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homeschool crisis

Dear New Homeschooler – Are You Making this BIG Mistake? (I Was)

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When I first started homeschooling, it took me a long time to learn a tiny two letter word – NO.

To this day, I still ask myself if I know how to say No.

Do You Struggle to Find Time to Homeschool?

Dear New Homeschooler - Are You Making this BIG Mistake @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

What do I try to say no to each year?

  • No to over extending myself in activities outside the home.
  • No to unrealistic expectations of myself, my husband and my children as I start off the new year.
  • No to leading more co-ops, groups or field trips than I can do.
  • No to being “the mom” that always needs to be included in hosting every baby shower and wedding shower. (This is a hard one for me because I love to plan.)
  • No to filling our schedule up with so many extracurricular activities.

Homeschooling moms by nature tend to be overachievers. What is our strength can be a potential negative if we don’t keep it in check.

Trying to right all the wrongs of public school, I did plan every minute of our day when I started homeschool.

I didn’t know how to say no to friends popping in at my house unplanned or who interrupted my homeschooling day. Quality time with my kids suffered and I had learned a valuable lesson quickly.

Finding balance was not easy because then I went to extreme lengths by isolating myself from my non-homeschooling friends.

It took another year or so before I learned to graciously just say the tiny two letter  NO and find my center.

The ability to not limit what you physically, emotionally and mentally can do in the homeschooling lifestyle could be a potential pitfall in your journey.

As new homeschoolers, who want to prove how successful they are, we aim too high or over reach by setting unrealistic expectations of what can be done in any given year.

The time will come when you will have smooth sailing and can give back to others. However, that time is not when you are new or struggling.

If we want to avoid pitfalls or traps of homeschooling busyness, we need to remember something very basic – say No.

What have you said no to this year?

Be sure to read my FREE 31 Day Boot Camp for New Homeschoolers

Grab some more courage to say NO!

The Great Homeschool Hoax – Public School At Home?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Like a lot of new homeschoolers, I too just copied the public school system in everything from keeping a similar schedule, to curriculum selection, and even testing my first child, Mr. Senior 2013.

Public School at Home

You see, I was doing public school at home.

I hadn’t embraced the freedom that homeschooling offered. I was afraid.

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to lesson plan, to teach all of my children at one time, that my children were going to be behind, that I needed testing for grade placement, that my kids need other children their age and that I would totally fail them as an educator.

The Great Homeschool Hoax – Public School At Home. Understanding the two COMPLETELY different approaches is key by Tina Robertson

Did I mention I even had feelings of guilt questioning myself if I was a good mother?

Why do we do that as moms?

I agree that today is so much more easier to homeschool because of all the resources available to us.

However, in one particular way homeschooling was easier way back when because homeschoolers then grasped the full meaning of homeschooling.

About 10 years or so ago, public school at home providers popped up and became popular.

The meaning of homeschooling has become obscured because these companies tout that they support homeschooling. They may or may not.

Can You Really Have One Foot in Homeschool and One in Public School?

Until you let go of the public school at home mentality which models everything after the public school and where you are only assisting your children at home while somebody else teaches them, you will never embrace the freedom homeschooling offers.

Public School at Home Characteristics

  • biggest difference – government controlled
  • normally offered online
  • have testing required
  • have parent and teacher conferences
  • maintain a public school schedule
  • curriculum is put together by educational consultants even though public school at home touts that you as the parent choose readers or have some choice. You may or may not.
  • can be accredited
  • tout they are free because they are public school and public school is free
  • have a teacher assigned to your child
  • a curriculum is one grade level straight across the board a/k/a boxed curriculum or one size fits all.
  • mostly uses textbooks. Some online school use only textbooks while others throw in a few classical readers.
  • schedule is set up to complete on their timetable. Though many programs offer flexibility because they are government controlled, schedules have to be maintained.

If this sounds like the arrangement you just left, then why would you want to repeat it at home?

