Am I Smart Enough to Homeschool My Children?

Are you questioning your ability to homeschool your children? Do you ask yourself, Am I smart enough to homeschool my children? In this blog post I want to help you feel more comfortable, empowered, and confident that you can homeschool your children.

You Are Smart Enough to Homeschool Your Children

This is actually a common concern among many parents who are new to homeschooling. If they don’t have a college degree or didn’t get good grades in high school, they sometimes think that someone with a teaching degree might be better qualified than them. That is not necessarily true.

If you have read through my other posts or have listened to the What About Homeschooling podcast, you know that I homeschooled all 4 of my children from preschool through high school graduation, and I did not have a college education at that time. I did graduate from high school, but I was not a great student. In fact, I failed English in the 11th grade. I also only took the minimum necessary math courses required to graduate, which, at the time was only 2 years of math. I believe it was algebra 1 and geometry.

When I first started homeschooling, I was teaching pre-school to my first child, so I didn’t have any fears of not being smart enough since the high school years were very far away. I also didn’t have a plan to keep homeschooling. I really had no idea how many years homeschooling would last for our family. I wasn’t looking that far ahead at that time.

When my older 2 children started the middle school years, I did start to wonder how I was going to help them get through the higher level subjects in high school. So I do understand when a mom says she feels like she may not be smart enough to homeschool her children. I think this is especially true for moms or parents looking to homeschool older children who have already been attending public or private school. I can see how that can seem even more intimidating since you havn’t done this before and it’s all new to you. You really don’t know how it can all work out.

Now that I am on the other end of things, I want to help you see that you are more than qualified to teach your children at home if you feel that is what God is calling you to do.

I have 4 suggestions to help you feel more confident that you are qualified to homeschool your children.

1- Find the Right Homeschool Curriculum

2- Identify Your Strengths

3- Learn Alongside Your Children

4- Get Support From Other Homeschoolers

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1-      Find the Right Homeschool Curriculum

Homeschool curricula has come a long way, and it is pretty amazing. There are so many options available. There are options that are totally online where the student logs in and watches lessons and then does corresponding assignments. These often grade automatically. You don’t really need to do much with homeschool courses or curricula like this. One example would be Switched On Schoolhouse by Alpha Omega. You can find complete curricula that has every subject done this way or you can purchase just one or two subjects.

 Suppose you love history, like me. I wanted to teach history to my children and be involved in learning with them, so I taught them history using a literature-based history curriculum like Sonlight. However, I was not strong in mathematics, so for high school math, I chose to purchase an online program that I did not have to teach or grade like Teaching Textbooks. As I stated above, you can choose a complete program with every subject for the whole year, or  you can just buy certain subjects as online courses.

There are also lots of curricula that you can purchase that come with a teacher lesson plans book that tell you exactly how to teach each lesson. Some even give you word for word what to say to your child, so there is no question on how to teach the lessons. One of my favorite for elementary grades is Abeka. I don’t have any affiliation with them. I just really like their materials, and it is a faith based curriculum.

So you can find curriculum that will do the teaching for you or curriculum that tells you step by step what to do or say and all levels in between.

Lastly, I want to let you know that there are answer keys for almost every subject and homeschool book out there. They give you the answers. Some math answer keys actually show step-by-step how a problem is worked out. So this is another great thing to have when you are concerned about not knowing enough about a certain subject.

Identify Your Strengths

What interests or hobbies do you have that would be a great asset to your homeschool?

Are you a good cook? Do you love fitness and working out? Do you sew, crochet, draw, paint, etc.? Can you read music or play an instrument? Can you sing? Do you love to read? Have you ever read to your child at night and changed your voice and acted out the characters as you read? Do you have a love of nature and being outdoors? All of these things and so many more are wonderful traits that would be amazing contributions to your child’s home education. What you love you get to share. Many times, your children learn to love it too or at least learn it well, because you loved it and shared it with them. You have many things to contribute to your child’s education outside of the regular textbook stuff.

Learn Alongside Your Children As You Homeschool

The amount of things I learned through the years that I homeschooled my children was incredible. There were many things that I never learned in school or was never taught a certain way, or that I just plain don’t remember. As I homeschooled my children, it made me realize how much I missed out on in my own education. There were so many people and places and things that I never learned about while I was going to school. There were so many great stories I never read. You will be learning right along with your children as you read together and as you teach them.  

Now,this may mean that you will need to review lessons ahead of time. I had to do this with English in the middle school and high school grades. I had to go over the lessons at least the night before to make sure I could teach the new concepts the correct way. This is perfectly fine. Just be one step ahead of your children. You don’t have to be an expert in any subject before you start teaching it. Just know the next step and take it one lesson at a time.

Find Other Homeschoolers

In my opinion the greatest resource a homeschool mom can have is other homeschool moms.

I have always found other homeschoolers to be an amazing help. They seem always ready to offer help, advice, and encouragement to anyone asking. Look for a homeschool group in your area. You can just do a search online to see if there are any close by. If you can’t find one near you or one that fits your family, then at least try to find a support group online. Search social media. I have seen lots of homeschool groups on the different social media platforms. In fact, that’s kind of what you are doing right now, right? I have been there and done that, so I am here trying to help you in your homeschool journey. I hope I have been at least a little help to you.

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One Last Thing…

Help always seems to show up when you need it and not a minute before. I homeschooled for over 22 years, and I can honestly say that all our needs were met when they needed to be. God always took care of us. Here’s an example. My youngest son was very good at math through his early school years. I was worried about high school especially when he was ahead in math from where someone his age would normally be.  That’s when we found Teaching Textbooks. Again, I am not affiliated with them, but it is what he started using in middle school and all through high school. He watched the lessons on the computer, did the assignments, and the program graded his work automatically. He decided to dual enroll in college while still in high school, so he had to take a college entrance exam. He got a perfect score on the math portion of the exam. His college counsellor actually commented that she didn’t remember ever seeing a student get a perfect score before. I didn’t do that. I still can’t do that level of math to this day. I give all the credit to the Lord. God provided that curriculum at just the right time.  That had nothing to do with my ability, education, or knowledge. I could never have planned it ahead of time. We started homeschooling in 1997-99 somewhere in there and I don’t think Teaching Texbooks even existed back then.

So, I think this is where faith comes into the mix. It’s moving forward not knowing what’s ahead, not being able to see or prepare for what we might encounter, but it’s simply trusting God that he will provide and take care of whatever challenge we face in the future.

So, go ahead and purchase your homeschool curriculum, find other supportive homeschoolers, and trust the Lord with the future. You will be more than well equipped to homeschool your children.

I would love to know your thoughts and if you have you have any questions.

Please send me an email Mary@whatabouthomeschooling.com

~”…and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning.” Prov. 16:21

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