No Regrets, It Was Worth It!

This was originally published at UniversalPreschool.com’s blog in 2012, shortly before we dropped our son off at UC Berkeley and all too quickly said good-by. He was on his own, and our days of homeschooling him were over. Two years later, we watched him graduate with a degree in molecular and cell biology. It was one of the most exciting days in this homeschool mom’s life!

Updated September 2023.  My son received a PhD in neuroscience from UCSF!

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It seems like just yesterday that I was explaining to disapproving people that no, my son was not in preschool. They were pretty convinced that he wouldn’t be “ready,” whatever that meant.

Although he never went to pre-school (or K-12 either), he is about to graduate from community college and is preparing to transfer to a university. He’ll soon be moving out, and the last few months have been a time for me to reflect on his life and mine. Here are some of the things I’ve been thinking about:

  • I’m glad that I homeschooled him from birth until college. No regrets at all!
  • I’m glad I didn’t do formal preschool at home, but just let him learn through play. It gave him a solid foundation for the learning that came later.
  • I’m really glad I read to him, especially when I was tired of reading.
  • I’m glad I took him to the park to play with other children because no matter what the weather was or how busy I thought we were, he loved weekly homeschool park days and counted on being there.
  • I’m glad we went for walks in the rain and splashed in puddles.
  • I’m glad he had a messy sandbox, homemade playdough, paint, and lots of little pieces all over the house.
  • I’m glad there were tents built inside and holes dug outside. I’m glad I said yes more than no.
  • I’m glad I tried to listen carefully and treat him with respect; he’s now treating me that way. It’s a wonderful reward for those long years of mothering and homeschooling!

Do I have regrets? Sure! There are things I never got around to doing, and I wish I’d found the time.  We’re all going to feel that way when our babies are ready to leave home!  I didn’t wake up  thinking, “Oh goodie, another glorious day with my three-year-old.” No, I’ll confess that I’d wake up early and tiptoe down the hall, in the hope of just a bit of time alone. He’d hear me and joyfully begin his day before I was ready!

At times he cried, got mad, and generally tried my patience. Some days seemed so long!  Now I look back and think it was a good time in our lives, and so worth it.

The preschool years are challenging, but it gets easier, and the reward that comes from helping our children flourish is priceless. Take plenty of pictures, save a few treasures, and jot down some cute things they say so you can remember!

Someday I hope that you too will look back and say “No regrets. It was time well spent and worth the trouble.”

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karen2
Karen Taylor’s always homeschooled son attended a local community college after graduating from homeschooling. He transferred to UC Berkeley as a junior, and received a PhD in neuroscience from UCSF in 2023.  She shares homeschooling comments and links on Facebook, Pinterest, and this blog.
 
 
 

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CLA Blog Chronological Index

My New Blog and Family Update

Reading aloud to your children

Pay Attention! Are You Listening to Me?

The Dark Side of Certificates and Awards

“My Daughter Homeschools”

4 Ways to Get Your Child to Listen

Famous Homeschooler List – Because Sometimes it’s Nice to Know About Others

What Does Your Child Want to Learn?

Ready for College?

Homeschool Dads

Looking Beyond Toys

What You Need to Know if You are Struggling with Teaching

Distractible, Messy, Disorganized, and Fill-In-the-Blank Kids Often Thrive at Home Without Drugs!

Changing Public Opinion About Homeschooling

Making a Costume is a Learning Experience!

What Will Your Teen Do After Graduation?

Thanksgiving Survival Tips for Homeschoolers

Welcoming Dirt Into the Curriculum

It’s NOT Helicopter Parenting!

Yes, There’s a Reason Why You Think You Need Preschool Curriculum!

Loving Learning?

Unschooling: The Gold Standard for Young Children

Everyone Deserves a Childhood: Unschooling gifted kids

From Homeschooler to College Student: Successfully Transitioning Your Teen to College

Getting Lost and Other Games!

“Play Anywhere” Games

Unschooling and the Unspoken Worry

My Experience with Stealth Schooling

Feed Me a Story!

The Early Walking Curriculum

Help! My Child Wants to Go to School!

