Sonya Haskins - Homeschooling for the Rest of Us: How Your One-Of-A-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work

Homeschooling
for the Rest of Us

Books by
Sonya Haskins

FROM BETHANY HOUSE PUBLISHERS

The Homeschoolers Book of Lists
Homeschooling for the Rest of Us

Homeschooling
for the Rest of Us

How Your One-of-a-Kind Family
Can Make Homeschooling and
Real Life Work

Sonya Haskins

Homeschooling for the Rest of Us
Copyright 2010
Sonya Haskins

Cover design by Eric Walljasper

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haskins, Sonya A.
Homeschooling for the rest of us : how your one-of-a-kind family can make homeschooling and real life work / Sonya Haskins.
p. cm.
Summary: Presents advice for overcoming stress, unrealistic expections, and other challenges faced by homeschooling families. Intended for new and experienced homeschoolers. Applicable to a variety of teaching methodsProvided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0739-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Home schooling. I. Title.
LC40.H378 2010
371.04'2dc22

2009040691

For Sandy Howard
and
For Angie Tyson

A true friend is someone who thinks you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.

Bernard Meltzer

About the Author

Sonya Haskins and her family see each day as an adventure in learning. A homeschooling consultant and mom of five children, ages six to thirteen, she is also the author of The Homeschoolers Book of Lists and six regional history books. Sonya is active in national, state, and local homeschool activities; however, most of her time is divided between her family and ministering to other homeschool families through writing, speaking engagements, or individual consultations.

Sonyas articles have appeared online and in Homeschooling Today, Educational Dealer, Pastors Family, Decision, Guideposts for Teens, The Upper Room, and other publications.

Although it is apparent in her writings that she advocates personalized teaching styles that fit individual families, Sonya follows a relaxed homeschool method in her own home. She provides the educational tools, opportunities, and encouragement that create an environment conducive to learning, and her children are responsible for taking advantage of those resources. Sonya and her husband and children live in the beautiful mountains of northeast Tennessee.

If you are interested in reading more about relaxed homeschooling or just about anything related to home education, visit Sonyas Web site at www.thehomeschooladvocate.com. If you are a homeschool family (or youre thinking about homeschooling) and have questions, you can contact her at sonya@sonyahaskins.com.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone who prayed for me while I wrote this book. Without those prayers, it would not have been finished.

Id also like to thank Jeff Braun, my editor. He is great to work with, as is all the staff at Bethany House, including the team who thought of the fabulous title for this book!

During the final weeks of finishing a book, the burden of caring for our home, children, and homeschooling falls primarily on my husband. Chris has always been very supportive of my writing, and I am grateful for this.

When Im writing I spend a lot of time at Fresh Deli (formerly Poor Richards Uptown) and Golden Corral in Johnson City, Tennessee. I appreciate the managers, waitresses, and staff allowing me to take up a table when I need a place to write.

Thanks also to my children, Steven and Liesl Huhn, Audrey Headrick, Stan and Kara Sanders, Art and Bonnie Joyce, the Nerrin family, Mary Tucker, Vivian Gamble, Cathy Hawkins, Kimberly Prill-hart, Wendy Owens, Lori Keck, Mary Simonsen, Melinda Chapman, Toni Stacy, Ruth Jackson, Mary Gilbert, Rebecca Moreland, Tammy McFaddin, and members of the Tri-Cities Homeschool Digest and also my church (Johnson City Alliance Church), as well as the many others who provided moral support and encouragement throughout the development of this book.

Thank you!

Contents

Matching outfits, polite toddlers, award-winning students, fifteen-passenger vans, and family Web sites.

It is easy to think homeschooling families are perfect, but what if you want to homeschool and your family isnt perfect? What if youre already homeschooling and there are days when you arent sure if what you did actually qualifies as educational hours under your states requirements? A typical day includes a trip to the store in the same car you had when you met your husband in college, and you realize just as you enter the store that one of your children isnt wearing shoes, and then your toddler has a meltdown the moment you run into your critical neighbor in the produce aisle. If your family did have a Web site, it would look more like homeschooling with The Three Stooges than Leave It to Beaver.

With the pressures placed on homeschoolers to be perfect and the commitment required to successfully teach a child at home, its no wonder many families throw in the towel before they have an opportunity to develop their own rhythm or experience the benefits of teaching at home.

Frequently, information for homeschoolers or those considering homeschooling concentrates on perfect families, perfect children, perfect curricula, and even perfect schedules. Or at least they appear perfect. Although this type of material is appealing (who doesnt want to be perfect?), its impractical for the average household. Even if perfection could be achieved, whats the cost to your sanity?

Magazines tell homeschoolers to relax, yet they consistently have photos of families in handmade matching clothes that the sixteen-year-old daughter designed when she wasnt volunteering at the local hospice center.

We are a new homeschool family. The first half of the year was difficult. I didnt know what kind of a homeschooler I was trying to be and I was impatient to learn the right way of homeschooling for my children. There is often no right way, but just a constant search for a better way.

Tamiko C.,
British Columbia

Books present one extreme viewpoint or another: If people dont homeschool, its a sin. Anyone interested in homeschooling for religious reasons is a fanatic. If you simply follow the suggestions in the book, it will fix all your problems.

Moreover, as society places pressure on homeschoolers to be perfect, media reports can perpetuate myths about how homeschooling is harmful for children. They tell stories of homeschooled students who have been locked away from society and are abused. Yet many of these stories are unfounded and involve truancy cases rather than actual homeschoolers. Homeschoolers are also portrayed as ultra-intelligent freaks that have been drilled by obsessive parents living out their academic-achievement fantasies through their children.