Similar Posts

28 Comments

  1. Thank you SO MUCH for posting this! I cannot even begin to tell you how much this comforts me and encourages me to keep praying for our daughter and the school choice. Thank you again!

    1. Your so welcome Kelly! I know school choice can be such a hot issue but prayer is the most powerful thing we can do to find peace in whatever our decision.

  2. This was perfect timing God used you to talk straight to me ! We are in the same situation and we have decided to send our child to public school as well . God knows whats best for our families. Thanks so much and God bless !

  3. Great post! I love how you sought the Lord’s direction and came to the decision He desires at this time for your family. As a parent of soon to be freshman and 6th grader, every year we re-consider our options and continue to find public school is the best decision for us. As you said in the Christian blogging community, this is an unusual choice but kudos to you!

    1. I believe it is a year-by-year, child-by-child decision and something we will probably question every year like you said but right now we do feel incredible peace with our decision and God has already opened several doors for us as well!

  4. I think it is so sad that people have to defend the choices that they make for themselves and for their families. It is your life and your decisions. I hope all goes well and don’t listen to any naysayers!

  5. I have had to justify my choice of public school in our church for a long time. Only 6 kidss in our church attend public school over Christian school. 3 are mine. I have been so blessed in the teachers we have had (mostly Christian). I too looked at homeschooling and tried it out in preschool like you did, but failed miserably. I have come to the conclusion that if we don’t place good Christian children in schools how can they be the salt and light. I know my oldest is in juniour high and being exposed to so many things, it has been good for those teaching moments and to strengthen our faith.

    1. That is so true Michelle! Those teaching moments and allowing him to be the salt and light in some hard circumstances is such a great example for him to live out his own faith.

      So far we are a few weeks into the new school year and things are going well but I’m continuing to pray every single day over my son and his entire school!

  6. Victoria, I have taught elementary school for 32 years. Some years in Christian schools and some in public. One is not better than the other, it is what is best for your child. I have worked with homeschooled children and have not been impressed.
    All the things you have been doing during your home preschool activities are wonderful and are teaching things that go way beyond sitting at a table filling out worksheets.
    I retired 10 years ago, so my knowledge of what is going on now in schools is probably outdated. My last school worked very hard at making learning hands on with books supplementing the learning. Continue what you are doing at home throughout their schools years and read, read, read to them.
    My parents were only in their teens when I was born. But they provided my sister and plenty of out of school learning opportunities and piles and piles of books. I became a teacher and librarian, but my sister is a rocket scientist, literally.

    1. That should be my parents provided my sister and I. I was included in everything. Actually it was my sister who was included because I came first!?

    2. Hello, This is a reply to Debbie’s reply, but is applicable to all. I home educated our two children for 14 years. Our oldest is starting her second year of law school on a full academic scholarship, in the top 5 of her class, and with a 3.8 GPA currently ( she was entirely homeschooled). Her undergraduate degree was in International Studies, with an emphasis on the Middle East. She has traveled around the world, including at Oxford to study there for her Middle East studies ( earning a perfect “A” on her work there), to Germany, France, Russia, Belize, and to Israel twice. During her second trip to Israel, she was the Middle East consultant for a film crew in making a documentary on the Palestinian/Israeli crisis. Our second homeschooled child is finishing his undergraduate degree, doing extremely well, working full-time, engaged to be married, and has also traveled widely. Both offspring have a wide circle of friends, are politically involved and are civically minded. Furthermore, both needed to tutor public, as well as privately schooled friends in college due to the fact that most had never written a research paper prior to graduating high school.
      I am truly sorry that you were “not impressed” with the home schooled children in your classes. Perhaps you had some preconceived notions of them before you truly gave them a chance. Or perhaps they were simply not academically inclined and you blamed it on being previously homeschooled. Regardless of the reasons, the generalization is extremely antiquated in this day and age in which home educated children have proven themselves repeatedly.
      Also, with regard to deciding not to home school one’s children based on attempts to teach them preschool, please know that this is not at all a valid test for what homeschooling truly is. One cannot “bring school home”. I taught my children classically ( structured 3 R’s and literature based history, as well as Latin and Logic, and the typical college preparatory classes), yet it was never “school at home”. We had time for many significant discussions and were able to participate in many important events and so forth because they were home.
      Having said that, I very much appreciate the tone of this actual article. I am in total agreement that educational decisions for one’s offspring are personal and that God will direct each family in accordance with what is best for them.