The Importance of Homeschooling Support

My Homeschool Lesson

It’s Never Wasted Time

Does the Thought of Homeschooling Scare You?

“We’re Homeschooling” – breaking the news to your family!

Taking it One Day at a Time: Why you may not need to know what you’ll do tomorrow.

Homeschool Advice from “Experts” and Others!

The Best Homeschooling Advice Ever!

How to Begin Homeschooling When You Don’t Know What to Do!

Working on Physical Skills Helps with Reading, Writing, and Learning!

A lightbulb moment from a homeschooler

No Regrets, It Was Worth It!

Homeschool Field Trips

Homeschooling Through a Crisis

Finding a California Park Day

What Year-Round Homeschooling Looks Like

A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Civics Now!

Unpreschooling Experiences

What You Need to Know about Preschool, TK, and Kindergarten

Easy Steps to Filing a Private School Affidavit (PSA) and Establishing Your Own Private School!

It’s a Stressful Year to Homeschool

When Your Homeschooling is Questioned

A lightbulb moment from a homeschooler

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I love witnessing “lightbulb” moments in homeschooling parents.  It happened again recently to a mom who returned her child to school after trying homeschooling a few years ago.  She has started homeschooling again, and wrote the following note to me.

I’m sharing it with her permission, and with her child’s name removed.  Her struggles with homeschooling (and why she decided to send her child to school) are common, and she describes her new understanding beautifully!

I think the first go around with homeschool two years ago wasn’t with xxx but with me and my “schoolie mindset”.  I thought I had to schedule xxx’s day to make sure he was learning something. I had us so scheduled, and things divided into “educational” and “not educational” that even the educational stuff that xxx once liked became “school”. I’d ask him if he wanted to watch Discovery Channel with me and he would be like, “isn’t that science? I just did that.”

So right now, I am thrilled to say that at this moment in time we are happily deschooling and may do so for several months to come. We have a lot of road blocks that traditional created so getting through the “mind junk” is goal #1.

I am starting to pull back and when I do I see that xxx is really learning by doing the things he loves. . . .

It’s a process and a struggle to understand how homeschooling can be different from school. Her big breakthrough was when she realized that schoolishness was making him not want to learn anything extra because he’d already studied that subject. I hope her experience encourages you!

karen2

Karen Taylor’s always homeschooled son attended a local community college after graduating from homeschooling. He transferred to UC Berkeley as a junior, and received a PhD in neuroscience from UCSF.  She shares homeschooling comments and links on Facebook, Pinterest, and this blog.

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Working on Physical Skills Helps with Reading, Writing, and Learning!

Updated 9/30/2022

Helping your child develop their fine and gross motor skills is critical, yet often overlooked. It’s not on the end-of-the-year public school standardized test, so there may not be time in school unless a child is labeled as having special needs.

Learning to hop, balance, catch, skip, and cut are just a few physical skills that will help a child strengthen their ability to learn. Fortunately, practicing them is fun!

Occupational therapists have great suggestions to assist children in developing fine motor skills and gross motor skills. You’ll find lots of educational ideas for teaching your children of all ages the way they learn best – by moving and playing!

These are the skills that will help with reading, writing, and learning. They are better than a workbook, and a lot more fun!

**Special note to a few of you.  Do any of the following descriptions describe you?

  1. You worry that something fun can’t be good. 
  2. You worry that there is no proof at the end of the day showing that learning happened. 
  3. You weren’t happy with your child’s former school, but you still feel your child should sit down and do real work, just like they did in school.
  4. You don’t want your child to feel like not going to school is one long vacation.

Since many of these activities could fall under art or PE, call it that. And if you need proof that your child did something to promote learning today, take a picture! Journal activities. And if you’re worried that it’s all looking like a bunch of party games and way too much fun, just look at who compiled the list. They are professionals who work to help kids make their bodies and brains work better.  It’s all about learning.

 
karen2
Karen Taylor’s always homeschooled son attended a local community college after graduating from homeschooling. He transferred to UC Berkeley as a junior, and received a PhD in neuroscience from UCSF.  She shares homeschooling comments and links on Facebook, Pinterest, and this blog.
 
