You are the expert in your home

It’s a little different homeschooling in Florida than it was in Alaska. In Alaska there were so many other families who homeschooled. Here I have met very few families who homeschool children over the age of 8.

The other day I went to a back-to-school brunch with some gals from my church. Everyone’s children were back in school and it was a giant celebration. More than a few people commented that they didn’t know how I could homeschool and they would go crazy if they tried. I get that quite a bit actually.

Believe me, there are moments when I wouldn’t mind turning all my children over to someone else for 8+ hours a day. Here it is usual practice for 3 year olds to go to pre-pre-school. Florida provides free pre-school for kids ages 4 and up and so many 3 year olds go to pre-pre-k. If I followed suit, my house would be EMPTY for several hours a day!

Before I go any further, I must say this. I say it to anyone who asks me about homeschooling. It is the most important piece of advice I can give any parent.

You are the expert in your home.

You know your children. You know your family dynamics. You know what they need and what they don’t need. You love and understand your children more than anyone else. Remember that! Everything I put here about homeschooling (and everything else) applies to me and my family. Jake and I are the experts in our home and with inspiration and guidance from our Heavenly Father, we make choices that we think are best for our family. I’m assuming you do that too.

I feel strongly about homeschool. It works well for our family. I enjoy being with my kids. Do they drive me crazy? Every day. Do I have the patience of Job? Absolutely not.

It helps that we don’t do “school at home”. We use the principles found in A Thomas Jefferson Education. School in the early years looks much different than typical public school. In those primary years we don’t focus on academics. Our focus is on character. Right vs. Wrong. Their relationship with their Heavenly Father. We teach them about their place in the family. We focus on work ethic. Basically, we spend that time teaching them what is most important in life. This doesn’t mean there isn’t learning going on. There’s lots of learning going on. But it comes naturally and not through requirements.

Eventually they start to grow and change and develop and they are ready for more. That’s where Josh is. He’s transitioning into a phase where study and learning and focus and education encompass his world. It doesn’t happen overnight. The transition takes a year or two. But he’ll come out on the other side with a passion for knowledge and a sense of mission and purpose. He’ll then be ready to put in the hard work to get a first class education. Not because I said so, but because he knows it’s the right thing to do and he’s ready for it. His classes at Williamsburg Intermediate are a first step toward that end.

I know it works. Jacob is an example of how well it works.

It’s important to realize though that every child is different. So different. Jacob and Josh couldn’t be more different from each other. That’s where the beauty of mentoring comes in. Mentoring is different than teaching. A mentor knows their student. They know their strengths, their weaknesses and they help them become who they are supposed to be.

Here’s a bit about how we do that. Every six months we do an inventory for each child (and ourselves). Jake and I did our latest inventories on the drive home from Mobile, Alabama a month ago. We were all alone and it was a 9 hour drive there and a 9 hour drive back. We used the drive there to get all caught up with each other and we used the drive back to do inventories. It worked brilliantly! Afterwards I declared that every six months we’ll make a long distance drive so that we can renew our inventories and have a bit of a vacay while we’re at it!

Previously we’ve always done inventories separately. I’ve done them and Jake has done them and then we’ve compared notes afterwards. I wrote about doing them the last time we were in Florida. It’s a good route, but it takes a lot of time. Typically a couple hours per child. I enjoyed doing them together with Jake.

First we started with a prayer. We asked our Heavenly Father to help us to see what children needed from us. This is important! He knows our children and He knows what they need and how we can help them. If we ask, He will direct our paths.

Then we started with Jacob. I wrote his name at the top of a piece of paper and then we started to talk about Jacob. We made a list of his strengths, his weaknesses, his ambitions, his accomplishments. We wrote out our desires for him. This isn’t a small process. We spent at least an hour on each child in just this portion of the inventory. We listened to the Spirit and were in-tune to promptings as we worked. We filled pages (3 or 4) with all things Jacob.

Then it was time for the meat of the inventory. From our list, our thoughts, our discussions, we came up with another list. This time it we listed things that we needed to do to help Jacob over the next six months. It was NOT a list of things Jacob needed to do. It was a to-do list for us on how we can help Jacob become the best young man he can. How we could help him become who the Lord wants him to be.

Being a parent provides us a powerful partnership with our Heavenly Father. Using that partnership to it’s fullest brings incredible results.

We followed the same steps with each of the children. Pages and pages and hours and hours thinking about, talking about, and praying about our children and coming up with a 6 month plan on how we can help them.

We also included ourselves and Simply b even got an inventory this time!

But that’s not where it ends! That’s only the beginning. Next we have to have FEC. Remember when I wrote about it here? The inventories and 6 month plan come to FEC each week. They become a road map. We use them to guide us in our weekly planning. This way we focus on what is most important rather than getting lost in the crazy of every day (which is so easy to do).

Josh’s inventory looks nothing like Jacob’s. They are so different and accordingly our plan for what we do for them is different. But that is how they get an individualized education. How we know them well enough to know what they need and when.

It’s how we came to enroll Josh in a Film Making class at Williamsburg Academy. Williamsburg Academy is the big brother to Williamsburg Intermediate. Typically it’s for students 14 and older, but we knew that this class was just what Josh needed. Today was his first day and he is THRILLED! I can’t wait to see what Josh creates for this course.

There are so many little details that make up an individual education plan. It can’t be done without a solid understanding of who the student is and who they have the capacity to become. And it has nothing to do with what everyone else is doing or what anyone else thinks they should be doing.

Oh and there is just so much more, but I’ve been writing for hours and I have to wake up at o’dark thirty. Back to school also means back to early morning seminary. Jacob may have graduated from high school, but he still has seminary (6am scripture study daily at the church).

So I’m off to bed. If you made it this far… CONGRATULATIONS! Drop me a quick note to let me know that you are a rockstar and made it through the longest post I’ve probably ever written.

*Still love the pool.