Homeschooling for the Rest of Us: How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work

by Sonya Haskins

Overview

Homeschooling parents are under great pressure. Besides trying to balance teaching responsibilities and family life, they often face unrealistic expectations from relatives, churches, other homeschoolers, and society at large. Even parents considering homeschooling sense the need to be perfect.

Sonya Haskins doesn't want any more families to give up on homeschooling. In this book she shares affirming stories and practical ideas from dozens of everyday families who successfully deal with cluttered schedules, academic struggles, sibling squabbles, and other real-life issues. Instead of learning a one-size-fits-all approach, readers will discover how to evaluate their own family's strengths and weaknesses and set their own goals for success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441212542
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	930 KB

About the Author

Sonya Haskins is a veteran homeschooling mom of five children and an active homeschooling consultant and advocate. She is the author of several books, including The Homeschooler's Book of Lists, and her articles have appeared in Homeschooling Today, Educational Dealer, and other magazines. She lives in the Tri-Cities region of northeastern Tennessee with her husband, Chris, and their children.
Sonya Haskins is a veteran homeschooling mom of five children and an active homeschooling consultant and advocate. She is the author of several books, including The Homeschooler's Book of Lists, and her articles have appeared in Homeschooling Today, Guideposts for Teens, and other magazines. She has served in leadership positions for the homeschooling community on a local, regional, and state level. Sonya and her husband have been foster parents for several years, hosting more than sixty children in their home in northeastern Tennessee. For more information, visit www.thehomeschooladvocate.com

Read an Excerpt

Homeschooling for the Rest of Us

How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work

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By Sonya Haskins

Bethany House Publishers

Copyright © 2010 Sonya Haskins
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7642-0739-6

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Chapter One

That's Homeschooling ... Right?

Matching outfits, polite toddlers, award-winning students, fifteen-passenger vans, and family Web sites.

It is easy to think homeschooling families are "perfect," but what if you want to homeschool and your family isn't perfect? What if you're already homeschooling and there are days when you aren't sure if what you did actually qualifies as "educational hours" under your state's requirements? A typical day includes a trip to the store in the same car you had when you met your husband in college, and you realize just as you enter the store that one of your children isn't wearing shoes, and then your toddler has a meltdown the moment you run into your critical neighbor in the produce aisle. If your family did have a Web site, it would look more like homeschooling with The Three Stooges than Leave It to Beaver.

With the pressures placed on homeschoolers to be perfect and the commitment required to successfully teach a child at home, it's no wonder many families throw in the towel before they have an opportunity to develop their own rhythm or experience the benefits of teaching at home.

Frequently, information for homeschoolers or those considering homeschooling concentrates on perfect families, perfect children, perfect curricula, and even perfect schedules. Or at least they appear perfect. Although this type of material is appealing (who doesn't want to be perfect?), it's impractical for the average household. Even if perfection could be achieved, what's the cost to your sanity?

Magazines tell homeschoolers to relax, yet they consistently have photos of families in handmade matching clothes that the sixteen-year-old daughter designed when she wasn't volunteering at the local hospice center.

Books present one extreme viewpoint or another: If people don't homeschool, it's a sin. Anyone interested in homeschooling for religious reasons is a fanatic. If you simply follow the suggestions in the book, it will fix all your problems.

Moreover, as society places pressure on homeschoolers to be perfect, media reports can perpetuate myths about how homeschooling is harmful for children. They tell stories of homeschooled students who have been locked away from society and are abused. Yet many of these stories are unfounded and involve truancy cases rather than actual homeschoolers. Homeschoolers are also portrayed as ultra-intelligent freaks that have been drilled by obsessive parents living out their academic-achievement fantasies through their children.

At the other end of the spectrum, we see on TV how the Duggars, a homeschooling family with eighteen children (at last count), live an idealistic, debt-free, non-voice-raising, godly child-training life in Arkansas. I have great respect for any family who seems to have it all together, but I would wager that most homeschooling families are taking baby steps toward achieving their goals.

So where does this leave the rest of us?

For the nearly three million homeschoolers in the United States and the millions more worldwide, this leaves the majority of us in the middle of perfectly normal families trying to make sense of the world, find joy in the midst of chaos, and educate our children.

In the following chapters you will discover that there is no perfect homeschooling family, child, curriculum, schedule, or disciplinary method. Hopefully you will not feel judged, chastised, or condemned while reading this book. My husband and I have learned many lessons homeschooling our five children, now ages six to thirteen, and parenting over fifty foster children from newborn through age eighteen. Although some anecdotes may make it seem like we have all the answers, I assure you we do not. We still make mistakes-daily. But I hope our experiences will help you avoid common mistakes and try some approaches you hadn't considered before.

Also included are stories and insights from other "imperfect" homeschoolers. You'll find helpful suggestions and ideas, laugh at the stories of others, and mourn with those who have suffered-all while continuing to develop your own homeschooling philosophies.

The impossible goal of perfection can stress and harm families, but there are things you can do to be perfectly happy with your situation, make changes where possible, and discover a realistic vision of homeschooling for your family. This book is about creating a path of your own amid the maze of home education options and the challenges you'll encounter over the years. For the parents and children who will be influenced by this information, it is my prayer that you will be able to make a difference in the lives of generations to come.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Homeschooling for the Rest of Us by Sonya Haskins Copyright © 2010 by Sonya Haskins. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

1 That's Homeschooling . . . Right? 11

2 Pressure, Perfection, and Progress 15

3 Developing Positive Relationships 25

4 The Socialization Question 41

5 Routines and Schedules 53

6 Extracurricular Activities, Support Groups, and Co-ops 67

7 The Art of Academics 81

8 Nurturing Your Child's Heart 107

9 Living in a (Very) Messy House 115

10 Dealing With Relatives 137

11 Homeschooling on a Budget 141

12 The Special Needs Child at Home 157

13 Following Your Own Path 165