The One Homeschool Secret You Need

I started early.

When my firstborn was two, I went to my first homeschool convention.

I wandered the hall stopping at 342 booths, looking for the perfect thing: THE curriculum—the magic I was sure I’d find.

Add fourteen years, and my little guy is now sixteen.

If I could go back to the early version of myself—the bright-eyed, scared-but-eager-to-homeschool, nervous-she-would-fail-her-child young mama, I would say: Sister, do you want a secret? Do you want to know the one thing you need to do? Put down that stack of curriculum for a second. Put down the weight of worry you are carrying and let me tell you where the real magic is.

I’d lean in and whisper–

Trust yourself.

That little person who climbs up in your lap for a story, who stands next to you on a white chair slopping water on the floor while you do dishes, who wants to show you rainbow scribbled pictures and super high puddle jumps–

That little guy trusts you, and you must trust yourself. You must acknowledge your fierce love for your little person and recognize you have only good intentions for your child.

I know you want the best. Who could be better at this job—your job—than the person who wants the best? That person is you.

Don’t be busy trying to be someone else. Don’t waste time comparing yourself to the other moms in your homeschool group. Or the perfect people in that Facebook group. Embrace yourself.

If you are a reader, go ahead and read. Research. Ask questions. Browse the convention hall over the next decade and find the finger paint, science experiments, and other tools for your homeschool. Plan if you want, or allow yourself to not plan at all.

But please, above all, trust yourself.

You will make good choices.

You will have successes. And you will have failures, but you will not fail your child. Trust yourself.

You may change your philosophy. You may start with textbooks and workbooks and move on to Charlotte Mason inspired nature studies at the creek. You may find your groove is an online curriculum. You may love your classical homeschool co-op, or you might never go to a co-op at all. You might love to read aloud, and you might hate lapbooks. Or vice versa. It doesn’t matter. You just might ditch all the rules of school forever.  If that’s what works for you, then that’s what you must do. And trust yourself.

The worries are not worth it.
That what-ifs are unknown.
The doubts are unfounded.

You are the magic because you are the mama.

You are amazing.

Trust yourself.

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson