The Three Biggest Lessons I Learned in Our First Year of Homeschool

It’s been quiet over here on the blog lately, but that is because life has been anything but quiet for us. Injuries, a bought of the flu, visits from Dad, starting dance and tumbling classes, joining a homeschool co-op…it’s all kept us pretty busy! And now we’re about the enter the busiest time of the year for our family. Between now and the end of the year we have four major holidays and four birthdays. So while I have a little time, I’m going to squeeze in a homeschool update. September marked one year of homeschooling for our family! Overall, this has been a great experience, but not always an easy one. Figuring out how to educate my kids from home has come with a steep learning curve. Here are the three main lessons I’ve learned over the last year.

1. Comparison is not your friend. This is true in every aspect of life, and homeschooling is no exception. I’m so thrilled that homeschooling is becoming more and more common today. I think it’s a great thing for the homeschool community, and for the country as a whole. But because we live in the age of social media, if you have lots of homeschooling friends, you’re probably being bombarded with pictures and videos of their kids crafting, exploring, racing through their curriculum, and overall excelling in their new learning environment. Which is awesome! But as with all social media, it’s only part of the story. When you see your friends posting their homeschooling wins what you aren’t seeing are the areas of homeschool in which they’re struggling (and those exist for everyone to one degree or another).

It’s easy to look at what other people are posting and start comparing your homeschool experience to their highlight reel. “So and so’s kids are already finished with the curriculum they started, and we’re not even halfway through ours!” “Such and such is doing tons of community service with her kids and we can barely get through the basics every day.” “I wish our co-op was more like their co-op!” “Her homeschool space is so organized and beautiful!” While it’s good to be inspired by and to learn from what other people are doing, it’s important to remember that comparing your homeschool journey to anyone else’s will create way more guilt than motivation. I am definitely guilty of this. I am frequently lured into the comparison trap when I see all the perfectly curated homeschool content from both my friends and from homeschool bloggers and influencers on social media. But so far, those comparisons have yet to make me a better homeschooler. Shocking, I know. If you’re feeling guilty about what homeschool does or does not look like in your house, take a step away from social media for a while and focus in on what is going well in your homeschool journey. Then come up with solutions for the areas in which you can improve. Chances are, you’re doing better than you think you are!

2. Sooner/faster isn’t always better. We decided to homeschool after our daughter’s preschool went virtual last year. Psalm was testing at a kindergarten level, so I decided to jump right into kindergarten, even though she wouldn’t turn five for several more months. While she was absolutely capable of completing the curriculum, I drastically underestimated our readiness to go from three days a week of preschool to five days a week of kindergarten while I was also taking care of a two-year-old and a baby. The Good and the Beautiful has a Level K Primer, which I decided to skip. But looking back, I wish we’d started slow and completed the primer as a warm-up/introduction to homeschooling. I think it would have given us both a lot of confidence and helped us feel better prepared for starting kindergarten.

This lesson was re-enforced for me when I attempted to start preschool with Oliver in August of this year. I was ready to jump right into the curriculum, but quickly discovered that Oliver’s pencil grip was still very immature. Instead of holding a pencil with an age-appropriate pincer grip, he was still holding it with his entire fist (which is more appropriate for 1–2 year-olds than it is for a 3.5-year-old). Holding a pencil came so naturally to both Psalm and Eden that I’d never paid much attention to Oliver’s pencil grip. But it was so bad that all he could do was scribble. He couldn’t trace, he couldn’t draw people or objects, and most of his scribbles left only faint marks on the paper because he couldn’t control the pencil or crayon well enough to make solid contact with the drawing surface. I really wanted to start our preschool curriculum, but it was clear that we wouldn’t get far without Oliver being able to appropriately use a pencil. So we took a step back and focused on doing some strengthening activities for his pincer grip instead. We did lots of pinching activities and practiced holding a pencil correctly. For the first several weeks it looked like we weren’t making any progress, and I started to get discouraged. But after just two months, Oliver’s pencil grip has improved significantly! While it’s still not ideal, he’s made a lot of progress and is much more aware of how he’s holding the pencil. He’s able to trace shapes and letters now, and he’s even started drawing people and objects all on his own for the first time.

One of the great things about homeschooling is that your child’s pace isn’t dictated by the rest of the class. If they are racing through their curriculum, there’s nothing to hold them back. But if they’re struggling with a concept or skill, they won’t get left behind, because the goal of homeschooling isn’t just general learning, but actual mastery of skills and knowledge. So while it’s great to go fast when it’s appropriate for you and your kid(s), it’s important to remember that sooner and/or faster isn’t always better. Sometimes you’ll need to pick up the pace. And sometimes you’ll need to scale back. Don’t ever feel guilty when you hit a skill or concept that your child needs to spend additional time on.

3. Embrace your own pace. We started homeschooling 13 months ago, and we just barely reached the halfway point in the Good and the Beautiful Level K curriculum. I was really hoping to be finished with kindergarten by now, but we aren’t anywhere close to that. And that’s okay! We ended up taking a three-month hiatus from homeschool while preparing for, undergoing, and settling in after our move from Tennessee to Kansas. Then I decided to completely restart the curriculum, even though we were nearly a quarter of the way through at that point. And since we restarted there have been several times when illness and other unforeseen circumstances interrupted our progress for short periods. The reality is that life is busy and messy and complicated, and it doesn’t stop being busy and messy and complicated just so I can teach my kids math or reading. I have to work around and through whatever is going on in our lives.

I frequently will feel guilty or stressed when I start thinking about how far “behind” we are compared to where I wanted to be at this point. But it’s important to stop and ask myself “behind who?” and “behind what?”. The only thing we’re “behind” on is an artificial timeline I gave myself. My daughter is right on track for where she should be academically. She isn’t delayed in any way, and if she were in public school right now she would only have started kindergarten six weeks ago. So while we might not have raced right through our first year of homeschooling, we’ve accomplished a great deal. All three of my children are learning, developing, and thriving, which is what matters most.

If you’re like me and constantly feel the need to be keeping up with some artificial timeline for your children’s academic progress, ask yourself “who am I racing against?” If the answer is your friend whose kids are moving more quickly through their curriculum than your kids are, or the public school system, or even just your own expectations, it’s time to remember why you started homeschooling in the first place. Homeschool’s best feature is that it is tailored to the needs of your child, instead of tailoring your child to cookie-cutter standards. Kids are not all one size mentally, emotionally, or physically. Which is why homeschool rejects the idea that education should be a “one size fits all” solution. So find a pace that is comfortable for your child and your lifestyle. Then trust that that pace is the right one and cut yourself (and your kid) some slack.

Did you notice a theme in those three lessons? Essentially this first year has been one reminder after another that homeschooling is about doing what’s best for our family and no one else. And I expect I’m going to keep needing that reminder over the years. What lessons have you learned in this last school year, homeschooled or not? I’d love to hear your thoughts!