Our family's homeschooling journey

Whoever said that a home educator’s life is easy cannot be more wrong. Homeschooling isn’t a walk in the park. But we took that road anyway, for a host of good reasons. Aside from our desire to be our son’s primary influencer, we also would love to see him maximize his potential in a way that, in our opinion, traditional school cannot do -- at least in the duration of his formative years.

 This was taken in March 2010 when our then 4-year-old son (he’s now 6) graduated with honors in his first year of preschool.

Admittedly, parents go the extra mile for their children to reach their full potential and we consider this choice of ours, “our extra mile.” Let’s face it, children are born into this life with the pressure to be not just achievers but well-rounded individuals as well. It is but normal for parents to want their children explore their potential to the fullest. What parent would not want his child to achieve the best that he or she can, right?

 Our son’s Most Number of Excellent Marks and Best in Sound Recognition awards during his pre-school graduation in 2010.

Homeschoolers of Living Heritage Academy meet every year for this kind of exercise. Home Educators are required to submit the Master Record Sheet where the student’s grades are recorded.

Progress Chart, Goal Setting Pad and Congratulations Slip

Truth be told, the ground work laid at home has a lot to do with a child’s success. One of the essentials being is teaching a child to set goals. Yes, as young as my son is, at 6 years old and a second grader at that, he has been diligently creating his goals for each day of school. For each day of the week, he sets the number of pages in each subject that he thinks he can finish. 

This is then placed in front of his office table. The topmost pad (Goal Setting Sheet) in the above image is where our son writes the number of paces he sets for himself to finish during the day.

Goal setting prepares the child for independence, responsibility and success. Even as he is trained to make this a habit, he will be less likely to have a hard time with more complex subjects as he grows up. And later on as he pursues whatever career path God has purposed for him to tread. One of the things that we believe in -– Do not do for a child what he can do for himself. More often than not, he surprises us with how he is able to do far more than we expect of him. Which reminds me a lot of the First Law of John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – Law of the Lid. This goal setting has proven to be a challenge for him. Now that he’s been doing this for more than a year, our son hardly needs to be told what he has to do when it comes to his lessons. I am basically just there to supervise him and check his tests.

Our son’s current Level/Grade 2 Progress Chart

The progress chart hangs on the wall at the side of his office table. The congratulations slip is what he is given whenever he completes a set of pace. This congratulations slip is then exchanged for a reward. This explains his growing collection of Angry Birds stuffed toys. 

These are just several things that we have been doing in our homestead, most of which we have started long before we began homeschooling. Some which I have semi-documented and can be found archived in the Child Care and Discipline Category of Marriage and Beyond. It has been two years of exciting homeschooling journey. 

At the end of the day, as taxing as homeschooling seem to be perceived by many, for me, nothing can be more fulfilling! And I haven’t even started yet with all the handful of other advantages of homeschooling (e.g. no time wasted on traffic to and from school, zero bullying, et.al). But then again, homeschooling is really not for everyone – as I have time and again been telling our readers. The personality of the child has to be factored in as well. As for our son, who has zero socialization issue, it works best for us. He also has Karate class where he rounds up with other kids his age aside from his weekly Sunday School class. With all that said, homechooling is now a widely accepted education alternative that our family sure plans to maximize.