Reasons Why I Made the Difficult Decision to Homeschool During the Pandemic

Did I ever imagine that I would homeschool my kids? No, no I did not. However, I also never imagined that we would have a year quite like 2020. I was actually counting down the days until I would be sending the boys off to Kindergarten so I would have time to catch up on life again. Don’t get me wrong, being able to stay at home with my kids is a blessing but it is also insanely hard! The boys were actually supposed to go to Kindergarten this past year but at the last minute I decided against since I knew they weren’t really ready for it. They have special needs, extreme anxiety and May birthdays so it just seemed like the best route to have them do another year of pre-k and I was just going to have to be ok with staying home with them another year. Then the pandemic hit in March and school went virtual and what a hot mess that was for us and every other parent out there!

Summer came and I tried not to think too much about what we would do about school in the Fall. Living in a time of a pandemic things changed on a daily, if not hourly, basis on what we should all be doing or not doing so I was really not going to think as far as September when it was only June. As days went by rumors went around about what the school year could potentially look like and I was not feeling great about what I was hearing. Once I started realizing the reality of what it would really be like to send my kids to school, that is when I started thinking about the possibility of homeschooling the boys.

Our school district decided at the beginning of August that we would being doing a “hybrid model” which meant that students would be in school for two days out of the week and then the other three days would be done virtually from home. At first, I was like “Yes! This is good! It will get the kids out of the house for 2 days of the week and it will give them a chance to socialize with other kids!”. Then very quickly reality set into my mind. There was not going to be socializing, there was not going to be any hugging or comforting of my sad and anxious children when I dropped them off, there was not going to be any fidget tools for my ADHD/anxious kids, and there was not going to be any consistency…but instead there was going to be required mask wearing, excessive hand washing, the fear of my kids getting the virus or being a carrier of the virus, and THREE DAYS of being at home making my kids try to learn virtually for 6-8 hours each day! There is also the very real possibility that any given moment that all learning would go virtual if the number of Covid cases went up or someone in the school contracted the virus.

I knew in my gut that I could not have their first year of school be like this. I didn’t want them to believe that school was only a germ filled place with masks and limited interactions with teachers and peers. I know the schools and teachers will do the best they can to make the school year a positive experience as they can for all who attend but I knew this wasn’t the right choice for my kids so the decision to homeschool was made.

The month of August I fluctuated between crazy planning mode and denial. Somedays I was all about figuring out how I was really going to teach my kids this coming school year and also believing that if I did nothing it just all magically get figured out.

After doing my research and joining a few homeschool support groups on Facebook I realized that homeschool is ultimately a really good choice for my kids. I get to choose what my boys learn and how they learn it. I won’t need to worry about having my kids sitting in front of an iPad for hours a day but instead I can take them outside to our backyard and teach them about nature or I can take them to the kitchen and we can learn math by baking cookies or we can go on a road trip and we can learn about history and geography!

Do I think homeschooling will be all cookie baking, road trips and backyard fun? HELL NO! There will be a tons of frustrating moments and I am sure most days the kids will refuse to see me as their teacher and getting them to participate will be a challenge. However, it is all in your attitude, right? If I make school sound SUPER fun then they will have fun with it…or at least that is what I keep telling myself!

Right now, our plan is to start homeschool when the district starts school so we can at least have a similar timeline to follow. I have our curriculum picked out and ready, I have an area set up in our loft for homeschool, and books and supplies purchased. We are as ready as we are going to be to start homeschooling. But the beauty with homeschooling is we get to choose how we school so if something isn’t working we try something new!

Homeschooling will be an adventure and I will take you all along on this adventure! Look for more posts from me about what is working and what isn’t work, along with some ideas about what we are doing!

What does the school year look like for your kids this year? Did your family also decide to go the homeschool route? Let me know in the comments!