You are enough.

We’ve been homeschooling our four children for over a decade. If you get me talking, I can hardly stop for all I have to say about homeschooling. It was, and has been, and is, such a beautiful experience in our lives. Our memories are so sweet, I wish I could bottle them up and share them with the world. Since I cannot do that, I’ll share with words, as I can get them out and onto paper for you.

If we were chatting over coffee this afternoon, and you said you’re considering homeschooling – or you’re in it but scared – here is what I’d tell you:

• You can love homeschooling your child. This does not have to be a difficult experience (some days will be difficult). It does not have to be painful (some days will be painful). It doesn’t even have to be hard (some days will be hard). There are no shackles here. You can enjoy it, and you can reach the end with a bottle full of sweet memories, too.
• You are the best teacher for your child. It doesn’t matter if you think so, or if you feel inadequate. You are. You’re the best teacher for this child. Even if you pass off some of your child’s education to an ‘expert’ (say he wants to learn aircraft maintenance and you oddly don’t know how), you’re still his main teacher. You’re his parent. You’re The Best. This should give you confidence in what you can teach him, that you know the most effective way to teach him, and that you know how to find the experts to teach him things like aircraft maintenance.
• The best things you can teach your child are the things you love. Don’t we retain knowledge best when it comes from someone passionate about a subject? Learn, enjoy, and share. Be curious. Trust that you are the best teacher and teach your children what is important to you. Teach them what you love. They will take these lessons in and add to them until one day you realize how much they are teaching you.
• A creative education is a good education. My passion for homeschooling begins and ends with a creative education. I’m bored with academic resources, and our graduated, college-student kids have not suffered for this. They are imaginative, innovative, and confident teens and college kids (and sometimes they debate too well for all the knowledge they’ve collected on their own).
• You’re enough. You are good enough. You are ready enough. You are smart enough. You can teach this child. Curriculum, books, lesson plans, and even the internet are not necessary to our success as homeschoolers; they are just aids that help us.
• You’ve got this; you can do this.

Always in your corner,