Do we really need to choose between homeschool mom or homeschool teacher? Do our kids benefit when we separate the two roles?
My first few years of homeschooling, I hardly recognized myself.
Sounding more like a drill sergeant when we started our day than a caring loving educator, whose first concern should be the emotional well-being of my children, something had to change.
I didn’t like myself and my kids for sure didn’t like me. Like any new or seasoned homeschool educator, I too was concerned that my kids wouldn’t learn how to develop study skills, self-motivation and an intrinsic love of learning. It’s flat out hard to find a balance. More on that in a minute.
Fast forward to now after graduating two of my sons, I learned that I didn’t need to separate the two roles.
Instead of using energy draining formal teacher tactics, my focus should have been on valuing the many future opportunities that I was going to have of bringing meaning to learning and naturally teaching my boys.
Unlocking the Natural Teacher Within You
Learning to unlock the natural teacher within you is more about appreciating that you shouldn’t choose between homeschool mom and homeschool teacher, but it’s a fuse of the two.
First, it’s important to remember when you homeschool that mom is your first calling.
When you have a child, you know the role of mom is important because the emotional stability, health, safety, personality, spiritual and educational well-being of your child is a serious responsibility.
What I am saying is that I learned educating my child was just another facet of motherhood and not something separate from it.
Furthermore, like me, you are probably the first person, who taught your baby his first word and he started to learn his mother tongue. All the pieces started to fall into place as I pondered what I had done right up to the age before “formal” schooling.
Realizing that I had to leave behind the public school mentality, I didn’t have to learn how to be a teacher. To successfully homeschool, I needed to learn how to be the best mother I could be.
That huge revelation brought homeschooling into something that not only could I achieve successfully, but to treasure, love passionately and stick to because it is as natural as mothering.
When the switch flipped to a new thinking, my focus was on teaching my sons all those things I worried about like any other homeschool mom.
Letting Every Day Life Teach Meaningful Lessons
Energy could now be focused on identifying my son’s weakness.
For example, when I was teaching my sons to write, a homeschool room was a must-have for us. I didn’t have to be concerned with a seasoned homeschool mom tell me when I started homeschooling that I would never use a homeschool room. We did and it proved exactly perfect for my family. Look at my article, Dedicated Homeschool Room or Dining Room Homeschooler.
I trusted my mother instinct, not my teacher instinct. Too, workbooks and books are only part of learning and rigorous standards are important to me and I know too for other homeschoolers.
But we have a huge advantage when we learn outside of four walls and that is we allow every day life to teach our children meaningful lessons. They do happen.
Taking homeschool co-op classes outside of the home and taking instruction from another teacher gave my boys a sense of working with others. Again, as a mother I am concerned with my sons’ lasting happiness. That means I want them to learn to accept others and learn how to communicate with them.
Did I mention they learned to take notes and manage deadlines, which are valuable study skills that I wanted my boys to learn?
Do We Really Need to Prove our Homeschool Worthiness?
All of this and more happened because naturally as we lived life, I seized moments to teach them.
Yes, I think as homeschool moms we tend to try to over achieve and feel we may have to turn every moment into something learning because we may feel the weight of our lifestyle choice hanging around us.
Shedding that let-me-prove-it-to-you mindset allows you to homeschool more freely without feeling you have to prove something to friends and to the world. Can you relate? Look at my article, Homeschooling for the Love of Learning – Does It Really Work.
Learning that things happen in life, which give me perfect teaching moments has made homeschooling natural without worrying which hat I am wearing.
Too, not choosing between two hats, but as the person that knows my sons the best, I know when it’s time to be mom and when it’s time to be teacher. Being a home educator is just another role as mom.
Hugs and love ya,
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Beautiful advice, Tina. It took me a couple of years to get beyond feeling like I had to prove myself to others, but once I did our homeschool life got both better and richer. Another post out of the ballpark. 🙂
KT recently posted…Does Your Tween Give You Lip?
That’s really interesting. I’m not home schooled or a home schooler either, but this made really fascinating reading. There’s a group called EEK (I can’t actually remember the real acronym, just how it’s pronounced), that runs caving groups for home-schooled people. I know a few of them, as do a few of my previous school friends. And the thing that they all found amazing?
They’re normal people. THere’s this stigma that home schooled kids are ‘different’ somehow. Of course, they’re different, but that’s the same of the rest of us.
Anyway, thank you for this, even though it’s not relevant to me. It’s always enlightening to hear different perspectives.