it was formative for me to be at home. I learned to define myself in the context of my home, my family, and God’s Word–not the throes of secondary school drama. I learned to care more about pleasing God than my peers. Over time I developed a confidence and security in the Lord that didn’t rely on others. With that came an independence, too. This confidence and independence still carry me. I don’t think I would have this resolution about me if I had gone to school and been likely bullied for my appearance or personality and tried to make myself smaller to fit in.
Know Your Child and Count the Cost
While I really enjoyed and benefited from my homeschool experience, it is not for every kid and it’s not for every season. My older sister attended public high school because she felt like it would be a better fit and my parents completely supported her in that decision. Homeschooling has plenty of pros and cons–some are two sides of the same coin. The ability to control your kids’ environment can help protect them from many harmful influences but it can also lead to children being so sheltered that they are not equipped to engage with people outside of their very specific context. Having a parent as a teacher can be fun but it can also be complicated at times when it comes to things like approval, grades, and performance. Many kids learn better and will likely develop more positive relationships with their family when they interact with peers everyday. A homeschool family both signs up for and gives up a great deal.
Every kid is different and every year can present new challenges and new possibilities. What has worked for years may all of a sudden need a major shift. What has worked well for three of your kids might be completely wrong for your fourth kid. Your work situation (or your spouse’s) may change, opening or closing doors when it comes to educational options.
Homeschooling was the avenue my parents used to effectively prepare me for the next thing to which God had called me. After I left for college and I would talk to friends and family back home, many would say the same thing after hearing about how things were going–I blossomed in college. Through homeschooling, I learned to take responsibility for my own learning and work independently, a skill that served me well as I transitioned into college. I excelled academically, grew spiritually, and made an abundance of dear friends.Truthfully, I had many friends in college who went to public school or or private school, and I learned from them how to love and follow Jesus better. God works in homes and in schools alike to grow his children. Homeschooling is one way for Christian parents to faithfully disciple their kids, but it is not the only way.
