Sounds Great and All, But I Don’t Have Enough Time/Experience/My Kids Won't Learn From Me/Insert Your Own Excuse Here

HOMESCHOOLING ENTREPRENEUR ISSUE 2:

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “I wish I could homeschool, but…” I wouldn’t have to be an entrepreneur. I could just set up a roadside stand with a tip jar labeled “excuses” and collect. Let’s get one thing straight: you are an entrepreneur, which means you take risks, you own your choices, and you create what you want to happen!

After some experimentation, we have found a way to enhance our time, location, and financial freedom through homeschooling that fits our kids and family very well. What follows is how we do it, about as low-key and "lazy" as it gets: it still works. There are so many options that if one way or many ways aren't working, there are plenty more to try. It's not intended as "the" way you have to do it: I won't like you any more or less no matter what decision you make, unless, of course, you want me to?

Let’s explore several common anxieties toward homeschooling and address solutions: or even more helpful, explore our own mental blocks that preclude us from taking action on stuff we think we want. Because remember, there are no solutions: only pros and cons!

NOT ENOUGH TIME

Should I just skip this one? Because I already addressed it in my first article about how homeschooling increases the time you have available and adds to your time freedom. It all boils down to control and who’s the boss of you. You are the boss of you. That’s not something I just say to my kids, it really is true!

Much of what we think we don’t have time for can be reduced, simplified, delegated, or eliminated. You probably already have your kids in some extra-curricular activities like music lessons or sports. Congratulations on your delegation skills: you just took care of homeschool band and PE. Simplify by ditching formal academics at younger ages until the child has the desire and ability to take ownership over that process. If your kids are like mine, it should happen about age 22. The only formal things we teach in our homeschool are how to write a 5-paragraph essay (takes about 30 minutes if you wait until about age 15,) and at age 16-18 a basic math test prep for something like the ACT/SAT, or community college placement test, which typically takes about a year to cover math for grades 3-8. It just doesn’t take that long. We hire a tutor (delegate), or have the child do a packet or online course if they can handle some independent work. That’s it! We create a rich life that educates naturally, so there’s no extra time needed to live a life that you’re already living.

MY HUSBAND WON’T LET ME or MY WIFE DOESN’T WANT TO

No particular gender or stay-at-home parent is “in charge” of homeschooling. No one “lets” you do something, and you don’t “make” anyone else do what you want. While homeschooling is a big decision that affects the entire family, it doesn’t have to be a big decision that eats up your life and time or control other people.

My husband said it best when I was discussing a friend who wanted to homeschool, but her husband had some very particular ideas about how to do it and thought she wouldn’t/couldn’t do it right; which was, “Doing public school at home taking the duty to make your kids hate learning away from the teacher and putting it onto your wife.” No parent should be in charge of the boring forced workbooks and whiteboard lessons while threatening to take away play time or send them back to school if the kids won’t “learn.”

WE home educate our children together by living life with them alongside us. No one parent is in charge of “school.” (There’s actually no “school” at our house, only education). The kids help us run our business, or at least watch our example, go to work when we are on location or at an office, meet our coworkers, interrupt our Zoom calls, mess up the kitchen, grocery shop, run their own little businesses, and answer all our random quiz questions as we drive around. When my kids were younger and we had a new baby, our mantra was, “The baby IS the lesson!” Basic home and time management skills of creating a new normal life after the birth of a new sibling are important skills too.

There’s no right way to homeschool, but if it’s hard, time consuming, or has to be done a certain way, you’re probably doing it wrong. Stop making it so hard. You are a loving parent raising children in a literate household, and there’s no way they can escape that environment without knowing at least basic skills in reading, writing, math: and since you’re a business owner, all those other skills you model using every day too.

MY KIDS DON’T WANT TO

This is also a version of, "My kids won't learn from me." Really? I admit, I know a lot of kids who hate being homeschooled and prefer to be in school. The answer to this? Don’t make your homeschool suck. Stop threatening to send them back to school if they don’t sit still and do their lessons. Stop villainizing chores and homework by requiring they be done before kids can socialize with neighbors, online friends, screen time, or local homeschool groups. Stop thinking and recreating only one way to do this even if your kids hate it. Again, you are the boss of you, so teach your kids to be the bosses of themselves.

My kids play all day. I’m not exaggerating. Mr. Rogers said the true work of childhood is play, and he was not exaggerating. I also don’t tell my kids how to play, or the right way to play. They can watch TV and play video games just as freely as riding bikes or making experiments with my expensive stuff in the garage. They probably watch more TV than your kids do, some days more than others in the natural ebb and flow of their interests, but overall, they are well-rounded kids who naturally engage in a variety of activities. The bottom line is, they know how to play, and they recognize that they especially enjoy playing with highly important tools like computers or sharp expensive fragile things. If your kids could play all day and know they were learning all sorts of lessons naturally, your homeschool wouldn’t suck. They might even prefer it.

BUT I HAVE A SPECIAL NEEDS KID

So do I. He’s actually one of the main reasons we homeschool. This topic deserves an entire article all on its own, and surprise, I have an entire article on that topic coming up. There are a variety of resources to successfully educate special needs children while enjoying more freedom that homeschooling can bring, and we’ll go through many of them. Bottom line, don’t despair, there are options!

I SAY I WANT TO, BUT I REALLY DON’T, EXCEPT I DO

It can be hard, it can be scary. But as I often tell parents asking in online homeschool forums if they should go for it, “You wouldn’t be asking a group of homeschoolers if you should do this if you didn’t already know you want to. You know what we are going to say.” Listen to what YOU want, you already know. If your kids are thriving in school, and you love having them there, why are you reading this article? If you are still reading after I just told you to stop, you understand that taking control of your time and location freedom means homeschooling: you are a smart, creative, resourceful family who can not only make this work, but take control over your time and freedom.

THE TRUTH

Again, I’ll disclaim that I may have opinions you disagree with and may present them in a way that sounds like, “I’m right and you’re wrong, you fool,” but as the boss of yourself, you can do this if you want to. Or not. You don’t need anyone’s permission but your own. As creative as you are in your business, as an entrepreneur I know you’re a killer problem solver. Be open-minded and creative in the way you educate your children so you can experience the freedom a truly customized homeschool solution can bring.

FURTHER READING

Free to Learn, Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter O. Gray, PhD

THE HOMESCHOOLING ENTREPRENEUR SERIES:

Issue #1 How Homeschooling Contributes to Financial Freedom from The Homeschooling Entrepreneur