If This Is Our Only Homeschooling Benefit – It Is Worth It

Here we are, starting our second month of officially homeschooling and not surprisingly, a number of people have been asking how it is going.

To be honest, this is a question I was worried about before we started. What if it wasn’t going well? I mean, I suspected we’d have off days, these are my kids after all and I know the moods they are capable of. But what if it really wasn’t going well? I talked up homeschooling pretty good before we started. What if it ended up being a big flop for us? Would we be so fed up we’d enroll her in our local public school out of desperation?

Seriously, we had no idea how it was going to go.

So far I’m happy to say my worrying has been for nothing.

Homeschooling been amazing.

They are still my kids, they have bad moods and rough days but we have already seen so many benefits from homeschooling.

There is one thing that has surprised me more than most though, and just for this alone homeschooing has been worth it:

My kids have developed a true friendship.

They enjoy playing together and hardly fight most days. And when they do fight I rarely need to step in and break them up.

Maybe they are thriving with having a bit of a morning routine to their day.

Maybe they are growing up.

Whatever the reason, their relationship has flourished this last month.

This has been so good to see. One of the hardest parts last year while Raeca was in kindergarten every other day was seeing Ephraim so bored all day long and constantly asking when Raeca would get home so he could finally play with her but when she did get home she was too exhausted from being around people all day to play with him. She was tired, over stimulated and cranky and it felt like we never saw happy Raeca any more.

There have been other benefits to homeschooling as well, like being done before lunch which means the afternoon is free to do what they want. Which means we can have fellow homeschooled neighborhood kids over to play with for the afternoon or taking time to just read books. This month Raeca started reading The Magic Tree House books by herself and she’s already on her fourth one, something she wouldn’t have time for if she was sitting in a grade one classroom all day learning her letter sounds.

So yes, homeschooling is going well, really, really well. It’s only been a month but seeing my children form such a strong sibling bond has been worth it in itself.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings!