Homeschool

I think a common misconception in homeschooling is that you have to do everything they do in a public school. That's the way I felt when I started 20-something years ago. I've homeschooled on and off, so my kids have been in school and been out of school. We've done it both ways. But I found that the most successful way to start a year of homeschool with a kid is to sit down with a paper and pencil and make a short list of what does this kid need to learn this year. And then we would start filling it out with resources and methods and timing and schedules and keep it simple. I always was more successful when I kept it simple.

I think one of the common misconceptions in homeschooling is that a child that is homeschooled is often socially awkward and unsocialized and incapable of really adjusting to normal, regular life outside of homeschooling.

After our daughter was homeschooled for three years and she was joining middle school and we had a teacher that we were going to back to school night and hearing how she's doing and the teacher said, wow, she was homeschooled. That's just so surprising because she was well adjusted and social and normal. My daughter kept saying, what did he mean by that? What did he mean by surprising? What was surprising?

One of the common misconceptions about homeschooling is that if you are not a certified teacher, you are not qualified to teach your children. And that's simply not true. Most homeschool families do not have a certified teaching parent. And I remember hearing at a summer education workshop that I attended, the instructor said, it isn't certification that makes a good teacher, it's understanding the learner. Well, I believe that's true. There is no one who understands your children better than you do. So you are definitely qualified to teach your children. So keep that in mind whenever anybody questions your abilities because you are or are not certified.