The Top Ten Homeschooling Mistakes

I started my homeschooling journey ten years ago, when the summer before my oldest son was about to start kindergarten he contracted a serious neurological illness, and school was not even an option for the near future. Our family suddenly became "accidental homeschoolers", without having ever even considered what that might mean.

After doing as much research as I could (there was no free "Welcome to Homeschooling" guide back then), based on the materials available to me at the time, I jumped head first into my homeschooling adventure, learning as I went. As you can imagine, this mostly involved learning the hard way. Mistakes became the norm. In fact, if things went well our first time doing something new, I would begin to doubt it's effectiveness!

Anyway, all this trial and error has given me a unique perspective on things, and I see it as an opportunity to share some of that hard-earned wisdom with those of you who aren't quite as far along on the path. So, I'm going to share with you my "Top Ten Homeschooling Mistakes," in order of what I think are the least egregious all the way to the mistakes that can do a homeschool program in.
Are you ready?? Are you taking notes?? Then here we go...

10. Procrastination

If homeschooling wasn't high on your priority list, and seems daunting to say the least, you might be tempted to put off your research and planning in favor of say... having your toenails removed with pliers. This is a common beginner mistake, but one that will lead you to purchasing homeschool curricula you don't like, hanging out with support groups that don't fit you, and asking the wrong people for advice.

9. Listening to the Naysayers

If you are one of the few people in your family or circle of friends who homeschools, you are likely to hear any number of reasons why homeschooling will damage your children. 9 times out of 10 these well-meaning advisers have no personal experience with homeschooling, and are simply falling back on uninformed opinion or faulty information. Unless these people have experienced homeschooling for themselves, and know your children as well as you do, their judgment is not really trustworthy.

8. Impulse Buying

Many first time homeschoolers attend curriculum fairs or book sales. These are wonderful sources of information about the materials available to homeschoolers, but they can also basically be crack dens for homeschoolers jonesing for a fix. The materials that look so beautiful and effective on the display tables may end up as clutter on your coffee table if you give into your urges instead of taking home brochures or samples to study carefully when you aren't under the influence of the bright lights and colorful book covers.

7. Short-Term Thinking

I'll never forget the year I decided that handwriting was a useless art. My line of reasoning was that computers were everywhere, and anything my boys needed to write could be done via keyboard. So imagine my surprise when my oldest son signed up for a volunteer position at a local non-profit animal shelter, and one of his main duties was making notes on the condition of each animal that arrived - - on a handwritten form!! Besides my own embarrassment at leaving such a crucial gap in his instruction, I had to face my son's frustration at not being prepared for something he really wanted to do. It was at that point that I started looking further into my children's future, to see what skills they might need for the different choices they might make.

6. Recreating School at Home

Our first home "classroom" was adorable. I had a little desk situated under a little dry erase board, educational centers around the room, and was stocked up on sentence strips, math manipulatives, and magnetic letters. Any kindergarten teacher in the world would have been proud. My son, however? Not so much. He despised the desk that kept him from acting out the stories I was reading. He preferred to use the sentence strips to create makeshift murals of the Pilgrim ships. And doggone it if the dry erase board didn't become his preferred method of working out his math problems. I discovered the hard way that "school" is "school" because teachers need conformity. My son needed individuality. School-at-home was a bust...but the dry erase board still comes in handy when I need to remind my hubby that we're out of milk.

5. Going it on your own

Want a recipe for homeschooling disaster? It has only one ingredient: ISOLATION. If you are trying to homeschool without the guidance of at least one person who has been down that road before, you are going to find yourself second guessing everything that you do. This is one of the key reasons to find a local homeschool support group and talk to some of the more experienced members. Ask questions - even dumb ones! (Don't worry, they've heard them all before) And, if possible, find one sucker among them that will let you add them to your speed dial. Even if you are certain that you are the only homeschool mother in the world whose son reads his books upside down, you probably aren't. Having a support system will bring you the assurance you need to continue homeschooling when you just aren't sure you are doing the right thing by your kids.

4. Over-focusing on Assessments

Whether we'd like to admit it or not, we are all swayed by the movements of the public school system. And one of the biggest of those was the "No Child Left Behind" act, which ushered in unprecedented focus on assessment-based learning. Whether or not this strategy is appropriate for the education of children en masse is not my beef for this post. The argument I will make is that it should NOT be the focus of a homeschool. One of the main advantages of homeschooling is the ability to individualize education. A homeschooling parent does not need an abundance of assessments to know where there children are, educationally. And by over-focusing on standardized tests, both parents and children alike can lose sight of the goal...falling in love with learning!

3. Comparing Your Child to Others

I've had moments in the last ten years when I have wanted to throw in the homeschooling towel. Almost every one of these moments was preceded by a conversation with another homeschooling mom. As soon as I hear that Suzy's daughter, who is the same age as my son, has memorized every state capital, and can even sing them in alphabetical order, I start tearing apart the hall closet in search of that U.S. map that I know is in there somewhere! I have caused myself and my children untold grief by trying to compare what we do at our house with what Suzy's family does at theirs. Every child is unique, and learns at his or her own pace. If we try to fit into another homeschooler's mold, we will have already lost what is so precious about home education: individuality!

2. Not Understanding How Your Children Learn

I've stood on this soapbox for so long that I'm starting to gather dust! But one of the most valuable lessons I've learned throughout the homeschooling journey is that every child learns differently. By taking the time to explore your child's personality and learning style, you can save yourself months - - even years - - of grief, frustration, and expense. Finding a homeschool curriculum and method that fits with your child's learning style can make the difference between a child who wakes up crying at the thought of having to start another day of homeschool and a child who jumps out of bed yelling "I want to learn math first today!"

1. Taking it all too seriously

As you can probably tell, I tend to dish out a little humor in my writing. Some people who comment on my personal blog ask me if I fancy myself a comedienne. I usually answer, "Nope. Just a seasoned homeschooler." Laughter has been the saving grace of my homeschooling adventure. From the time when my boys insisted that their pet turtle carry their math papers to me taped to his back, to the time we tried to create a volcano using baking POWDER and vinegar, to the time we sat in front of the ice cream parlor eating Moose Tracks and practicing probability with men with facial hair vs. men who were clean shaven - - we have had FUN with learning. Hardly an hour goes by in our day that we don't find something to laugh about.

And why shouldn't we? We are free. Free to laugh. Free to learn. Free to homeschool - - mistakes and all!