What if…?
When you home educate, you get a lot of questions. That’s just part of the deal when you do something out of the norm. A lot of these questions start with ‘What if…’
“What if your child doesn’t get enough socialisation and never fits in?” (What if your child gets bullied and it affects them for life?)
“What if they don’t learn everything on the curriculum?” (What if they do and have no time for discovering what truly interests them?)
“What if they just want to play all day?” (What if they don’t get to play enough?)
“What if they want to go to school?” (What if they don’t?)
“What if they resent you for your decision?” (What if they thank me for this decision?)
“What if they want to go to University?” (What if they want to go to University?)
“What if you don’t know how to teach high school? (What if I concentrate on my 6 year old right now?)
“What if they never want to learn advanced maths?” (What if they waste years studying a subject they’re not interested in and won’t use in their daily life?)
“What if they never choose to do anything hard because they’ve never been made to?” (What if they’re made to do so many things that aren’t meaningful to them that they start to dislike learning?)
“What if your partner loses his job and you can’t afford to homeschool?” (What if that doesn’t happen?)
“What if your child never gets to experience ‘normal’ things like going to school?” (What if your child doesn’t get enough quality time with family?)
“What if no one agrees with you and criticises you and thinks you’re crazy for homeschooling?” (What if you spent your whole life living according to how others thought you should and never did what made you happy?)
So many what if’s, so much pessimism. Is that how we really want to live? Preparing for the worst? What if we prepared for the best instead? What if nothing went wrong and we lived the life we dreamed? What if we were brave and followed our heart?
“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
– Erin Hanson
Comments
I love this so much. thank you thank you thank you. We live in a country where home schooling is basically illegal (Switzerland) with a child who would thrive on child-led learning… and it’s a helluva struggle. I look to your blog for ideas and inspiration of things we can do outside of school to allow space and play and learning naturally. Please keep writing, I love reading all of your posts. We’re expecting delivery of our first Spielgaben this week thanks to your review, so I’ll let you know how it goes!! Many hugs and much love to you, inspiring Mama.
Oh that’s so hard! I hope things change there in the future. And I hope you love Spielgaben as much as we do!!
Beautiful thoughts as I am considering homeschooling too for my kinder 1 son! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you 🙂
So beautiful <3
Thank you 🙂
Oh good, now I know how to answer all of the questions 🙂
LOL yes.
“What if nothing went wrong and we lived the life we dreamed? What if we were brave and followed our heart?” <3 <3
🙂
thais so nice (y)
Lovely post.
wrote my first blog https://sapnayadavblog.wordpress.com/
do check it out
First of all, thank you so much for all your inspiration! I love your posts, your ideas and thoughts. I found myself trying to copy them for my 5 year old daughter. Many materials are too expensive for me. Also I really wonder how to offer my daughter all this in a 2 bedroom apartment for 3 people where there is not enough space, where I have no garden in the midst of high city life. e.g. I bought a microscope once because she was interested in looking at sand and leaves. But since I have no space to leave it out for her it stays stacked away because of course children forget about the stuff they don´t see (well, not only children :-)) There are no creeks, no woods, no lakes around. Do you have any thoughts on that? Or any ideas? Since you seem to be quite full of them and very creative 🙂 Thanx again, Love, Dodo
That sounds tricky! But I really think you don’t need much. Pens and paper are my number one thing. Then I would just have out what she is most interested in and rotate things when she gets sick of them. And get out and visit lots of places, see what takes her interest. That will give you a better idea of what things are worth investing in 🙂
If you don’t have a huge house and yard that you’re a slave to (we recently downsized to a 2 bedroom apartment near our city from a 3000 square foot house on half an acre for this reason), perhaps you have more time for parks, museums, libraries, etc. My son is 8 and his main tool is his iPad! The places it takes him and the things he absorbs are amazing! It’s possibilities as a resource are infinite! Have fun!
Sounds like you live in a city – get out and about, discover what is happening in your neighbourhood, the one next door to you – what makes people different, the same. Catch a train or bus, go for walks to the park – visit art galleries, look at the different buildings – when were they built, by who. The history of your city. One doesn’t need a creek or woods – use what you have around you 🙂 I love the library – use yours as much as you can as they are a valuable resource. Look at what you have and not what you don’t. God bless.
And what if you spent approximately 720 hours in German and only learned to count to 99? And another 720 hours in algebra trig and didn’t learn anything? School can be such an elaborate waste of youth if they aren’t engaged in what they are learning.
Absolutely.
Yes yes yes!!! So needed to hear this. Is there a word that means more than love this post, cause thats the word that describes it.
Thank you 🙂
And what if we all loved a little more and feared a little less?
Nicely articulated. Thank you!
Yes! 🙂
Sara, thank you so much for being such a great source of inspiration for me. I have a very little daughter (15 months) but since I started reading your blog I keep thinking about homeschooling. Unfortunately in the country we will be living in the next 4 years (Germany) it is not legally. Tin the country where we might live next (France) it is legal but children need to pass an academic exam every year (huh ???) Is there such a thing in Australia? Do children still need to “pass exams” when unschooled? Also, I was wondering, if they want to go to the University, how to they enter? I think in some universities they need to show their grades from the past years (High School)- at least in France- so what happens with a homeschooled/ unschooled teenager?
My question exactly! Here in the US they cannot get in to college without grades and tests. What if your kid wants to be a doctor? What is the path?
I have to say that last comment, the quote brought a very sly smile to my face!! Very satisfying!!! Love your articles!!