Homeschool Characteristics

  • biggest difference – parent controlled
  • you can choose all online curriculum, part physical books or mix and match
  • testing becomes the right of the parent who knows the child best and understands that a test is nothing more than a tool
  • conferences are not needed because as the tutor of your children you know what they’re learning. Even if you just begin to homeschool, it doesn’t take long for you to know exactly which subjects your child excels in and which subjects he will need support for.
  • your schedule is adopted based on your family’s needs and not based on an outdated school schedule, which was set up based on a society that was much more agricultural than our society is today.  If schooling year round suits your family, you simply begin and don’t need approval by a governmental agency.
  • curriculum is put together by a parent because she knows the child the best. If the curriculum is not working, it can be changed on a dime. Being in control doesn’t mean you can’t use something laid out by another company, but then that is your choice.
  • accreditation is no longer a term which homeschoolers fear because they know it doesn’t have anything to do with the value of an education. Be sure to read my article, Accreditation – Removing the Shroud of Mystery.
  • homeschoolers know that public school at home is not free. It may be cost-free, but given up freedom like control, having stressful deadlines for testing and parent teacher conferences cost.  Many homeschool educuators give up well-paying jobs because their desire to stay home with their kids is greater than their desire to pursue a career they may even be passionate about.  They know that homeschooling for excellence doesn’t always mean having the most expensive curriculum though they are willing to sacrifice other things if a pricier curriculum is better. Be sure to read my article, Is Homeschooling Expensive? Check out this Essential Guide in How to Homeschool Well on a Budget.
  • children are tutored one-to-one by their parents. Reports show that parents play a major role in their child having above normal intelligence when tutored.
  • the parent stays in control of whether they should purchase a grade level in a box or mix and match grade levels adjusted to the child’s natural abilities.
  • homeschool families don’t have to settle for a few well placed classical or living books placed into a curriculum, but can choose living books consistently.
  • the homeschool schedule is completely flexible to adjust to the needs of the family each year.

There is not anything that the public school at home approaches offers that an informed and hardworking educator at home can’t overcome.

If it’s structure you crave, then choose a laid out program where you are not having constant interference from an outside source.

If you need a more budget friendly curriculum be sure to check out my post Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List.

Pursuing sports, music, art or any other extra curricular involvement is done easier when you set up your schedule to fit your children’s passion.

Being in control of my children’s education is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling jobs as a mother and parent I ever could have.

We were never promised it would be easy in raising our children, but they are blessings.

What we are assured of is that we will be provided with what we need to aim our children at their targets.

I have been blessed over and over many times, but not without some tears shed, lots of elbow grease, lots of prayers and a dogged determination to stick to what is best for my family. You can too!

Don’t forget so easily what many homeschoolers who homeschooled in the past knew, which is that homeschooling is a precious and extraordinary way of education that doesn’t mix with any other approach.

Look at some of these other resources that will help you to stick to the homeschooling approach.

Hugs and love ya,

The Great Homeschool Hoax - Public School at Home @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

How can I be sure I cover EVERYTHING this year?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When I hear the question how can I be sure I cover EVERYTHING this year, my mind flashes back to my many years of homeschooling when I too felt the same way.

Teaching EVERYTHING In Your Homeschool

One point I stress is to be balanced in your teaching. This is important because it gives you a changed direction to your efforts.

Switch your direction from checking off a list of subjects for the day to intentionally teaching educational independence.

Instead of focusing on EVERYTHING,  focus on the skills your children need to have so they can learn ANYTHING.

This is a completely different concept from the way most kids have been taught up to the time you begin homeschooling.

How can I be sure I cover EVERYTHING this year?

Teach your children to be independent instead of daily spoon feeding.

We already do it if you think about it.

For example, the other day Tiny tried to ask me a question, which he should have known. 

Instead of looking up what a word meant, he wanted me to simply tell him the answer.

Each situation is different and at times, I do explain what a word means.

But as the teacher, I also knew what kind of effort he had been putting forth in writing his composition for the day.

He was in a get it over with mood because his mind was more interested in the games he could play later after school.

Instant Education – Do Our Children Pay the Price?

Teaching him to value his independent learning time and also because I knew the meaning of the word would stick, I required him to look up the word.

Yes, it would have been easier for me to give him the answer so that he could finish with his composition and move on to the next subject, but in the process I would not be teaching him everything.

