My Choice to Homeschool

After all my searching and praying I finally decided to homeschool Ameera. While homeschooling was always an option, I had never put it on my top list mainly because I couldnt imagine spending every waking hour at home with my kids, not to mention having the added pressure and responsibility of teaching them everything under the sun that they would need to learn to be successful human beings. Honestly, the thought of homeschooling scared me quite a bit, and on those particular days where I would come home from work tired or my kids gave me a hard time I would think to myself, "I COULD NEVER DO IT!"

And then as time went on and I became increasingly indecisive about where I would send her. Although I did like some of the schools there were still issues I had such as tuition costs, poor location, lack of extracurriculars, poor spaceing, classroom management, etc. I realized I was never going to have all of my desires met for Ameera, and she would not have all of her needs met. This realization led me this conclusion: If I wanted all my criteria met and all her needs met, I would have to provide her with a customized education. An education to suit her needs, nurture her passions, fit into our family lifestyle and above all make her happy and excited to learn. Along with these thoughts a good piece of small advice from a friend was, "Just try it! If it doesn't work for you, then you can always put Ameera back in school."

For some reason, at that moment, my mind had been made up. I was going to try it, actually I knew that I could do it and do it well. It made the most sense financially for my family and it was going to be ton of fun! So from that point I decided to learn everything I could about homeschooling and of course the first person I ran to for help was my sister-in-law, who is a firm believer in homeschooling and does so for her 2 children. The first thing she told me to do was to READ! So thats what I did.  I went to the library and checked out almost every book they had on homeschooling and went through most of them in a week. She also sent me articles and videos, links to homeschooling groups etc. and my what a world there is out there of Homeschoolers, along with some of the most incredible information on education you could ever read about.

I find out that schools are going through major reform becasue of failing systems, unmotivated and illiterate children, decrease in standardized test scores, increases in anxiety and nervousness, violence, excessive homework, boredom, the list goes on and on. It scared me to think that my kids could potentially fall victim to these problems facing the school systems. And I am not homeschooling only to protect my kids, but  I want them to be exposed to the real world day in and day out, not an artifical one. I want them to be surrounded by people of all ages, from all walks of life, not just kids their own age all day everyday. I just want to make them happy. As I continued my research and am still doing today I know in the bottom of my heart that Homeschooling is the right choice for us. And while I dont expect it to be easy, I do expect it to bring our family closer than we ever thought possible and to build lasting bonds with my children. I feel comforted in the fact that I can watch them learn and grow every day and all I can do is my best. Maybe it wont work out for us, but at least I can say that I gave it a try.