I’m Not Ready to Homeschool, but My Daughter Is

A week from now, my daughter begins Kindergarten. Not in a public school, not through distance learning. Her teacher is me. Her school is our home. We are officially embarking on the path of becoming a homeschool family. And I’m gonna be honest: I am terrified.

Up until a few weeks ago, I fully expected Psalm to be returning to her preschool this school year. But in August they announced that they’d be doing a virtual program due to Covid, and that just wasn’t something that I thought would mesh with my needs or the needs of my four-year-old. Kids that young aren’t meant to sit in Zoom meetings for hours at a time. It’s just not how they learn and isn’t even remotely developmentally appropriate. But Psalm is ready for more academic challenges. In fact, even though her birthday is well past the school cutoff date, she’s testing at a Kindergarten level and is already starting to read sight words and do basic addition and subtraction. Although I don’t think she’s ready to sit in a classroom for half the day, five days a week, she is ready to tackle Kindergarten reading, writing, and math skills.

Suddenly, I had a dilemma on my hands. Do I try to make distance learning work for my 4-year-old, when I know it isn’t a good fit for either of us? Or do I take her academics into my own hands and start Kindergarten—and homeschool in general—earlier than expected? Ultimately, I felt like homeschooling met her needs better. So now I’m scrambling to get together a homeschool curriculum, schedule, and lifestyle in only a few weeks.

Over the course of my life, I’ve experienced just about every type of academic setting imaginable. I attended public schools in the US, was homeschooled for several years, and graduated from a private international school in the Middle East. I attended a private university, and after college went on to teach both middle and elementary school students at a charter school for children with Autism and other learning and developmental disorders. So when I became a mom, the question of how I wanted my kids to be educated weighed heavily on me. Homeschool was always an option lurking in the back of my mind. But once Psalm started preschool and I realized the newfound freedom that comes from having a child in school for a few hours three days a week, it was much harder to convince myself that homeschooling was what I wanted to do.

Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly schools, extracurriculars, and churches were shut down. We were stuck at home with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Oh, and I was seven months pregnant. I confess, the combination of pregnancy, pandemic, and having three kids under 5 has meant I’ve spent 2020 pretty much in survival mode (you can read more about my thoughts on that subject in this blog post). It’s been a long while since I’ve felt like things at home are running the way I’d like them to most of the time.

How am I supposed to start homeschooling amid all of that? I know there are lots of moms and dads out there right now feeling the same way. This is a tough time to be a parent. All the social structures we’ve been relying on to help us do the challenging work of raising human beings have been stripped away practically overnight. Rethinking how we parent is scary. Homeschooling is requiring me to rethink how I parent. It’s requiring me to develop a much more disciplined daily schedule (something I thought I already had, until I suddenly had to squeeze structured academic time into our day). It’s requiring me to be much firmer in my boundaries and expectations for my kids. And it’s requiring me to be more tuned in to my kids’ needs and abilities than I ever have been. All of these are good things. But they’re hard things, too. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by the prospect of it all.

It’s been a few challenging weeks as I’ve raced to get prepared for Kindergarten and homeschool and this new approach to our daily lives. But my daughter is 110% ready to get back into school and start this new adventure. I’m over here worried about if I’ll have the energy and the ability to fit homeschool into what feels like an already packed day of taking care of kids. I’m wondering if I’ll do a good enough job, if she’ll learn everything she needs to, if I’ll be neglecting my other kids or my house or any of my other responsibilities by taking this on. But Psalm isn’t worried about any of it. She’s just excited. There’s a lot I can learn from that. If you haven’t already picked up on this fact, I am a pessimist. I try not to be, but it is definitely my default setting. Instead of worrying about all the ways homeschooling could fail, I ought to be looking at all the ways it could be an enormous success. Psalm always manages to surprise me and do so much better than I could even imagine. So what am I really worried about? Yes, it will be hard sometimes. Maybe even most of the time. But I know this is what’s best for her and for our family and, ultimately, me.

I don’t feel ready to homeschool. But knowing me, I probably never will. This is going to take a major leap of faith on my part. And that’s okay. Because even though I’m not ready, Psalm is. And she needs me to step up right now. Chances are, you’re probably having to do a lot of stepping up in your own life at the moment. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. It might make you want to punch 2020 in the face (I know I want to). Parenting often requires getting out of your own comfort zone for the sake of your kids. Spoiler: that won’t end with 2020 (it didn’t really start then, either). So I’m going to do the uncomfortable, hard work of leaving behind the familiar for something new and challenging. And I’m going to let my four-year-old be my motivation. Because she is ready for this, and she needs me.