Why I Homeschool

**Disclaimer - These are my personal feelings and I do not feel that who send their children to public school are bad parents (I still send one of mine). It is a personal choice. :-)**

This summer has been a busy one for me (the kids are bored, but I already talked about that). I have spent the summer searching and praying about educational choices for my children. We started schooling at home in March 2005 when Marlayna became too sick with Mono and Fibromyalgia to attend school all day. I thought I would educate just Marlayna until she was well. By October 2005 Chris wanted to come home too. I started him as well in the public online school at Arizona Virtual Academy. We schooled there until May 2007. I felt the curriculum was very challenging and organized.

We decided to leave the virtual academy because I began to discover the vast number of choices out there for education. I read a few books on home schooling, including The Well Trained Mind by Susan Bauer and A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille. Both of these books came as answers to my prayers! I could see a path of education that would 1) fulfill the requirements of education, 2) streamline the process with no wasted time at public school, and 3) be tailored to my very individual and talented children.

Suddenly, we have time to study HTML, read long awaited books, add foreign language and more gospel studies than I thought possible. Once we reduced the redundant public school busy-work, we actually began to get down to the nitty-gritty of education and be done before noon! The afternoon is then open for personal pursuits like Christian's webpage and Marlayna's incessant book reading. I, too, have been able to continue my education by taking free online classed from BYU, taking web design from MCC, and designing my own website.

Sam has decided to continue going to public high school. I wish she would stay home with us, but I have learned that teens typically need to WANT to educate at home or it does not work. Her father has also denied me the opportunity to bring her home. Divorce has a way of making life's decisions for you.

Now we are on this new exciting path. Here are the resources we have decided to use: Old Fashioned Education is completely free and we are using this for history and literature, Teaching Textbooks math is not free but EXCELLENT, Latina Christiana for Latin (yes, Latin), Winston Grammar, and Mind Benders for critical thinking which is their favorite subject.

I think that anyone who wants to home school feels inadequate to the task. I know I did! In the beginning it was hard to change my lifestyle to being a "homeschooler", but now we love it and I can't imagine life any other way. I do have free time, my children do much of their work on their own, I can still serve in my church callings, and continue my own education. The greatest benefit of all is the closeness that has grown between me and my children. When I sent them off to school all day, I truly missed out on so much. I still feel that way about Sam.

The biggest question I get is actually the one that makes me laugh the most: "What about socialization?" I would think people would be more concerned if my kids are well educated rather than if they are socialized. My children attend many social outings, including: scouts, music lessons, church youth activities, and field trips and park days with our support groups. Not to mention the many neighborhood children that are in our home on a regular basis. I am also happy to report that they do not have bullies, cussing, or inappropriate material in their "school". ;-)

Thanks for reading my ramblings and thank you for your love and support in my decision to homeschool!