While immersed in the world of homeschooling preschoolers and kindergarteners, it’s hard to imagine (because you have to go through it to accept it as reality) that kids really do grow up eventually. It’s true! At some point between when your kids stop taking daily naps and you start the habit, you become the homeschooler of an older child, a high schooler even, and that’s a different sort of life. It can even be a lonely sort of life some days.
I know there are some of you simultaneously nursing a baby, rocking a toddler, reading a book to a preschooler, and saying “sound it out” to a second grader for the 752nd time in an hour. I have eight kids—I get it. So some of you think that lonely sort of life sounds almost…appealing! You’re thinking it’s like a weekend alone in a hotel with room service.
It’s not.
Here are ten realities homeschool parents of younger children don’t understand about the loneliness that comes with homeschooling older kids.
First of all, the slew of doubt and prophetic disaster which relatives and random strangers hurled at you when you began homeschooling preschool (which I call raising kids) is multiplied about a thousand-fold when your kids reach high school. Regardless of the success and character your children have (hopefully) proven by this point, people often still think it’s a silly game. They think that when the stakes are high (as in high school, with college scholarship opportunities looming) you’ll stop playing school and do the right thing—send your kids to a “real” school. It’s even worse if your kids aren’t on the college track. If you want to face a world of incredulity and scoffers, homeschool your kids through high school. Bam—you’re a target!
Read the rest over at The Olde Schoolhouse.