One of the big reasons I dusted off this old blog was because a good few friends (mainly in the UK) had reached out over the last year or so and asked about homeschooling, either because they were just curious (love that!) or they were actually in the process of seriously considering it for their family.

Home education in the UK is growing, but it is nowhere near what it is over here, and so it is hard to find people who are doing it to talk to. I am here and I love nothing more than talking about this stuff!

I promised so many of these women a call to chat more about it, because it is far beyond the scope of a text or email, but the reality of life meant that despite trying, I just couldn’t find the time. This time zone is brutal for calling the UK and with my four, plus however many kids they had, it was just too difficult to make something work.

This list of women just kept growing and growing and so I had to do something. My hope is that I can use this space to share more of the ‘behind the scenes’ in our home school and then have it all documented in one place to share so that I don’t keep leaving people without answers (sorry ladies!). I want to share everything from our reasoning for taking this path to the practical day to day stuff.

(By the way, I posted earlier about how we came to homeschool our kids – you can check out that post *here* if you want a starting point).

“Why Are You Homeschooling?”

When I meet/get introduced to another homeschool Mum, I love to jump right over the small talk and ask her “Why are you homeschooling?”. It usually catches her slightly off guard but it is such a great question and really reveals the heart of their homeschool.

Every family has their reason for choosing home education. Some came from a long line of homeschoolers and had such a great experience that they are desperate to recreate that for their kids. Some sent their kids to school and got frustrated with the public school system and what was being taught (or not taught) and so pulled them out. Some desperately want a ‘Christian education’ but can’t afford the Christian private school option. Maybe they are absolutely terrified of school shootings? Something that is very common here in the California homeschool world is that parents don’t want to be forced into vaccinating their kids and so they opt to homeschool. Their decision may be entirely driven by their politics, or the need to care for a chronic illness at home. Maybe a child has special needs that were not being served in the public system? Some families are homeschooling out of pure fear and some are just desperate to shelter their kids from as much as possible for as long as possible. The list goes on and on.

None of those reasons really capture our ‘why’ … so I want to take some time and really get into it.

I am going to start a blog series here called ‘Our Big Why’. When I can, I am going to publish some more in-depth blog posts on each of our ‘whys’, in an attempt to share more of our heart behind our decision to home educate our children. I also hope that this might be helpful to some of our friends who are in the process of considering this (even if you read all this and it confirms that public school is the right decision for your family).

We absolutely have been influenced by friends, podcasts, books, youtube channels, people on instagram and some incredible speakers. However, I am reluctant to openly share any of them here as I know that some of their content can be controversial and I often do not endorse everything that is said. But if you are curious then please do reach out personally and I can happily send them your way if you think they would be helpful and you want to dive in further.

There is such value in weighing any big decision you are making, especially when it comes down to something as huge as education. I think it is so easy in so much of marriage and parenting to just follow to flow of what everyone else seems to be doing, often silencing your instincts, and not taking time to step back and evaluate what you are actually doing and what your options are – we have been there.

I don’t think this series will ever be complete. The list is truly endless because we are discovering more and more reasons as we go but consider this series the answer to our ‘Big Why’…

And please, if you have any questions, however personal (you wont offend me!), please do reach out because it would be so wonderful to have this be a back and forth!