(I wrote this post back in February, but am finally posting it)

Most of you know that I tried homeschooling Reagan and Cade when they were younger and it didn’t take. The boys fought constantly, competed over everything, and Reagan was just too much for one person to handle all day long every day. We were all miserable. So we quit to give ourselves time to grow up and mature a bit (them AND me). I’ve always hoped that someday we’d be able to try my dream of homeschooling again.

About 6 months ago I serendipitously or, I believe, providentially stumbled across a new parenting book, Parenting a House United, Teaching Self Government by Nicholeen Peck. This book has revolutionized our home. I know, that sounds canned, but it’s the truth! It taught me how to teach myself and my children the skills we need to govern ourselves and make our home a much happier place. I am happier, and they are happier and more obedient. Every day now I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. No, they aren’t perfect children now, but they are light years above where they used to be-and so am I. It has so changed our home that… drumroll please…we are actually going to try homeschooling again next year! I know, many of you are thinking, “Wow is she crazy! Why would she ever want to DO that!” And more of you are probably saying, “But what about…?” and “What about…?” For the answer to those questions, you’ll have to wait for my next post! For now I want to share my experience from this last week.

We decided to do a test run to see if homeschooling was even possible for our family. So I kept the kids home from school and taught them myself. This is what it looked like from Rock’s point of view via my instant messages to him during the week:
Monday: “FAILURE! We can’t do this!”
Tuesday: “SUCCESS! This is so awesome! We had the perfect day and now I even have time (and energy) to go practice piano!!”
Wednesday: Levi is driving me crazy! and (later) I LOVE this!
Thursday: nothing (I was too busy enjoying the day to IM)
Friday: “Do I have to wait until next year to start homeschooling??? Let’s start next week!”

Overall our experiment was a complete success. The week was hard but it was satisfying. It was busy but it was fulfilling. And a lot of the time it was fun. I felt more joy and more pain in just this one week than I have in a very long time. But isn’t that what life is about? Or at least what it should be about. It is full of ups and downs. That’s part of the journey. If you’re not experiencing enough ups and downs, maybe you aren’t living life to its fullest. Our week together reminded me of a quote by Jenkin Loyd Jones that President Hinkley quoted;

Life is just like an old time rail journey … delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

I had more beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed this week than I have in a long time, maybe even more than my entire time as a parent. And yes, lots of sidetracks, delays and jolts too. The week was by no means perfect. But I felt more alive because of the ups and downs. There were times when I had all four kids sitting with me while I read them a story and no one was squishing anyone else and everyone kept their elbows to themselves and everyone could see and it was perfect. Or when I was teaching the boys about ancient Rome and they were so excited to learn and didn’t want to stop. In those moments I felt again the particular joy I get from teaching. I have forgotten until this week how much I love it. How much it is who I am. It was like a part of me that had been asleep was awakened. It was exhilarating!

You might ask what we did the whole week especially since it was a random week in the middle of the school year. There are several things I’ve wanted to work on with the kids outside of school and have not really had the time so we worked on those things. We had a morning devotional every day. We memorized our family mission statement, 2 articles of faith and 1 poem. We studied common and proper nouns and oddly enough, Reagan really enjoyed changing common nouns to proper nouns. He changed “We went to the store to buy food.” to “We went to Home Depot to buy String Beans.” and he thought he was hilarious. “Get it, Mom! Aren’t I funny?” It’s time to bring on the Mad Libs I think! We listened to a CD about Beethoven and his music and the boys enjoyed the music so much that the next day, Cade, after reading the name on the CD case, asked if we could listen to Bay-th-oven again. The boys finished memorizing their addition math facts up to 10 by jumping up and down the stairs and in and out of the tiles in the kitchen. We’ve been reading a wonderful history book for children called the Story of the World and were up to Rome, so we studied Roman history more in depth.
We did more, but I’ll stop before you get too bored. Every night they got to report on what they learned to Dad at the dinner table. He got a much better report than he usually gets when he asks what they learned at school. (It helps when mom knows everything they learned!) The boys favorite part of the week was learning about gladiators and attack elephants. (For those who don’t know what attack elephants have to do with Roman history you can ask my boys.) Oh, and they loved not having homework. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they were doing homework all morning long! But frankly, I loved that part too! We loved being the ones in charge of our time, rather than the school being in charge of our time. Levi of course loved having his big brothers home all day. And Liberty may or may not have loved all the extra attention she got.

One thing I have learned from last week is that I don’t know my children like I want to. They are home for just a very little time each day right now while in public school. They get up and rush out the door to school. Then they come home, do homework, play with friends, eat dinner and go to bed. One of the main reasons I have always wanted to homeschool is because I knew if I sent them to school, the school would get the best part of their day and I would get the leftovers. As I taught them last week I really got to see a different, more in depth side of my children. I got to see how they actually think about more things. What makes them uncomfortable, what makes them excited. I knew all that on one level, of course, but it was deeper, more real this week. I think we sometimes go through the motions and live next to each other rather than with each other. We move our children from point A to point B without really knowing them deeply. Our time is usually under pressure-to get here or do this or that, finish the homework, finish the chores, get to this activity or that one, etc. I feel rushed. I rarely have time to do what I want with my children. None of this is a surprise or a shock to me. I knew when I sent them to school that it would be this way. So this week we took our time. We were more relaxed because we didn’t have to be anywhere. We laughed more. We had fun together. The kids were kinder to each other and more loving. Reagan had a lot more opportunity to help out and he has grown in confidence because of it. We are closer because of this week. What’s truly miraculous is that after being with them for 7 days straight, I am not sick of my children! In fact, I truly enjoyed them! I like their company more now than I did when we started. All of that is the opposite of what happened last time we tried homeschooling. Many of the problems we had before are gone or greatly diminished. We had an awesome week.

Now, I know it will not always be like this. This was only one small week. I know when we do this for real there will be weeks when they fight a lot, days when they don’t want to learn, whole weeks when I want to quit. But I think we are ready to handle the ups and the downs. I’ll take the good with the bad because the vistas, like we had this week, are worth it.

Stay tuned for part II-Why I want to homeschool.