It is not even realistic nor a trait of modesty to think we will teach our children everything.

When our eagerness turns to anxiety, it can have a devastating affect on our children.

Personally, I never thought that pushing EVERYTHING onto my children as being a lack of modesty on my part because I certainly did not know everything.

What was I teaching my children? That we could read a few books and be an expert in that subject? Certainly not.

Also, my pushing an everything education at them might be depriving my children of a childhood because I expected instant performance.

The public educational system is in a hurry to label our children as behind, ahead, gifted or whatever new politically correct term that will arrive in the future.

Skills our children will need are ones that will last a life time like reading, math, research skills. and technical know-how in this modern age.

Too, whenever did life skills and plain practical sense like opening a bank account, trying to live a debt free life, running a household, making good decisions as the head of a household ever be counted as less important?

Are we raising dependent or educated independent children?

Harmonious Homeschool

Do you know that some children do not know how to use a library let alone research resource materials?

Equipping our children to weigh valuable resources found on the internet versus valueless ones is vital today.

With the amount of information overload we have access to, kids need to know the difference.

Children’s dictionaries, student dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias and atlases are resources that are priceless as we teach our children a lifelong love of learning.

Too we want resources that give us an idea of basic subjects because we don’t want to compromise our rigorous standards.

The most basic subjects are arithmetic, language arts, history and science.

Public schools nowadays cut back on subjects that also enrich our lives.

Enrichment, the very thing that causes children to accelerate in their education is the first thing stripped from it.

In homeschooling, we can add art, foreign language, drama, PE, dance, 4H and sports.

All of these subjects help to round out our children but more important they instill an appetite for learning everything that is not easily quenched.

Curriculum, course of studies, and checklists are just guides, but they don’t take importance over the goals we have set for our family.

Therein lies the secret to equipping our children with everything they need to know.

When looking back now, it’s liberating to know that teaching children how to learn everything they want to know is easier than I even imagined.

Self-Education. Expert or Novice Status

The key was to give them the freedom to explore what interests them and then give them keys to self-education.

There are those that will always scoff at the ideas of self-education thinking and that we only cover broad strokes.

It has been my experience that a scholar can be born from a slacker and infused to knowing everything about the details of any subject he deems worth to cover.

So next time someone asks you how are you going to teach EVERYTHING, let them know you don’t have to.

How can I be sure I cover EVERYTHING this year?

We don’t know everything. You are leading them to teach themselves ANYTHING they want to know.

Beside, we were made to learn lifelong and not in just the short few years our children reach high school and graduate.

How do you answer those who ask you about homeschooling gaps?

Look at these other helps and tips:

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T
How Can I Be Sure I Cover EVERYTHING This Year @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Homeschooling A Trial Run?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

No matter what our knowledge of the homeschool world is when we begin, the thought of giving homeschooling a trial run crosses our mind during our journey.

I had a younger sister who was homeschooled and I knew quite a bit about the homeschooling world then, but I still thought I should be prepared to send my first son back to public school.


Homeschool Trials – A Sign of Weakness?

What if my son missed out on opportunities that only the public school could offer?

What if the public school teacher was more prepared than myself on a particular subject?

What would I do if we got to high school and I didn’t have a science lab?

What field trips would he miss out on?

What I have learned is that we can’t lead our lives, teach our children or fully enjoy the benefits of homeschooling based on “what ifs”.
We will either be insane, live in a state of constant panic and fear or we can choose now to intentionally homeschool.

Now, when I think about homeschooling being a trial run it’s like saying: “I’ll give my newborn a year. Because if I don’t have a great year, we’ll we just can’t keep him.”

That may sound like a way out there analogy but homeschooling half-heartedly was paralyzing and insane.

I think about all the preparation I made for nine months when I had my first born.


I thought everything would go perfect, along with our perfect crib, perfect schedule and perfect baby because well — I planned, right?

If I had judged my whole parenthood by the first year with my oldest son, I wouldn’t have had any more kids because very few of my expectations were met.

It was not rock-a-bye-baby with my first son.

The sleepless nights, constant calls to the doctor and worrying, the nights up pacing, rocking, digging for information to understand him was met by lots of hard work and on the job training.  It was much more time than I even imagined.

