Why I'm No Longer Behind in Homeschool

A Little behind

My sweet mother-in-love used to have this little ceramic doll that sat on a shelf in her living room. I remember seeing it long before I ever made the decision to homeschool. If memory serves, it was a gift given to her back in her homeschooling days...back when The Hubs sat at her dining room table poring over books about World War II and sloughing through algebra worksheets. 

The doll stood bent over with its fanny pointed to the sky and on its bloomer bottoms were etched the words, "A little behind in school."

It sat there on her neatly-organized shelf as a reminder of that ever-vexing feeling that all homeschool mommas fall prey to...that nagging notion that we are behind...that we are racing against the school year calendar in a desperate attempt to get caught up...to fit it all in.

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The Early Days

In my first year of homeschooling, I remember seeing that doll sitting on its shelf taunting me with its blatant truth plastered on its bloomered cheeks. She mockingly reminded me of how little time I had left in the school year and how much my daughter still had left to learn. 

I thought if I just pushed hard enough...

If I just stuck rigidly to my well-ordered plan, I could end the year at the proper finish line.

The dawning 

But one day, as I was pondering this dangerous idea of "behind", I asked myself a bold question. (I think I may have even said it OUT LOUD.)

Behind what?

What was I behind?
What benchmark was holding my school year hostage?

Was it the school calendar of the "normal" school down the street?
Was it the curriculum guide of my perfectly prepared boxed set of books? 

Was it my pretty school day planner that had quickly become my second brain? 

I think, in the end, it was a combination of all of these. I felt behind because I was letting someone or rather something other than my child's education...her natural passions and abilities, or lack thereof...to steer my year. I was allowing some nameless "expert" behind the city-wide school year calendar or curriculum guide to dictate the speed at which I pushed or drug my daughter along.

But didn't this irrational thinking go against one of the primary reasons I decided to homeschool in the first place? Didn't I want an individual path? A tailored education?

I most certainly did. 

Sadly, I had allowed someone else's cadence determine how we marched...how she marched. 

No Longer Behind

It was then that I realized that education is not a sprint, it's a marathon.
It is a lifetime of forward motion. 

As long as my daughter was learning every single day and continued to do so throughout her homeschooling, how could she or I be behind? How can anyone be behind their own individualized journey? 

I determined that first year never to feel behind again. I embraced our own natural homeschooling rhythms and cast off the chains of someone else's calendar. I allowed my daughter's naturals delights and abilities to determine how fast or how slow we proceeded.

I chartered our own course and have never looked back!

After seven more years of homeschooling, I still make my well-ordered plan. But, now I see that plan as FREEDOM. It is the freedom of knowing that my children and I can fearlessly wander down thought-provoking rabbit trails and quickly find our way back with one glance at the plan. It is the freedom of having order NOT chaos. It is the freedom of always moving forward and never falling behind. 

I am no longer shackled by the bold proclamation of that little ceramic doll's backside.

But then again, I've come to realize that I really wasn't ever BEHIND in the first place. 

For more thoughts on the ever-evolving homeschooling journeys of others, please visit iHomeschool Network as we tackle How My Homeschool Has Changed Over the Years.