Daily Focus - My Incredible Journey

Thanks for all your encouraging devotionals. My daughter started kindergarten this year and already I have had more than my share of doubts and heatache with the public school system. I am in the middle of a medical treatment thst requires all of my strength, right now, however next year I am strongly leaning twords the wonderful oppritunity to homeschool. I want very much to start the remaining of the school year but I want to be fully available for her. I am in agony everyday I have to send her to public school. I have a thirteen year old that is in 8th grade and has had a positive experience with public school, but I desire to homeschool my five and three year old. How do you juggle pre-schoolers in the mix of it all? I so want to raise my children and the treasures God has blessed my husband and me with but I feel at times I run in circles.

Thank You
Sincerely,
Angie Conn

To Annmarie K, please hang in there and I said a prayer for your strength. Our son did well through third grade in public school (pre-school through to Kindergarten when I worked), but dealing with the last teacher and administration was extremely frustrating. We enrolled him in private school for 4th grade, and the political influence, bullying and lack of appropriate response, in addition to inferior teaching of the fundamentals, made our decision an easy one. I suffer extremely painful flares of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and though I haven't had one since we began homeschooling, I can understand the challenges you must be facing.

My husband and I feel more confident every week that homeschooling was the right decision. We believe it provides as good, or better curriculum (instead of teaching to the test as we witnessed), and moral lessons as apposed to the "socializing" everyone seems so concerned about. Our son is still involved in community sports leagues, our church school, and has friends to meet with occassionally from past classes, so the socializing for us is a non-issue. Our philosophy is to teach our son that the priorities in life are church, family, school, sports and friends, in that order. Most of that socializing was negative, due to lazy parenting in our opinion. The bus ride alone would bring constant problems, and in his last year in public school, he was threatened with a pocket knife resulting in suspension of this troubled third-grader!

Now, though I struggled the first few weeks to find my groove, we are thriving. We used an extra room to make a classroom, decorated together with planet peel and sticks, maps an various art he's done in the past, and book shelves. We let him pick out a reasonable desk, and put it together before starting the year. I use my manuals and online portal at my desk, and keep a cd player for music during appropriate times.

He has made great progress in math, which was his biggest challenge at school, because teachers did not have time to answer questions in detail. Or, if he was sick, they didn't have or make the time to help him catch up. I use a whiteboard which has helped to walk him through problems he gets wrong, and I feel we have had a "Helen Keller" break through.

I'm now working on my first quarterly report for the school district. I have many ideas on how to improve and refine our efforts, but I am less stressed (so important for maintaining my health and my family's health), and we're all happier. I wish the best for you, and please remember you are not alone in your doubts and fears. I remind myself everyday that doing this is different and may not be easy, and many people around us have doubts, may not understand or are critical, but I'm proud we're willing to do what we feel is right for our son, and to teach him with a strong Christian influence. You are strong for taking the education of your children in to your own hands.

~ Elizabeth
Hudson Valley, NY