  7. You home/Unschooled him for 5 years and now it’s time to see how public school works for your family. Nothing wrong with that. Hopefully it’s a positive experience for you all and that you continue to find confirmation in your choice. And that you and your other two adjust to him being gone for so long each day. Big change!

    1. Thanks Tessa. It has been a big change but it is going smoothly now that we are about a week and a half in. It is strange not to have him here with us during the day, but it also has helped me give a bit more one on one time with my youngest which he never gets! 🙂

  8. Sweet friend, I absolutely love the work the Lord has done in your heart and in your family! <3 thi!

  9. On the other hand, I have friends who seem to imply that my homeschooled children (homeschool was NOT on my radar initially) will not be ready for college, the real world, or real life. Huh? They deal with real life every day. Sitting in a classroom will 20 other kids your agents not real life. Parents prepare their children for real life, not school. I have seen some bad examples of homeschooling nice also seen some pretty bad examples of private and public schooling. And I’ve seen great examples from all 3. Not all of my children are Christians yet, so they can’t be salt and light. I’m busily laying the foundations for a biblical world view. In testing, my kids have proved to be doing great. All my nieces and nephews? Private schooled or public schooled. No matter what your school choice, parental involvement is key. But I’ll admit I am tired of hearing homeschooled kids won’t be ready for the real world.

  10. I think it is important that you turned to prayer and followed what will work best for your life and family. Thank you for sharing all of these important experiences that you had while choosing school.

  11. Thank you for sharing your story! It is so true that God directs our hearts into what is best for our family. We have also done different things at different times and that will continue to be the case, I know! My daughter went to our church’s private school for Kindergarten. We chose to homeschool for 1st and 2nd grade. After that we moved to rural England to serve in a church and had an opportunity to send our 2 kids to a small Church of England school 2 1/2 days a week and continue homeschooling the other half of the week. It has been a great experience.

  12. One homeschooling mom suggested to me to wait until 3rd grade to homeshool so as to avoid teaching phonics. We ended up homeschooling anyway. Having taught phonics 2x I can attest to the difficulty! And it wasn’t until my daughter was in 3rd grade that I did feel great about homeschooling.

    It is a personal choice that should above all be a spiritual decision. And, as a parent, I don’t know how we can stop homeschooling- whatever school our child attends, they are only learning there for a few hours a day. When they come home from public/private school, we have them for the rest of the day and evening.

    We, as parents, are always teaching them something at home: life lessons, cooking, manners, the Bible, relationships, anything really.

    Parenting is homeschooling, don’t you think?

  13. I know this was posted back in August, but your experience so reflects what I am going through right now as we begin to make plans for my son to begin kindergarten next year. We recently moved to Georgia from California. In California I worked a 9-5 job and we payed a lot of money for my mom to attend a Christian pre-K program. Here in Georgia they have statewide free Pre-K, but being that I now stay at home I had no plans to put him in one! I was going to try to homeschool him because in my mind that is what good Christian parents do! The Lord slowly began leading us a different direction and he is now in a free public pre-k. His teacher is a Christian woman and very warm and loving, but I still struggle with the fact that the Lord would lead this way, I can relate to having to cast my cares on God every minute!

  14. This has been such a blessing to me. i came across it just as i have been struggling with whether sending my son to a public school was really the right thing to do. He has always been in private school since he was 4 years old. Now that he turned 13 and we are in a foreign land, i had no other choice but to enrol him in a public school. I hoped this would help him assimilate better and quicker into the American culture. As he continues to struggle and win most of his personal battles(not physical), we continue trusting in God that we made the right choice for him. May God bless you and your family very much.

  15. Thank you for this ! I feel so alone sometimes for our decision to send our kids to public school ! You CAN be a Christian there . We feel we are preparing our 15, 13, and 10 year olds for the real world ?

