Friday, June 22, 2012

Stick to Your Style

We homeschool moms struggle with the temptation to compare. We see other families who are involved in all sorts of enrichment classes and wonder if our kids should take more classes. We see other families whose kids have beautiful penmanship and we wonder why we can't get that one child to do more than chicken scratchings? We see other families who love love love their curriculum and we second-guess the curriculum we've chosen.
May I encourage you: don't do it!
Over half of the homeschool moms at our church use My Father's World curriculum. And ironically I have encouraged several moms who asked for curriculum advice to use My Father's World. I say "ironically" because we have never used that curriculum ourselves. I just know a lot about it and there are a lot of moms looking for just that type of curriculum.
So last year while trying to pick a new curriculum, I thought: You know what, I really should look more into My Father's World. So many of my friends love it, maybe I'm missing something.
But after looking it over thoroughly, I realized I wasn't missing anything at all. It is exactly as I thought it was and it isn't a good fit for our family. I LOVE everything about the Charlotte Mason style of home educating and only a Charlotte Mason styled curriculum is going to be a fit for us.
Whatever your chosen style, stick to it! Let your homeschooling style guide your decisions. If you love textbooks, don't look at unit studies. If you are a homebody, don't look into a lot of co-ops and classes. Don't feel guilty for being the homeschool mom that you are.

2 comments:

Mama to 12, so far said...

Amen Ginger! This is a good reminder.

GracefulMommy - from MOMYS

Tereza Crump said...

This is a great post.

I am a homebody and most of my homeschooling friends are on-the-go Moms. Sometimes I feel like I should go more but then...

this Summer I am trying out something new: because my parents are here visiting for 3 months I decided to do more out of the house activities with the children.

this past week we did an art camp, VBS and summer reading program at our local library. In July we will be doing a singing and dancing camp. Last week was exhausting. Now I KNOW why I am not an on-the-go type of Mom!! But it was a good experience and I was happy because it was just one week and I had someone to hold down the fort for me while I was driving the kids around.

I will probably be staying mostly at home when fall comes, and leave the outside and intense activities for when help is here.