Adam was in 5th grade when I started homeschooling him {and Ellie}. I had no idea when we started how it would go or whether we'd keep it up for very long. All I knew is that I felt strongly that it was the right thing to do and ultimately it ended up being a day by day, week by week, year by year endeavor. The fact that we kept it up for 8 years was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else watching us from the sidelines.
One of the most common comments I get when people find out we're a homeschooling family is that they could never homeschool their kids, because their kids are too social for that. I'll tell you that no statement about homeschooling makes me madder. There seems to be this prevailing notion that homeschooling families sit around the house all day, learning in a vacuum, and hiding out from the world. Reality couldn't be further from the truth. My kids are just as social as yours and their learning is hands-on, individualized, and engaging. They interact with people of all ages (rather than only with the artificial age-group settings of school) and honestly, I often feel more like an educational manager, than a teacher most of the time. My kids each learn very differently than each other and my job has been to find the resources they need to succeed.
I share all this with you to preface my next statement.
The last two years of homeschooling were by far our hardest. Not only did we move away from our beloved homeschooling community in Virginia and start homeschooling in one of the most stringent homeschooling states in the country, but we also got shorted by COVID just like everyone else. I think a lot of people assumed that we had it easier than them, because of the aforementioned misconceptions about what homeschooling is actually like. But...just like everyone else...our school year got absolutely decimated. All our in-person stuff either got canceled or moved to zoom. All their activities ended prematurely. AND, because we were new in a state without a lot of homeschoolers or LDS kids, they didn't have an established group of friends to create a pod with. We were suddenly living the homeschooling life that people think we live all the time and it was literally about as lonely as lonely gets. To be completely honest, it was extremely difficult for all of us, but especially for my very social kids.
Thank goodness we had each other.
We all struggled, but in the process we all grew closer together and made it through. And, in the middle of all that, Adam got into BYU.
So, when LDSHE (a homeschooling conference for LDS parents/teens) rolled around this year (in May), we knew we had to find a way to be there. Because of COVID, they'd moved it from a convention center in Virginia to an outdoor venue in Tennessee...which made it a 9-hour drive for us. No matter. We needed to see our tribe again and we needed to properly celebrate Adam's graduation!
After two years of isolation and being surrounded by masked strangers, it was a truly emotional experience to be there. I cried to see my kids have face-to-face (without masks) interaction with people who knew them and loved them! I ate up every conversation I had with old friends and I just relished being surrounded by people who got me! No more explaining myself, trying to justify my life decisions, or trying to find my niche among people who really didn't seem to like me all that much (a story for another post).
Being there was exactly the healing salve we were all craving.
Pennsylvania was fully locked down until the day we moved away at the end of June, so this little reprieve in May was EXACTLY what we all needed.
In addition to being schoolmates for the last 8 years, Adam and Ellie are also close friends.
We did it!!!
