Perhaps, you have chatted with other family members or friends to learn that their schooled children have already met certain milestones, which yours haven’t.
Or maybe you have a six-year-old who hasn’t begun to read, because he’s not developmentally ready, but all of his friends in school are reading.
Whatever the comparison is you have to remember that your children are on a different trajectory than their schooled peers.
If you find yourself worried that your children are behind, instead of falling into the trap of comparing your children, focus on the unusual things they have done or the particular interests they’ve developed because they are being homeschooled.
Perhaps your eight-year-old son has learned 20 poems by heart or fallen in love with ancient history or memorized his list of prepositions!
Or it’s possible that your son has taken an interest in woodwork and has been building things like the homeschooled boy I knew who had a collection of knives that he’d carved out of wood.
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
The woodwork may seem irrelevant to you, but it’s not. It’s a pursuit that contains many gems for a child.
The boy had developed an interest in and a passion for woodwork. A lot of children lack interests, but being interested in things lets kids discover what they are good at, what they enjoy doing, and it makes them grow into more interesting people.
He’d also developed his fine motor skills because it requires a lot of precision and control over the hands and fingers to carve wood with a knife.
He’d also learned perseverance because he not only carved from wood one knife, but he had a collection of knives. And they were daggers too, so he had also educated himself on the different kinds of knives.
He’d also strengthened his imagination, because he’d had to imagine the end product before he began and as he continued working toward it.
Just because something your child is learning isn’t a part of the public school curriculum doesn’t make it insignificant, and it won’t put your behind.
On the contrary, there are a lot of things children do in public schools that are useless like reading silly books and taking standardized tests.
Keep Your Blinders On
Keep in mind, too, that once your children are about nine or ten, your friends will begin to notice a difference between their children and yours. They might comment on what great readers your kids are or how they seem to love learning or how mature and polite they are.
You’ll start to see your children pass their public-schooled peers up in various subjects, and you’ll find that your children have still a love of learning, something many schoolchildren lose.
But, until then you’ve got to be patient and keep your blinders on.
Be like a race horse. Some race horses wear blinders to stay focused on getting to the finish line.
Not that you’re in a race, but you do have a finish line. Your finish line is the day your children graduate from high school.
You don’t want to be distracted into thinking you’re doing a poor job when you’re not; you’re doing your job your own way.
Comparison when your homeschooling can cause you unnecessary stress and doubt. Instead, stay focused on what you’re children have accomplished, not on whether or not they’re on par their public-schooled peers.
There’s no race to the top.
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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, she devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