Homeschooling is very similar.

I homeschool to enjoy the freedom, to have better standards, to give more time, to tailor the curriculum, to give my children a better future, to give my sons a better foot hold in life, to build Godly character, to foster sibling relationships, to build a relationship with God, to capture my child’s heart, to make learning a delight for the child and on and on.

Homeschooling A Trial Run @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I was not giving that up.

Along the way, I figured out this would not happen if I kept looking back instead of looking forward.

After my momentary lapse of fear when I put my son back in school for less than a year and took him back out, I realized that ruling out public school as an option from the beginning was the only way I could whole heartedly homeschool.

Too, though in the beginning my fears were more about not being able to meet my sons’ academic needs, the turns and twists of life have proven more challenging than meeting the academic ones.

Extended sicknesses by family members, deaths in our extended family, change of employment, financial ups and downs, pregnancy, and moving have been challenges that have you second guessing your journey.

Breaking all ties with public school was the best thing I did for our family. Why?

Because meeting the challenges of life was done best without interference with the public school schedule.

Public school may seem like a blessed relief in the beginning, but relief can quickly turn to restraint after the initial phase has passed.

Year-end testing, homework in the evenings and giving up control of what your children will be learning and when, were not things that I wanted to add to an already stressful time.

I weathered all the personal challenges I mentioned above and my homeschool conviction was stronger because of it.

At the time when I was making trips back and forth to the ICU in the hospital to care for my husband, laying on the couch because I was so nauseated each day of my pregnancy that I couldn’t hardly move to take care of my other children and driving hours and hours back and forth from my house to my mother’s house to care for my very sick mother, I felt my sons were going to be so behind in their academics that public school would be a relief.

Academics – Perk of Homeschooling?

Tears followed and the feeling of defeat loomed.
What I have come to treasure, value and hold on to is that out of every one of life’s challenges, we raced ahead, caught up and even moved ahead at certain times.
Along through the years, I taught my sons about compassion, nurturing older ones and the value of precious life. What a blessing!

Here are my answers now to the above questions:

If I sent my children back to public school, it would be giving them less as I can offer more even when the road blocks of life happen.

Yes, I have gaps in my education and will make mistakes. Through the years, I have seen plenty of mistakes in textbooks though.

Many professionals will know more on subjects than me, but I am the parent I don’t have to know the subjects, my children do.

I can hire private tutors, use DVDs, have my sons take on line classes and use co-ops and not to mention learn right along with my kids and I did.

We still don’t have a science lab.

We have something better, a fully stocked kitchen that is the perfect science lab.

Field trips are not taken once a year or a few times in the early years and then almost non-existent in the older grades, which is the norm in public school.

I did better. We have taken monthly field trips for every year and the field trips are some of my boys best learning moments. The tales we have to tell you now.

I don’t view myself as a particularly courageous or brave person, but through each hurdle, I was fortified, fueled and empowered for the next challenge and unswerving in my determination to stick to homeschooling.

Keep looking forward to your end goals and don’t measure your whole homeschooling career in front of you by one or two years. It is worth every effort and sacrifice.

What about you? Have you chosen to intentionally homeschool NOW?

Don’t give in thinking the other path is easier, check out these posts:

Hugs and love ya,

When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Admitting homeschool failure is not easy. Homeschooling has always been the right choice for our family although many years I wasn’t sure if I was the right teacher for the job.

When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure

When you feel like a homeschool failure as a teacher, it can be a pretty gray period because you feel like you have really messed up your children.

I was a contributing factor for Mr. Senior 2013 getting behind in math.

Yep I did, I messed him up. First, let me tell what I did and then tell you what I learned.

Homeschool Failure or Wrong Ways to Homeschool?

We had been using Math U See and I didn’t think he was absorbing the formulas as well as I thought he should; I switched him to Teaching Textbooks right before high school.

Shortly after we started using it during high school, I realized that Teaching Textbooks put him behind and that he was actually ahead of where I thought he was. 

So we switched back to Math U See.

Can I just tell you how bad I felt?

Although I had been homeschooling for a while, I still didn’t recognize that Mr. Senior 2013 was just at a plateau and that some of the concepts he would soon understand.

Look at some of these tips that helped me to sort through the feelings of failure I had and get us back on track.

What if they are not just getting it? 

This is a tough one because each child is different and many factors affect whether or not your child is understanding a certain subject or curriculum.

Looking back now, I should have backed up to the point where Mr. Senior 2013 understood the curriculum and isolate the math concept instead of right thinking it was the total curriculum.

When I did this later on after I made the switch of course, I realized he was getting most of Math U See, but had only reached some upper level math that required a bit more time to understand.

Questioning Your Homeschool

I knew Mr. Senior’s 2013 ability to work at higher levels and instead of accepting his difficulties as part of his development, I thought he needed to keep sprinting forward. Pushing was the mistake on my part.

I knew Mr. Senior 2013 excelled at math and did not need constant repetition.

Instead of trusting his learning style, I was afraid that I was going to hold him back and in the process I did.

What I am trying to say is that his learning style was not going to change over night and I should have looked at other things that affected him instead of just the curriculum.

What do I feel like we are going backwards? That was another question I had to ask myself.

I had to analyze everything we were doing. Was I not spending enough time with him because the younger boys were tugging at my time?

Was his schedule too full?

Knowing that Mr. Senior 2013 flourished with routine, was I allowing too many outside activities to interfere with our routine.  These were all questions I had to go back and answer.

As I have learned now, one solution would have been to take off a month and do review and go back over previous mastered material.

I could have easily grabbed one of those inexpensive work texts and just let him sat at his comfortable level for a bit until the frustration passed.

It was hard for me to come up with that solution because math is one of his best subjects.

I just didn’t realize then that my kids would even need to step back in subjects they excelled in.

Last thing I wanted to do was to bore him with previous mastered material.

That was just the thing he needed as he was going through a period of physical growth.

School had to to take a second seat to allow time for his physical and emotional development.

Is the problem in just one subject? This is another tell-tale sign of how I knew it was developmental.

When we had problems before, it was normally one subject and that is a clue that maybe I needed to switch out that one curriculum.

Other things were going on in my son’s life that helped me to see that the curriculum was not the culprit.

He pretty much struggled with the everyday basics of doing school.

I didn’t take this lightly because this was my kid who was such a joy to teach because he loved routine and didn’t have to be told to start school.

Again, it’s easier to look back now. At the time I felt like I pretty much was failing my child because I didn’t have the luxury of looking forward.

Mr. Senior 2013 was going through changes when I did a honest self-evaluation.

He was getting real mouthy, disagreeing pretty much with everything I said, started looking for a job and expressed his concern about supporting himself.

I finally understood that when I felt like a homeschool failure that my son needed me more than ever. Not all failures are a “curriculum thing”.

He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with our homeschooling because of his inexperience. 

I needed to step up and help us sort through it without my son feeling like I was going to send him to public school or throw in the towel either one.

Instead of feeling like a homeschool failure, I realized the time was closing in on how much time I would have with Mr. Senior 2013.

Mistake I Will Never Make Again

I focused on the satisfaction of knowing that his changes in puberty was a part of his life that I was proud to be part of as me and my husband guided him along.

When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure

Experiences like feeling like a homeschool failure build a deep down resolve and dogged determination to keep on homeschooling when you come through them and can finally pinpoint the problem.

Update 2020: As I write this, my three kids have graduated and are now adults. I’m mentoring a preschooler.

All the tears, all the worry, all the stress pales into comparison to how well-rounded and successful each of my kids are. What I’ve learned is that teaching my kids about defeat, how to get up, and move on have been of way more value in their every day life than being behind.

I’ve learned it was IMPOSSIBLE to teach everything, but I taught them how to research everything they wanted to know. When they have perceived gaps now as adults, they are not intimidated. I can’t hold back my happy tears.

Moms, you GOT THIS!

Look at these other tips about how to find solutions when you feel like nothing is working.

What about you? Does this resonate with you?

Hug and love ya,

Tina 2015 Signature
When You Feel Like a Homeschool Failure @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus