Hi I was just wondering if anyone had "signs" or odd coincidences that led them to homeschooling. Did God tap you on the shoulder, so to speak? When my son was on the verge of turning 4 I signed him up for preschool. That did not go well. Partly because of the particular preschool and partly because my son didn't seem ready to be away from home. Also, financially it wasn't working for us. My husband and I took our son out of that preschool situation and he thrived! That was sign #1 when I think back. Sign #2 was back in the summer of '06 when I was talking to a lady that barely knew me, but was a member of my church. She had observed me with my children. This lady mentioned to me that she thought I would make a great homeschooling Mom and wondered if I had ever considered it. She told me that she didn't homeschool her kids, but wishes she had. Of course, I was thinking at the time that this lady was totally nuts!!! Sign #3 was when I put my son into public school kindergarten at the end of the summer of '06 (just a few weeks after I talked to that lady). My son was not doing well emotionally (high anxiety leading to crying episodes). His teacher and I did not see eye to eye on many things. That year turned into an eye opening experience for my son, my husband and myself. It's a very long story. By February of '07 my husband and I wanted to pull our son from that school, but didn't at that time because we thought it was important for our son to finish out his K year there. Sign #4....my son kept begging me to come to his school and be his substitute teacher or some how get a job at the school. Around that time my husband and I were thinking about the possibility of other school options for our son for the following year. Sign #5 was when my hubby was talking to a guy at his workplace that homeschools his kids. Dh actually started to think seriously about the homeschooling option. Sign #6 was what really got me thinking that hsing is what I'm suppose to do. I had just finished crying to dh about the horrible school experience we were having with our son. Hubby and I sat down to relax with a cup of tea while the kids were playing. I turned on the tv and there was a show on the Dilley 6 (sextuplets) and their family life. The mother starts describing one of her sons and it sounded as if she was describing my son. Her son and mine share the same name also! The mother of 6 proceeded to explain that this particular son of hers was begging her to homeschool and so she decided to go for it and pulled all of her 6 kids out of school to homeschool. My husband and I just stared at eachother and asked if this was some sort of sign that this is what we are suppose to do. Tears came to my eyes. Sign #7 was when I went to a homeschooling message board and asked a few questions. I stumbled upon a lady who homeschooled her kids back in the late 80's who lives in my area. We got together and she talked about all the laws and really helped me to decide to homeschool for this year. Last week I was reading a book. This particular author I don't agree with philosophically, but I kept reading anyway. I started doubting if I had made the right decision by homeschooling. I was thinking to myself that maybe I'm really messing up my son. While I was reading I had the tv on in the background, but wasn't paying too much attention to the tv for quite a while. For some reason I put my book down and looked up to the tv. On the news they had a story about a local homeschooling family. Their homeschooled kids were grown up and doing well for themselves. They didn't mess up their kids, I thought! For some reason that news story was just what I needed at that time. Sometimes I think maybe I'm crazy that I think all of these things are little signs telling me that homeschooling is right. Who knows....maybe I am. Sometimes I think it is God's way of telling me I'm on the right path for now. Anyone else have these "signs"????
Handsome and I knew we wanted to homeschool since Ems was born. I couldn't imagine handing her over to a school system that was crumbling in academics as well as it's flippant attitude regarding God. Patty
All I know is that when my oldest daughter started Christian school I never (and I do mean NEVER) thought I'd be a good homeschooling mom. She is eight now (in third grade), loves school and is excelling there. It wasn't until my younger daughter (now six and in first grade) started kindergarten that I even considered it. She was having a harder time in school than her sister and I was spending a lot of time outside of school helping her. I still didn't think I would be any good at homeschooling, that I wasn't the "type" (LOL!) and that was that. We love the school and staff (but it's expensive and a huge sacrifice for us). I thought the kids would be sad to leave there. I asked them what they thought about being homeschooled, and I was surprised to hear they thought it would be great! This school year has been much harder for my younger daughter. DH and I have been working with her outside of school much more. At the same time, I felt like the Lord was impressing on me the need to homeschool. We have always had lots of friends from church who homeschool their children, and I always admired them for being able to do what I thought I couldn't. Maybe I was more open to it, but it seemed like every time I turned around it was coming up in conversations. I even met several new families who homeschool and had wonderful talks with them. There's been so much more going on...I won't go on with more details since this is plenty long enough. Regarding your question, I don't know if I've had signs so much as I've been witnessing my heart and mind being changed as my situation has changed. I don't know if that helps you at all. BTW, I'm not homeschooling yet but am looking into it for the next school year.
This actually happened last night. I've always wanted to HS and now DH is having second thoughts, it somewhat surprised me. His sister HS and she's pregnant with her 6th kid!! Anyways last night we went to dinner at his parents house and his Dad just got out of some church meetings and one of them was interviewing a 12 and 16 year old. He said, "Do you know what their SAT scores are?" We all asked and he said, "98 percent!!" The sister that HS's said, "what do their parents do?" My FIL responded by saying, "they're educators." haha My SIL said, "so they homeschool?" That was a sign to me because FIL is always saying the wonderful social part, and just worried all together, so it was great that he wanted to share that story with us all. I think it opened his eyes a little more and DH's eyes.
There were a few things that led us to homeschool. I had never really heard about it until my bff dd was ready for school and she began to hs her. At the time, dd was in daycare and the ladies that were there were WONDERFUL!.....Then a new owner took over and new people came in. Within a few weeks I pulled her out b/c dd would tell me that "Ms. M screamed at me" Well I didnt really knowwhat to make of it, until another mom told me that she walked in on the same teacher screaming. Then this same teacher, took the kids to the park and forgot one!!!! It was 45 minutes later that they realized that a 2 YEAR OLD was left in the park for that long!!!! When I questioned the owner, she said, "well we all make mistakes. I was angry at first then I prayed about it and she is human you know! I am sure you have made mistakes in your line of work." I told her "Yeah, but if I screw up someones hair (I am a hairdresser) they dont lose their kid" So I pulled her out and brought her to a lady that sat at her home. That went ok for 2 weeks until on way home one day, dd told me "Ms. F whipped me" Then screamed and cried for hours. I called the sitter and asked her if anything had happend and asked her if she had whipped dd, and she said "Yes" just as calm as can be. I literally saw RED and went off on her!! So then I had a older lady come to my home to sit. Well she started bringing her elderly dad with her so she could take care of him also. I tried to be understanding of the situation until he used the bathroom in front of dd. (dd happened to be in the br at the time). The last straw was when we were moving, I told the sitter to please warch dd very carefully as things were out of order from packing and dd was very diggy. I come home one day and went in my bedroom (off limits to dd at the time of the move~dh has a ton of hunting things, like knives and such~)and found a box that had been stabbed about 15 times WITH A LARGE HUNTING KNIFE. I figured that she had been unsupervised for a LONG time to have had searched for the knife (it was hidden), get a box, and stab it so many times. To make a long story short, on top of all this, I was not making enough (hairdressers work on commission) to pay the babysitter and one day someone left a magazine "Crowned with silver" in my shop and I began to read it and really realized that my place was at home. And dd would have had to start school a year late because of how her birthday fell. I thought it was stupid to keep a bright child out of school for a whole year just for 13 days! I think the Lord gave us lots of signs because He knows how thick headed dh and I can be!! LOL!
I actually never heard of homeschooling and when I was pregnant with our 1st we met a lady who was homeschooling her kids, (we lived in TX) I thought WOW that is great (for her) but I was not to sure it was for me. Well we moved to FL (baby #2 on the way ) and thought no way would I put my kids in school there so that is where I thought more about it. Then we moved to MI baby #3 on the way with a 4, 6 month old and I leaned more to school. Found a church where this wonderful lady (who homeschooled) informed me more. We decided to put her in a charter school.(I was now pregnant with baby #4, we had them close together) It was not to bad actually but then we moved still in MI but not close enough to the charter school so we had to switch and the new school was a nightmare. So I had the baby she finished K and we started to homeschool. We are on year 8 and all is going well. Of course we have our days and things happen but I know God would have it no other way. Funny story Sat was ds 11th birthday so we let him have a party and it was a good mix of kids, 4 homeschooled, 6 from church. OH MY what a difference in the children, My husband was totally floored at how the "church/public school kids" behaved VS. the homeschool kids. He was so thankful we homeschooled...
My oldest was a hard one. He was born 3 weeks early, and had terrible colic until 5 months old, was very demanding and fussy. When he got to K age, as much as I hated him leaving, it was almost a relief to have those hours to spend with my second ds, and have it be more relaxed, not full of tension! He went to K and 1st at a local Christian school. His K teacher was absolutely wonderful! Our ds and my dh and I adored her! His 1st grade teacher was great. We knew her from church. However, we found out she was great as long as you were a "normal" child. Ahead or behind? She didn't do so well! Ds and his friend were WAY ahead in reading, and somewhat ahead in Math./ They were put at the very begininning, and made to do every problem on every page, even though they knew it well already. It wasn't until April that I realized anything was wrong. DS is not a talker. We had to squeeze info. out of him! In April the teacher sent home for homework a reading workbook from the very beginning of 1st grade---"Find the a's on this page. Circle all the a's that you can find..." It drove him batty! He HATES repetition, but keeps things inside so much that I didn't realize it was bothering him so, or what she was doing until she sent that home for homework. He finally broke down and started crying (he never has been a crier, so I KNEW it was a major problem for him then!), and said he hated school! I told him not to do that assignment, that I would talk to his teacher the next day. When I went in to talk with her, I asked her why she had given that to him for homework, when he'd already finished all the other first grade books?! She said she meant to do a project for him and the other boy, but hadn't gotten around to it, and she thought he needed to keep having homework so she gave him that! I was getting very frustrated! I told her to please NOT give him work way below his level! Then I asked her, "Why can't these boys just keep going on grade 2 reading?" I mean, that seemed like a logical next step to me! Her answer? "But, then, what would they do next year?" I made it through that meeting with her, but I knew things were going to have to change! I was sooooo mad! My ds had always LOVED reading and learning! Now he hated it, in fact he hated it to a point that he refused to read even ONE word without crying! This is a small Christian school, and he would be in the same classroom with the same teacher if we sent him back there.....and we knew we couldn't do that! So that's when our search started. By then my second ds was 4 and my dd was a baby. Public school was never an option for us. I started doing some research, though nobody but my dh knew we were considering anything else. Here's where the "signs" came in... A few days later at church a lady came up to me and started talking about a family she knew that homeschooled and she thought the kids were just precious.... I'd known that lady for years, and she'd NEVER mentioned anything about that! In the middle of that next week, I heard someone else talking about homeschooling. I had no clue where to look into homeschooling even! Plus I really didn't even WANT to homeschool! Weren't homeschoolers kind of strange? (sorry, pre-conceived, totally unfounded stereotype!) But a seed had been planted. Within the next month I kept hearing about homeschooling, and found out a lady in our church homeschooled her son. I'd never donsidered THEM strange, and her son was a really neat kid! By this time I was praying about it, and doing more research on it. I got together with this lady and she showed me what she was doing and how she did it, and encouraged me that I could do it too! I finally decided to make a list of pros and cons of homeschooling. By then I could see some good points to homeschooling, but was afraid I couldn't do it adequately with my ds's high need/demanding personality! After making the list up I showed dh. He was very supportive of me if I chose to homeschool, but also if we chose another Christian school to put him in. Sorry this is so long! But this was the clincher for me: After that list I was still confused as to what I should do. I'd spent a LOT of time, and saw no clear pathway toward one or the other. So I prayed a "Gideon's fleece" prayer. My dd, who was usually a good sleeper and calm child, had not been sleeping well for the past 3 weeks or so. I was up with her 5 or 6 times a night and was exhausted! So I made a very clear "fleece": That if dd slept from 11pm to 6am this very night, that I would know God wanted me to homeschool! I was very sure that wouldn't happen--she hadn't been sleeping more than an hour or two in a row for the 3 weeks! So I thought that the next day I'd go look into another Christian school, and have that peace for my little ones and me during the day while my oldest was at school! Guess what? God wanted to make it very clear to me (which was good, I'm pretty dense sometimes!!!), and my dd slept from 10pm to 7 am!!! I was shocked! Then I was in awe and started crying! I was amazed how God answered my prayer in such a clear way! From then on it was very clear to me what I needed to do! This is our 10th year of homeschooling. There've been ups and downs, but I'm THRILLED to be homeschooling my precious children and wouldn't have it any other way!!! God is good!!! Oh, and by the way, the next night dd was up 5 or 6 times again, for another 2 or 3 weeks before getting back to sleeping better. I was fine with that---I think God wanted to make sure I knew it was not a fluke!
I was kind of one of the slow to respond peoples. When we first moved to this area the church we chose to go to was full of homeschoolers. I was a preschool/day care teacher by trade working my way up to Kindergarden was my plan and eventually planned to have a day care at home called 'Snob Day Care" I wanted only the best behaved kids, and was going to make it policy to refuse to take any child on any basis we deemed good. I had been scared by kids who needed to be home with thier parents not in a day care so I was a bit nervous about that. I loved teaching though! I attended homeschool meetings a couple times before I was even prego. Just to see what it was all about and because my new friends all went! I was surrounded by homeschool families, and prior to that I had only known one person who corespondence schooled as home school. I wanted to live the life of send my child out and go pick them up, help with parties and be a teacher aide at the kids school ... that was my dream life! But I had to work in when I was prego with ds so I worked my way up to having him! Then, dh was a kids pastor and we worked side by side , me at preschool him at church same lot. So we shared taking care of him at 1.6. My best friend had 5 kids and she home schooled, showed me her set up at home when I had dd, she took care of my little then son. ANother friend homeschooled her girls and swore by it! I still figured it was just a back up plan nothing serious for me I had plans! I was already a teacher! We were planning to have ds go to the church school where I was working then decided it would not work because we did not like how the staff kids got to run around and we were the only tight parents with ours. Made him feel left out and pushed aside. So after one summer off we would sign him up for grade school. When it came to starting school we had chosen a house to buy right by a grade school. IT has a huge special ed center and everything so I figured it was a great school. We went to check out the K garden class and see about sign ups and read a note on the door. " We will teach your child to do what he wants" is the jest of the note! IT was class policy, and I checked with dh cause sometimes I can miss read things... He said that was it! We decided to home school from there. My friend said make sure you pray about it because it is not something to enter into lightly, make sure God wants you to andyou are not just taking the easy way ( HAHA) out. We did and got no oposition met more homeschoolers who helped us figure what to do. We started with teacher store bought books and hands on stuff I had on hand from teaching already. K garden was a snap for me and we went year by year, okay lets keep this up... each year SO I guess you could say they were all signs but so far we have gone one year at a time. We pray we listen and ds16 has gone otu because God provided the amount I fleeced prayer out for. NOw we are at the dd may or may not go out next year, she wants to but said she has friends now in co op and church so shes not so sure. Ds wants to come homeschool his final year of school and start college early. We are praying for all to fall into place. I am mixed about ds coming home cause I was living MY dream sending one off to school lol! but its not about me, its about God and His plan in our house!
Mine was not to much as a "sign" as something that just happened. It started with my son always came home with some new sickness. He had strep throat all the time and colds and such. Once we would get him better and sent him back, he came home with a new one. Well one morning after all of us (the whole family) once again sick, dh told me that he thought it was a good idea that I looked into homeschooling that day. He said that he was tired of us always being sick and the school was not teaching him anything any ways. Well by the end of the day I gathered as much info as I could and I was convinced. I took my son out the following week and never plan on sending him back. On an up note we have only been sick maybe once since I took him out!!!
There have been plenty of signs to confirm our decision to homeschool but honestly, I just always assumed I would homeschool! I was homeschooled myself and it seemed the natural way to go. I didn't have much trouble convincing my husband (who had a less than positive PS experience) and now he is as much into it as I am!
I do believe that you are given insight and wisdom when you need it most. I tell everything that is thinking about homeschooling...."If it was placed on your heart then it is right" Those that aren't sure will get several people put in their path that just all add up an assurance this is what you are being led to do. "If it's on your HEART"
I enjoyed reading about all of your "signs". Thanks She for that bit of wisdom -- I am certain there are people out there that would never even consider homeschooling. I was drawn to homeschooling over time. I was a ps teacher and then a ps counselor. I saw many of the good, the bad, and the ugly of ps. I had my own child and could never leave him at daycare or out of my care for much length of time...as I always felt an emotional pull to have him with me. Then came child 2 -- same emotions. When we began to look at me doing my own private therapy practice, we decided to put the oldest in daycare, and the youngest at home with my mother. It NEVER felt right. I mean, I loved what I was doing, but I always felt the tug. And the more I saw of ps system/ class sizes/ teachers frustrations, the more I knew I wanted what was best for my kids, not what was best for my career. My husband in the beginning was not at ALL for hschooling. Siting the typical reasons. However, over the course of a year, 2 gentlemen came into his life, whom he gained much respect for....and through getting to know these 2 men, he discovered that one of them hschooled his kids, and the other (a former teacher and principal) advocated highly the hschooling idea. NOW = my husband is my greatest support! When I have had a struggle and begin to doubt our decision he says, "I pray that you can continue to do this -- but if you decide you can't -- we will be okay, and we will put them in ps/private" That is all it takes for me to hang in there another day.
Dh and I were of the mindset to send our kids to PS--this was prior to having them. I have a friend who HS and I thought she was nuts. My first sign was watching an ABC special about the PS system and it started me on my researching about homeschooling. I started sharing with DH who was not as sold on the idea. Over time he has come to the conclusion that this is the best thing for our family. (I think God had everything to do with that, I was praying for Him to change his heart if that was the path he wanted us to take) So that is the just of it and we just love being with our kids and teaching them things.
I really enjoyed reading the original poster's "signs" - as well as the others! Here's my story: Two years ago when DD was 4, the elderly couple next door to us put their house up for sale and a new family of 5 moved in. (This in itself was a rare thing, we live in a small town, a remote country neighborhood where houses rarely go on the market). The new neighbors were a sweet family - and they homeschooled. I thought them to be nice, but odd. HA HA. I had no clue I was soon to be odd. I enrolled DD the following year in private kindergarten and thought all was well. By Christmas break she had been repeatedly bullied, labeled as "inattentive" and the teacher had all but told me it was mine and DH's fault and she'd most likely be repeating. When Christmas break was about over, DD cried and begged not to go back. She asked if she could be hs like the kids next door. DH had memories of family friends growing up that hs and their kids were super smart and well behaved, so he was on board right away. Then a friend sent me an email link to John Gatto's speech about "The 7 hidden agenda's of government schools" and I was hooked. I thought we'd just finish Kindy and look for another private school for First - but her progress and behaviour have so improved that we're continuing on at home - indefinitely. (Much to the chagrin of my parents and friends who keep asking "when are you going to send her to school?") So, I don't know if my signs were as "neon" as some - but 2 years ago I never thought I'd homeschool and now I am all over it! Praise God.
I had a feeling that my daughter shouldn't be in school. Some say it was my nerves because my children were growing up (non-religous friends). Others said it was the holy spirit (religous friends) telling me to pull my daughter from school. Was it God calling me to homeschooling? Am I just not ready for my children to grow up and be away from me? Don't know but I do know that I no longer that that feeling anymore.
