You may be feeling pressured because you haven't taught your children some things you wanted them to know by now, and the end of the homeschool year is beginning to appear on the horizon.
Maybe they are a little behind according to your language arts schedule, or you haven't yet gotten to some math concepts. If this is you, then I understand. It happened to me, too.
My Maxim
One maxim I kept in mind while homeschooling is that knowledge is seemingly infinite, and no one person will ever be able to know everything under the sun.
Plus, as more and more decades and centuries pass, the more discoveries, innovations, and original contributions there are for the current occupants of planet earth to learn.
So where does this leave us as homeschoolers? Well, we can breathe a sigh of relief because as long as our children are learning at full capacity, i.e., we are doing our job as homeschoolers, then they should be developing the skills and knowledge they'll need to function well in life.
Which is why homeschooling your child is so amazing. When done right, we can help our children to reach their full potential physically, emotionally, neurologically, and intellectually.
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
We can raise "whole" children instead of children being "educated" from the fragmented pedagogy of the public schools.
By "fragmented" I mean that the needs of the whole child are not taken into consideration, and most schooled children never come close to reaching their full potential and becoming their very best.
I know I didn't, which is why I felt so strongly about homeschooling my children and helping other parents to homeschool their children too. You may have similar feelings about your own educational experience.
For example, in terms of academic learning, proficiency rates in literacy alone for public school eighth graders are 30%, and for math they are 28%. How sad to send children away for 12 years to spend 8 hours a day, five days a week in a system designed to dumb them down when they could do and become so much more.
And let’s not forget the collective cost of creativity and innovation and the many things that will never come into existence because so many children never had a chance to fulfill their potentials in life.
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
But let's not breathe too great a sigh of relief yet because surely any homeschooler can beat these statistics with a little effort. But if you are reading this, then, like me, you probably want much more for your children than just trying to match or improve a little upon what children are getting in the public schools.
We want to educate them to the best of their ability while preserving their uniqueness.
Maybe, like my daughter, one of your children will become fascinated with the relationships between the European monarchs prior to WW1 and take a deep dive into their lives. Or, like my son, you have a child who is taken by the nobility and courage of the Native American tribes and takes a deep dive into their stories.
Your children's education will be tailored to their interests, so the development of their minds is unique to that which inspires, motivates, and supports them in living more fulfilling lives because now they can live lives that are in alignment with who they are in their being.
Which follows that what they "know" or don't know then becomes particular to their individual interests, desires, and aptitudes.
While this is true, many homeschooling parents still fall into the trap of comparing their children to schooled children or even to other homeschooled children.
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
That's why, given the vast amount of knowledge that exists, it helps to remember that what children learn in school is to some degree arbitrary.
There are basic skills all schoolchildren are taught, such as reading, writing, and computing. But what episodes or figures in history a child studies, or what literature and art they are exposed to, or what concepts in science they learn is decided upon by the individual school boards.
As long as you have a solid plan for your children and you are staying on schedule, give or take a few revisions or bumps in the road, then it will only cause you unnecessary stress to worry about whether or not your children know the same things as their peers, either homeschooled or schooled.
Because your children's peers and schooled peers will never know the same things your children know either.
As my son said to me the other day, no two people ever read the exact same books, which means that we all have different libraries floating around inside of our heads that impact us, inspire us, and guide us on our journey through life.
Your Best End-of-Year Position
The best stance you can take as the end of the year draws nearer is to remember that whatever your children know is what they know, and that's enough for now.
If you do feel a little more work is needed during the summer, then why not? There are no hard and fast rules with homeschooling other than to understand the educational journey we aspire towards and to become the best homeschooling parent you can be.
It's pretty simple when you think about it!
A funny memory of mine took place when my daughter's friend (of the same age) asked her what grade she would be in the following year. My daughter said that she would be in seventh grade.
But her friend, whose mother was an engineer and loved teaching math (I didn't love it!), knew that my daughter had not learned a certain concept in math, and so her friend stated that she didn't think my daughter was ready for the seventh grade.
My daughter, being highly offended, said to her friend very firmly, "I know what I know, and I'm going into the seventh grade!"
A True Homeschooler
I'll leave you with that note, because this is exactly how homeschooled children think. You can even make it your end-of-the-year mantra: they know what they know!
It's a statement that holds true for each of us. We know what we know, and no two people will ever know exactly the same combination of things in life.
That's some of what makes us unique and what we get to celebrate in our children because we homeschool them.
Don’t miss your free download, 6 Reasons Homeschooled Kids Have Better Social Skills.
Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.
About Elizabeth Y. Hanson
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of two unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years and the Smart Homeschooler Academy: Homeschooling the "Whole" Child for a Well-Trained Mind and Character
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience raising children and working in education.
Liz 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. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.
