Homeschooling Hump Day Encouragement

Several of my friends began homeschooling this year. Some opted to start in August; while others decided mid-year to withdraw their children from the public school system and educate them at home.
If you are new to homeschooling, you may be wondering when the right time to start really is.
The truth is, only you can determine that. Sometimes it's just a prompting to homeschool. Sometimes the decision comes from desperation. But in the end, you have to make the decision to homeschool and do what is best for your children's education.

(C) 2004 Captured Memories 365

I remember when our oldest sons were small. We had homeschooled them for a year and then I became pregnant with our fourth child. I wondered how I could possibly homeschool two children and care for a newborn, so my husband and I made the decision to send the boys to public school, one in first grade and the other in preschool. That year was the most stressful and chaotic year for our family as I found myself driving around to take son #1 to school, then drop son #2 off at preschool. Three hours later, I returned to pick up son #2 and two hours after that piled everyone back into the car to pick up son #1. I remember thinking, "This is so much more difficult than if I would have homeschooled the boys." I cried. I cried for thinking I couldn't do it. I cried because I felt I had let my boys down.

The next year, we brought the boys home and were schooling them and our oldest daughter. A year later, I became pregnant with our fifth child, and we kept everyone home. It was the most relaxing, stress-free year of homeschooling I had experienced! I was able to school them even while nursing, and on snowy, cold days we were free to stay home.

So if you're just starting out or thinking about homeschooling and wondering how it will all work, just look at what your life is like now. And consider stepping out in faith to live out Deuteronomy 6:6-9 which says, "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when your walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as fronelts between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Blessings!