 
 

How to Begin Homeschooling When You Don’t Know What to Do!

Updated 9/30/2022.

Just do it.

You think you want to homeschool, but you’re not ready. You may never be. And if you’re a perfectionist, it’s even worse, because your plans will never be perfect enough. So just do it. Jump in and declare that you are homeschooling and then worry about the rest after you’ve taken your first trip to the park and baked some cookies or whatever you like to do for fun.

Know where to ask for help.

Don’t go to the State Department of Education or local school for your homeschooling information. You want accurate information from a state organization that specializes in your state and supports your desire to homeschool.  Every state organization is going to have easy-to-understand information, and they’ll give it to you for free without scaring you. Your homeschooling friends can help, and if you live in California, I can too.

Your child won’t be behind.

Schools like to perpetuate the myth that a child who misses even a day of school will forever be behind.  Oh, gasp, just think of the important wisdom they might miss . . . not!  It’s convenient for schools to have every child there every day, and they also don’t collect funding for a child if they are absent. So that’s what this is all about. As a homeschooler, you have plenty of time, and it’s ok not to keep regular school hours – in fact, it can be a good thing! You also have a full year to accomplish what you want, so be easy on yourself. Your child won’t fall behind.

Don’t worry about grade level.

As a homeschooler, grade level can be a thing of the past. Let your child be in the same grade as is typical for his age, for purely social reasons. And then teach your child what they need to know, whether it’s below or above grade level. The important thing is that progress is being made, and you’ll enjoy the freedom of not worrying about whether they are ahead or behind, but just that they are learning what is right for them today.

Write your plans for the year in pencil. 

Ok, you don’t really need to use a pencil, but you need to be able to easily change (or erase!) those plans. No one can possibly imagine what their child might need to know 6 months from now!  Make a rough outline if you want (or don’t) but be willing to change often because you’re going to need to adjust. If you are unwilling to bend, you will be miserable, and you’ll also miss some wonderful learning moments!

A few do’s, don’ts, and suggestions.

  1. Don’t assign a book report. If your child loves to write and wants to write an Amazon review or volunteer details about the books, that’s fine. But please don’t think you need to assign a book report just because schools do it. We don’t ask adults to do book reports. It would ruin the story for us. So don’t ask kids to do it!
  2. Read aloud to your child, even if they are older and reading. Reading aloud is a wonderful shared experience. If you look for chapter books that are worth sharing and above their reading level, you will be doing some quality homeschooling. (For more information, see the list of books I read to my son when he was young, CLA’s Pinterest read aloud list, and also some thoughts on why it’s ok for a child to be busy while you read.)
  3. You don’t have to give tests. Same reason as #1 (you wouldn’t want someone testing you every time you learned something or to prove you were really paying attention). Just listen to your child, and you’ll soon know what they understand.
  4. Kids learn a lot while playing, so give them lots of unstructured time.
  5. Get your homeschool ideas from many sources. There’s no one right way to homeschool, so take what you like from different books, speakers, and friends and make it your own.
  6. Be prepared for the inevitable comments from friends and family who may worry about your homeschooling choice (and yes, your children will be socialized and go to college if they choose!).
  7. What does your child want to learn? Ask!

Find a local homeschool group.

Don’t just find a group, go to their weekly park days and field trips, and contribute your great ideas. Get involved. This is your support group, and your kids may need the friends, but so do you! If you don’t like the group (it happens), start your own group and soon parents will hear about it and gladly attend.

Trust.

Trust that it’s going to be ok. Sure, you’re nervous! And you’re not ready. But you know you can do it. Take it one day at a time.

 
karen2
Karen Taylor’s always homeschooled son attended a local community college after graduating from homeschooling. He transferred to UC Berkeley as a junior, and received a PhD in neuroscience from UCSF.  She shares homeschooling comments and links on Facebook, Pinterest, and this blog.
 
Here are some more blog posts for new homeschoolers.  Just remember, you can do it! I hope you have a great homeschooling year!

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