I have the following lines framed and put up in our study room at home:
Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. Childhood is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace which is right for each individual child.
Being a mom who has been homeschooling her kids for the last couple of years, I truly believe the above words. Agreed, there are times when doubts creep in even today; am I doing the right thing? Are my kids turning out to be less social than their friends in the neighborhood who go to school daily? What if I miss out on tapping their potential to the maximum?
And then, on the other side, there are also days (more so) when I am pretty sure I have taken the right decision for my little ones, as I sit back and see them learning at their own pace, enjoying themselves all the way. A recent report here states that ‘Home educated kids are outperforming their mainstream counterparts in just about every area’. Are/will my kids doing/do the same? That only time will tell. But what I can say with the utmost conviction as of now is that they are no less than their peers who go to school, perhaps even brighter, if I may say (and it is not the biased mother in me speaking right now).
Given another chance, I would still choose to homeschool. I would still choose to let them have fun while learning. After all, when one chooses to homeschool, the entire world becomes your classroom. Is it not?
Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. Childhood is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace which is right for each individual child.
Being a mom who has been homeschooling her kids for the last couple of years, I truly believe the above words. Agreed, there are times when doubts creep in even today; am I doing the right thing? Are my kids turning out to be less social than their friends in the neighborhood who go to school daily? What if I miss out on tapping their potential to the maximum?
And then, on the other side, there are also days (more so) when I am pretty sure I have taken the right decision for my little ones, as I sit back and see them learning at their own pace, enjoying themselves all the way. A recent report here states that ‘Home educated kids are outperforming their mainstream counterparts in just about every area’. Are/will my kids doing/do the same? That only time will tell. But what I can say with the utmost conviction as of now is that they are no less than their peers who go to school, perhaps even brighter, if I may say (and it is not the biased mother in me speaking right now).
Given another chance, I would still choose to homeschool. I would still choose to let them have fun while learning. After all, when one chooses to homeschool, the entire world becomes your classroom. Is it not?