Five Things I’ve Learned From THE HOMESCHOOL LEAGUE

1.       Socialization is not an issue.

The first thing I hear when I tell someone that we homeschool our kids is, “Aren’t you concerned about their socialization?”  When I first made the decision to homeschool, my answer was yes.  Now, my answer is no.  Thanks to The Homeschool League, my kids are very well socialized.  The Homeschool League families engage in social activities on a weekly basis.  Our kids gather at the library every Wednesday for story time with Ms. Robin.  We also go on field trips, and offer group education-based activities.  Trust me when I say, “Socialization is not an issue.”

2.       It gets less stressful.

The age of children in The Homeschool League ranges from preschool to high school.  So we have some parents in our group who have been doing this for a very long time.  They serve as a comfort to all of us who are just getting started, with our children still in elementary grades.  As they’ve promised, the longer you homeschool, the more confidence you build in yourself and in your children.  We are learning from them and through our own experience, it does get easier and much less stressful. 

3.       Mommy-time matters.

While we have chosen to spend our daily hours educating our children, we have come to realize that prolonged exposure to long division, punctuation and grammar, spelling rules, and reading comprehension can bring a mother to the brink of insanity.  The Homeschool League can help with that.  While the kids have story time with Ms. Robin, we hide in the corner and enjoy adult conversation.  We also plan monthly outings, also known as Mom’s Night Out, because mommy-time matters to The Homeschool League.

4.       Everyone homeschools differently.

We have close to 30 families who participate in various aspects of The Homeschool League.   We often quiz each other on what type of curriculum we use, what type of experiments we’ve done, how we teach certain subjects, or how we have remedied certain situations.  It’s amazing to me that no one educates their children in exactly the same way.  We have a family who discovers learning through books.  We have a family who uses the computer as the foundation of their learning.  We have a family who uses workbooks to guide their education.  We have a family who tries to mimic their own educational experiences.  We have a family who unschools, allowing their children to choose when and how they learn.  Every one homeschools differently.  And that’s okay.

5.       There is not one right way to homeschool.

What’s even more impressive is, despite the wide variety of homeschooling methods employed by the families in The Homeschool League, all of our children are learning.  All of our children are gaining information.  All of our children are getting educated.  There is not one right way to homeschool.