My Homeschool Story

I started homeschooling my son in December of 2021. Homeschooling wasn’t even on my radar at the time. In fact, I said for the longest time, you would never catch me homeschooling.  I didn’t have the patience and everyone knew that homeschool kids were weird and had no social life, right?  I didn’t want that kind of life for my child.

But I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me start from the beginning.  We moved to North Carolina in 2019.  This was my husbands third duty station and we were excited to finally be closer to home, Florida.  

Our last duty station was Fort Carson in Colorado.  We loved it there, though we hated the trips back home when it was time to visit, a two day drive.  While there, we discovered my son had a speech delay, so we started taking him to a speech therapist.  She was awesome and helped so much.  She also told me about the Head Start program and how he could get even more help and possibly an IEP (Individual Education Plan), to help him when he started school.

Head Start went great as well.  From there we got his IEP and he was receiving services a few times a week.  We made some incredible friends who we all miss dearly.  He was thriving.  I was thriving.  Then my husband got orders for North Carolina.  And we were excited to move back to the south.

By now, my son was turning five and was ready to start school as soon as we got here.  Since it took some time to find a home, school had already started two weeks prior.  His new teacher, while nice, seemed to be really frustrated by him.  After a few weeks of making comments about his performance and behavior I asked her what was being done with his IEP.  She didn’t know he had an IEP, the school hadn’t informed her, and her attitude changed.  She had much more understanding and patience with him after that.

She was only his teacher for a few more month’s after that, when she moved to another school.  The teacher’s aid is the one who took over after she left and she was absolutely amazing!  She understood my son so well.  She encouraged me to foster his creativity and imagination.  I’ll always remember her saying don’t let anyone try to squash his imagination.  That meant so much to me, because instead of saying he’s behind, he needs to catch up, she saw his strength’s and encouraged him.  His confidence grew with her.

Unfortunately she too had to leave.  By now it’s early 2020.  And my son is now on his third teacher, just in one school year.  We didn’t get to know the new teacher very well, because a week later the schools closed for Covid.  We got to know her through the computer screen.  And my son began falling behind again.  And to top it off, the school decided to end his IEP.  I wanted to fight it, but it happened right when the school’s closed.  And if you remember, it was chaos after that.

Now we’re in the next school year, first grade.  His new teacher is great, she took her time with him, offered one on one attention as much as possible, and he made slow, steady progress that year.  But by the end of the year, she felt, and I agreed, he should repeat first grade.

He did summer school after that and made little progress.  When it was time to head back to school I was surprised to find that he had been pushed up a grade anyway.  When I went to find out why, I was told it was because he attended summer school.  I didn’t push it, though I wish I had now.  I told myself I’ll just help him catch up.

This school year was much like the first one, going through two teacher’s the first half of the school year.  None of which seemed to care much for my son.  He was having a lot of emotional melt down’s in class.  I noticed his attitude was getting worse as well.  And I could see the frustration on his face everyday I picked him up and was told about his behavior.  I was also getting more phone calls during the day, needing to talk to my son about his behavior.  Nothing I did seemed to help. 

We were both in tears most days after school.  I was at a loss at what to do next.  I called the school several times asking if they had resources for him, like we did in Colorado.  They had none.  I pushed to get his IEP back.  Nothing came of it.  They did advise us to get him tested for ADHD, which we did and he does have it, but medicating him was something my husband and I were strongly against.  

The final straw was when he had to be out of school, just him and a couple of other students, due to possible Covid exposure.  I went and got him a Covid test soon after and he was clear. But he still wasn’t allowed back at school for the next two weeks.  And by this point, we both dreaded virtual learning. 

We made it through two day’s of him being online when I knew this wasn’t going to work anymore.  I started looking for private schools, but those just seemed like more of the same thing.  Then I started researching homeschool.  I never in my life thought about homeschooling.  Never wanted to even entertain the idea of it.

The more I researched though, the more I realized this was the direction we needed to go.  For his sake, and mine.  When I learned that what we had been doing with the school online, wasn’t anything like how homeschool actually was, I was sold!

I researched for a good two to three days.  I talked it over with my husband, who was on board and just as frustrated as I was.  I talked it over with my family and close friends.  I joined several homeschool groups on Facebook.  I turned to my aunt, who was the only other person I knew personally that had homeschooled, and she helped send me in the right direction.

By the end of the third day, I had submitted my notice of intent to North Carolina.  And within minutes it was approved!  That’s when the nerves really set in.  What did I just do?!

After that I withdrew my son from school.  I’m very thankful there was no push back or comment’s by them. I also want to take this time to say I don’t hold any ill feelings towards the people at his school.  I know it was a during a difficult time, and I know my son could be a handful.  There were so many nice people at his school that generally cared and we do miss those teachers.

Next, we took the advice of the very helpful people of the Facebook groups, and deschooled.  Which I’m so glad we did.  It took us a while to get use to the new routine.  I felt so weird for the longest time, thinking he’s supposed to be in school right now, and that we were breaking the rules.  I realized then that the deschooling was for me just as much as it was for him.  I had to get out of the mind frame that school can only look a certain way.  

While deschooling, we did fun projects like make slime.  But mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed our new found freedom.  During this time I also went back to researching, this time for curriculum’s.  There were so many choices and it was often overwhelming.  

By the end of it, I decided to go with Time 4 Learning.  It was all online, but self paced.  I also liked how it helped me schedule everything easily, which for an overwhelmed mom, I appreciated.  We used Time 4 Learning for about three years.  My son did well with it and it really helped take a load off my mind, while I started this new chapter and my new role as teacher and mom. 

During those three years, I saw my son come back to life.  His confidence was completely gone by the time I took him out of school.  I wish I had seen it sooner.  By the end of public school, he had given up completely, and hated anything to do with learning.  For a long time, he didn’t want to answer a question at all, too afraid to get the wrong answer.  It took a while for me to teach him that wrong answers are okay, that learning from the mistake is what’s important. He is so much more confident now, his attitude is much better, and he’s getting the one on one time that he needs to help manage his ADHD. 

When we talk about his time at school, he sometimes get’s teary-eyed, and he gets emotional talking about when he was there.  It breaks my heart every time.  I wish I could go back and see all of this sooner, take him out sooner.  

We have since moved on from Time 4 Learning, opting for less screen time.  I love the freedom that homeschool gives us and we’re able to purchase from many different curriculum’s to help meet his individual needs.  While school work still isn’t his favorite thing to do, he is finally thriving!  I’m so thankful we’re able to do this.  We are both loving this journey, more than we expected.  

While this journey hasn’t been easy, it has been such a rewarding experience.  I feel so much closer to my son.  We have so much more time together as a family, with only needing to homeschool for about three hours a day.  I love that I now know how his little brain works, what tricks or tips he needs to succeed, and how his creativity and imagination take center stage through out his learning process.

I plan on making more content about the curriculums we’ve used, what our schedule looks like, and more in the future.  I hope someone out there finds this helpful.  Also check out my page on curriculum’s if you are still searching for the right one. I have a list with links to the websites to help on your search.  And feel free the add more recommendations if you have a curriculum you love and it’s not already on the list!