  16. I love this! Thank you for sharing your story of such faithfulness with such a significant decision.

    Like you, when our oldest child was approaching kindergarten, we wrestled with that same decision. We had just moved to a new town, found a church we loved, and all the families we met and admired were all homeschooling. I thought that’s what “good Christian parents were supposed to do. We had just moved to a new town and joined a church we loved, and all the families we met and admired were homeschooling. So I thought that’s what “good” Christian parents were supposed to do. I also wanted my precious baby to be educated in a “good Christian school” surrounded by “good Christian friends.”

    As he often does, God gave me a different plan and a very different picture for her and her siblings. He made it clear he had chosen my child to be one of many strong Christian kid witnessing to others. Her place – and her mission field – were in the public school.

    We later learned our school was actually nicknamed “the private school that isn’t.” ? We are continually blessed as our entire district is led and staffed by countless godly men and women of faith.

    That first kindergarten day was over 20 years ago. Through our time in this district, God has equipped all four of our children in incredible ways, according to his perfect purposes. As we speak, our third child is navigating life as a senior in the midst of COVID-19. Our youngest child graduates next year. And I am finishing up my fourth year as a school board trustee!

    There’s just no telling where God will lead us when we follow him faithfully!

    That

  17. I love this! Thank you for sharing your story of such faithfulness with such a significant decision.

    Like you, when our oldest child was approaching kindergarten, we wrestled with that same decision. We had just moved to a new town, found a church we loved, and all the families we met and admired were all homeschooling. I thought that’s what “good Christian parents were supposed to do. We had just moved to a new town and joined a church we loved, and all the families we met and admired were homeschooling. So I thought that’s what “good” Christian parents were supposed to do. I also wanted my precious baby to be educated in a “good Christian school” surrounded by “good Christian friends.”

    As he often does, God gave me a different plan and a very different picture for her and her siblings. He made it clear he had chosen my child to be one of many strong Christian kid witnessing to others. Her place – and her mission field – were in the public school.

    We later learned our school was actually nicknamed “the private school that isn’t.” ? We are continually blessed as our entire district is led and staffed by countless godly men and women of faith.

    That first kindergarten day was over 20 years ago. Through our district, God has equipped all four of our children in incredible ways, according to his purposes. As we speak, our third child is navigating life as a senior in the midst of COVID-19. Our youngest child graduates next year.

    That

  18. Thank you so much for the encouragement and wisdom in this post. I have homeschooled for 5 years and we are most likely putting our kids in public school this Fall for the ’21-22 school year. The spring semester this year had been almost unbearable, I struggle with mild seasonal depression in the winter months (I am in northern new england) but this year was different. I don’t know if it’s the compounded effect of Covid stuff, my ADHD OCD oldest entering puberty, difficult extended family situations, still bring newbies at our church, trying to wrangle my wild 4yo while not letting my middle child get pushed aside or what. I take educating the kids seriously and “just taking the day off” whenever I feel overwhelmed wasn’t solving our big issues, I’d be taking every single day off!

    My husband has been working at home for the past year and has seen how hard it’s been, he was the one to gently suggest we finally try public school next year for my mental health and fir the good of our family. At first I resisted the idea because “good Christian moms homeschool their children or at least cough up the cash to send their kids to Christian School?–anything less is laziness and sin!” Sadly we belong to a group of churches where that idea is held up as truth. My state is one of the most unchurched and secular in the U.S , so to send a child from a Christian family to “a government school” is considered a grievous moral failure. 99.9% of my peer group at church homeschool their children and wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise. Choosing to send our kids to public school comes at the cost of being cut off from fellowship with these families. I’ve floated the idea of sending them to school with some homeschooling peers and it’s almost like they fear they’ll be tempted to quit homeschooling if I even mention the idea and my struggles to them . I’m honestly grappling with what my identity is outside of being a homeschool mom. I’m grappling with trusting the Lord through this while realizing I had made a complete idol out of the homeschooling lifestyle. I am praying for wisdom, for grace abc peace, for help to lead my kids on the path of life in Christ as they encounter the hard stuff in the real world. I pray they can be lights in a hurting world.

    Homeschooling is beautiful. Maybe someday we will homeschool again. But I wish it wasn’t viewed like a sin to stop.

Comments are closed.