What is homeschooling?

If you’ve found yourself reading this blog post, chances are you’re either a non-homeschooling parent who’s ready to leave the public school system OR you’re a homeschooling parent who’s in over her head and you need to be re-grounded — Either way, WELCOME! 😅

Before people dive head first into the world of homeschooling, they often ask one simple question: What is homeschooling? 

The idea sounds exciting, but when you start thinking about the fact that if your child attends public school, he or she might have five or six different teachers on any given day; with a staff support system, and free curriculum — Thinking about the possibility of homeschooling for the first time can seriously become overwhelming super QUICK..

But here’s the thing most people, even current homeschool families, fail to remember — Homeschooling is not school at home.

At the end of the day, the goal of any educational system SHOULD be to move a child forward in learning. Grades shouldn’t matter, tests shouldn’t matter, certifications for teachers shouldn’t matter — As long as a child is thriving in his or her education, theoretically the place they are learning is reaching its goal.

Now, this is not a post to bash the public school system. Even though I was homeschooling my entire life, I still wanted the opposite of what I experienced (at the time) for our daughter. She started her educational career in the public school system and for the first couple of years it was amazing!

Unfortunately, I quickly realized all the things that a public school education… Well… Lacks!

There’s no simple way to customize learning + cater it to each child.

There’s a huge lack of holistic education + oftentimes the agenda behind curriculum is focused more on politics and making the school look good than anything else.

And please don’t even get me started on the lack of safety in American school systems. 🙄 It’s a sad day when prisoners are guarded + cared for more heavily than our children… I digress.

Nevertheless, here we are – homeschooling! And it’s been the most amazing, chaotic, humbling, rewarding ride I’ve ever been on!

And now I get to get into the homeschooling trenches with mamas (just like you!) and it makes this decision even more spectacular!

So, let’s chat about what homeschooling is + see if it’s something that you’d like to do for your family too!

First, let’s get the big question out of the way…

What’s the real difference between homeschooling and public schooling?

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, and you’re probably ready to make the leap after seeing those lists 😉 Let’s chat about what homeschooling is.

After all, it’s not school at home, remember?

What is homeschooling?

The short of the long is that homeschooling is literally whatever you want it to be.

Yes, there are homeschool laws + regulations, but ultimately, the time you spend homeschooling, where you do school, what you teach, how long you spend on a subject, what time of day you open your classroom, how many books you read, your academic goals, when you move to a new math concept, when you should re-do a math concept, what level of reading your child is on, how many cupcakes you can eat before dinner…

It’s all up to YOU.

If there’s nothing else you believe in right now, believe in yourself. Believe in how much you love your kids. Believe in the kind of mama you want to be. Believe in the education you want your babies to have. Believe in you. Believe in them. Believe in homeschooling.

Because, quite frankly — the way this world is going… I don’t really have anything else to believe in besides myself… and now you ♥️