When we decided to have kids, I was adamant that we’d homeschool. The husband wasn’t. When O was born we fell into a lot of what was expected from us by society. It was easier to fit in, in my opinion, so we went with it.
Although I did stay home & complete her preschool years with her, when it came time to start Kindergarten, I lost the battle of homeschool.

O did her Kindergarten testing- she scored high enough that I was actually told by the school to “stop teaching her at home or she’s going to have behavior problems at school.” Umm… “Nope,” I thought. “We won’t dumb her down to make your job easier”. We didn’t last long at that school and just 3 months in, we transferred her to a charter school.
Her first teacher at the charter school was terrible. I’m talking, my kid was miserable in her class. The teacher withheld recess almost daily and we did more work at home than she completed in class. I thought for Kindergarten that the work load was too much and if I’m doing all the work at home with her, why would I drop her off at school? So naturally, as an outspoken momma bear, I spoke up to admin every time recess was cancelled or my kid came home with a complaint. A month or two into that school, her teacher was let go.

So another new teacher for my babe. 3 in her very first year. 😩
The teacher we had next was INCREDIBLE! I was finally feeling better about sending O to school (although if you ask L, I cried every single day that we dropped O off). This teacher spoke kindly, helped in class and they got to go to recess every single day. My daughter was finally happy going to school.

On to 1st grade and her teacher was just as good! I was thrilled to have someone with a big heart who took an interest in helping my kiddo navigate.
2nd grade- awesome teacher again! Phew! I was still crying in the drop-off lane, but felt confident this teacher had my kid’s best interest at the forefront.
Then Covid hit.
O came home along with the rest of society and we did virtual learning. What a joke! After a few weeks, I told the hubs if we aren’t homeschooling, he was going to have to take over her assignments. He lasted a day or two before he was frustrated. Trying to teach a curriculum, in the middle of it, planned by someone else AND in a different format than we learned when we were in school was a nightmare!
O was missing her teacher, her friends and just life in general. It was a tough transition that year. We found out a lot when she first came home, bullying at school, her being sent with older kids to learn/teach because she was advanced in most subjects, her falling behind in math and not having the attention she needed to catch up (no child left behind, right?), along with other things that were dimming her light. I already knew the system needed reform, but seeing the changes in my own kiddo was too much.
I had the discussion with the hubs that I was going to homeschool both girls over the summer to show him what that’d look like. I wanted to prove that I could be consistent and they’d be better for it. He agreed, but not to homeschool.

Fast forward to August. Time for L to test into Kinder. Welp- she tested into grade 3 month 5. They could only move her to 1st grade according to our state statues at that time. This brought on another conversation about what to do for schooling… He finally agreed to homeschool, but only for that year.

Now we have a 7th and 5th grader and we have no plans to go back.
We do let the kids decide each summer what they’d like to do. The only stipulation is that they have to agree. I can’t homeschool AND drive to school (the school we were going to is about an hour from where we live, so I was spending 3-4 hours a day in the car to take O). So far they have agreed to homeschool and I don’t think O will ever want to go back and L doesn’t really have any interest in going at all. 🤷‍♀️

So there you have it- we decided to homeschool because it has been the best fit for our family. We tried the traditional, the charter and the virtual and none of it really worked for our kids- or us.
I’m blessed to have them home and to be able to spend as much time with them as possible before they fly the nest. God’s hand in this doesn’t escape me. His timing is always perfect. His plans are always well put together.