The Most Important Lesson I Learned from Homeschooling

Please share!

I’m a reflective sort of girl. There are different times of the year when I become even more so. When a new year begins, Easter, my birthday <ahem>, and the start of the new homeschooling year are among them. As Ben nears the end of his homeschooling journey, I’m thinking a lot about what homeschooling has meant to me . . . and to him. While I’m sincerely focused on planning a productive last 2 years to fill with his transcript with every opportunity in learning and service possible, I’m also keenly aware that the lessons we’ve learned over the past 11 years won’t likely be obvious on that transcript.

I remember the day I decided that we should homeschool. A precocious 3-year-old Ben had asked to learn how to read. After just a couple of weeks of some basic instruction in how to string together CVC words together and watching the infamous Leap Frog videos, he was pouring through BOB books at an amazing pace. By the time he turned 4, he was reading everything in sight, including simple chapter books. I just knew he was a genius child.

He was also busy, distracted, and a constant talker. I imagined him in kindergarten, bored to tears and not able to sit still or be quiet. Homeschooling would be our answer. I quickly decided that in an instant and began the research.

By the time Ben was well into his elementary years, he slowed down with his genius tendencies. It didn’t take too many years for me to realize he was a bright boy, but not really a genius. And today, at 16, he continues to be busy, easily distracted, and a constant talker. We have worked around these tendencies with homeschooling, so I have no regrets about that impulsive decision made 13 years ago. And it would be simple for me to accept that we were supposed to homeschool for these reasons.

Over the years, there are been many other lessons I have learned from homeschooling. However, more than anything, God has taught me especially about how homeschooling is a means of discipling my son. While my original reasons were valid and true, they are not the reason we have kept at this thing for so long. Honestly, if the reason I homeschooled was because Ben was busy and distracted, I might have hung up my homeschool teacher hat years ago. Homeschooling is hard work! There have been so many days I stared longingly at the big yellow bus and wondered . . .

Thankfully God’s grace is sufficient and His mercies new each day. That alone has sustained me through the hardest of days. And today, now that I’ve had a good amount of time under my belt, I want to share with you what He has taught me about how homeschooling is the best choice we can make for discipling our children. In fact, the reason God calls us to homeschooling is for this very purpose. The other reasons are merely ways He grabs our attention when we’re not yet “getting it.”

When you are a homeschool mom sometimes the lessons learned are your own. This is the most important lesson I learned from homeschooling.

If we look at how Jesus made disciples, we have the perfect model for how we can do the same with our children, and easily see that homeschooling is the best vehicle for this training. Let’s take a look at Jesus’ training of His disciples and how those principles apply to our homeschooling.

Homeschooling grants us more time to teach our children about God.

Time with our kids is the single most important factor in discipling them. Jesus set this example with his own disciples, spending time with them day in and day out, teaching them as they traveled along the road and setting the example for how to serve God. Having our kids with us all day, every day gives ample opportunity to put Deuteronomy 6:6-7 into full practice —

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

Homeschooling allows our kids to be who God created them to be.

There is so much pressure on kids today to conform to the world’s standards. Having them home with us allows them to discover God’s plans for their lives, without the pressure to be who the kids at school think they should be. And if you think that pressure isn’t real, just spend a little time on social media.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2)

Jesus understood that his disciples were individuals, created with certain gifts and purposes, much in the same way we should for our children.

Homeschooling allows us to make sure our lambs are fully trained disciples before going out among the wolves.

The argument that Christian kids need to be salt and light in the schools just doesn’t hold water. Jesus didn’t send his disciples out into the world until they were fully trained. And then he sent them out together. Disciples are mature Christians, not babies. As homeschool moms, we get the honor of doing that training so that one day we can send our kids out in the world to gather even more disciples.

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:1-3)

What better opportunity do we have as parents to raise up our children for the kingdom of God than through homeschooling? No matter what your original reason was to begin homeschooling, it’s not too late to realize that the main reason God calls us to homeschool is for the purpose of discipleship. Jesus has set the example of how to disciple. Now it’s our turn to follow Him.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

As the new school year begins, and the pressures of doing high school right for the benefit of Ben’s future goals weighs heavily upon my shoulders, this is thought that weighs the heaviest on me:

When we finish our homeschool journey, will Ben not only be ready for life in the real world (military service, college, the work force, marriage, family, etc.), will he also be a sold-out disciple for Jesus?

It is my prayer that I will not have wasted all of these years having Ben home and that in a few years I will be able to watch how he lives out his life and let out a huge sigh of blissful relief that the answer is wholeheartedly, “YES!”

What lessons are you learning as a homeschool mom?

Please share!

Make Your Other Emails Jealous

Homeschooling grants us more time to teach our children about God.

Homeschooling allows our kids to be who God created them to be.

Homeschooling allows us to make sure our lambs are fully trained disciples before going out among the wolves.