Today, I’m continuing on in my 10 Days Why A Homeschool Mom Is Not Better Than a Public School Mom (but could be). Day 1 and sharing about a comment that most homeschool moms feel uncomfortable replying to, which is “you must be so confident.”
Most homeschool moms I know are rockin’ it as they homeschool, but are modest which is why it can feel uncomfortable talking about how confident they are.
Why Homeschoolers Should Be Confident?
Confidence, I feel, for us as homeschool educators is akin to courage.
It reminds me of the quote by Nelson Mandela, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
The difference between a homeschool mom and a mom who may choose public school because of fear is that despite fear, a homeschool educator trusts, believes and feels assured of her abilities to move forward to homeschool.
Why A Homeschool Mom Is Not Better Than a Public School Mom
Let me break this down.
A homeschool mom is not trusting blindly or based on emotion or passion alone, which are both important, but they are not the complete basis for confidence.
A homeschool just doesn’t believe homeschool will be successful, but she can look at the many facts and successful families that have gone ahead of her.
It’s facts like this from NHERI, which discuss how our homeschool graduates are performing.
The SAT 2014 test scores of college-bound homeschool students were higher than the national average of all college-bound seniors that same year. Some 13,549 homeschool seniors had the following mean scores: 567 in critical reading, 521 in mathematics, and 535 in writing (College Board, 2014a). The mean SAT scores for all college-bound seniors in 2014 were 497 in critical reading, 513 in mathematics, and 487 in writing (College Board, 2014b). The homeschool students’ SAT scores were 0.61 standard deviation higher in reading, 0.26 standard deviation higher in mathematics, and 0.42 standard deviation higher in writing than those of all college-bound seniors taking the SAT, and these are notably large differences.
And look at my article, Homeschooling for the Love of Learning – Does It Really Work.
Then, a homeschool educator knows that she did not use a state approved curriculum to teach her child how to potty train or how to teach her native tongue to her child. She knows her home is the center of education and the first place of education.
Her previous successes as a parent spill over and overflow when she starts on the next natural step of parenting, which is educating her child.
Knowing that there will be bumps along the way and plenty of things she does not know, a home school is moved to become the professional her child needs. She doesn’t need to know about ALL the methods of teaching a child or ALL the curriculum, but only what her children need to know.
Confidence is like a weak muscle. The more you use it, the stronger and more defined it becomes.
In the beginning, it’s hard to have confidence because your children may be real young or because you are new.
However, year after year, confidence soars and becomes mighty as you see your children master reading (with happy tears in your eyes) and you see your three-year-old now a successful high school teen or young adult.
That is the difference between a homeschool mom who presses on despite her fears. She doesn’t succumb to public school because of fear.
What have you accomplished with confidence?
Also, look at my articles From Struggling Homeschooler to Empowered Educator, When does homeschooling become “normal”, and Cultivating the Desire to Homeschool.
Hugs and love ya,
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I find my confidence comes and goes in spurts. I have times when we are cruising right along and I feel so smugly confident that I have finally got the hang of this whole thing and then we’ll have a few weeks were all of my boys seem to be struggling with skills or concepts I thought we had mastered and I start to question if I’m doing as good of a job as I had previously thought. But I’m quickly learning that’s just part of our ebb and flow.
That is SO true..that is EXACTLY how it is…If you’re doing your job, then our kids will catch up and retain what we’re teaching them..
Even after one year, my confidence has soared, and I kind of feel like I am a much better judge of curriculum and what will work for us. Of course, I will be a newbie once more when I add child #2 to the mix. 😉
Love hearing this! For sure your confidence soars. And just think about how a public school teacher teaches one grade, you won’t. You will have experiences with EACH grade.
And don’t do like me when I added the second kid (I cried..lol lol) You go girl, you got this!