Chapter 16 | Why We are Choosing to Homeschool

When you uproot your family from everything familiar and move to a small town in a completely different state, there are bound to be some significant adjustments. We didn’t realize that after a year of trying out the public school system here, we would be making a change that would have such a big impact on our family. This is our story of why we are choosing to homeschool!

High Hopes for Public School

In July of 2023, we moved to a small town about an hour north of Kansas City, Missouri. We had researched, looked at school ratings, and talked to locals about the school district. We had high hopes that moving from a large elementary and middle school in Utah to a very small town school in Missouri would come with a lot of benefits and would be a good change for our family. Everyone we talked to told us how great it was. Your kids could participate in whatever they wanted. They could be on all the sports teams, do cheer, join scholar bowl, and know literally everybody in their grade. It sounded great to us! Our oldest daughter was excited to do cheer and was able to join the middle school team.

The school year started in August of 2023. It was an immediate adjustment. All three kids were in the same school: an 8th grader, a 6th grader, and a 2nd grader. The school had different hallways for high school, middle, and elementary, but shared the art and music spaces, the gym, and the lunchroom. Our kids frequently saw each other during the days. This was exciting to me as a mom because I thought I would never have the opportunity of having all of my kids at the same school again after elementary.

Long Days

School started at 8:15, a whole hour earlier than we were used to! I picked them up at 3:15. 7 hours of school. It seemed a little long and sure enough, the kids were exhausted each day. That’s a long time to be away from home. The evenings after school would pass so quickly. We hardly had time for everything else we wanted to fit into a day; piano practicing, playing outside, reading, playing games, dinner, family time. And suddenly the day was over, kids had to be hurried to bed, and then up early for another day of it.

A Brief Experience with Cheerleading

My daughter had fun participating in cheer. She had to be to the school an hour early for practice a couple of days a week. She only cheered for 4 football games, but enjoyed it. Basketball season came around and it was a bit more busy. Towards the end, she started to tire of it and was excited for it to be done. She decided that she probably wouldn’t participate in High School cheer. And we were okay with that. I told myself that I would never force my kids to participate in extra curricular activities. I didn’t want to be driving around, sacrificing my time and energy for something that my kid didn’t even want to do. So if my daughter was satisfied with the cheer experience she had, I was great with it.

Time Passed

Fall season passed. I helped by being Room Mom for my youngest daughter’s class. My daughter enjoyed being at school, especially spending recess time with her teacher’s pre-school aged daughter. She made a couple of little friends and seemed to get through her school work very quickly. Often, she told me that she played computer games at school because she didn’t have anything else to do. I thought that sounded like a waste of time and wasn’t feeling too happy about it.

Hard Days

In contract, my son really started to dislike school. He often sat alone at lunch and was having a hard time making friends. Part of the reason was he had no desire to participate in any kind of school sport or activity. He just liked being home. But I couldn’t blame him for that. I like being home too. Some mornings were very hard and he would be crying and not want to get out of the car. We had to have a lot of talks about being tough and getting through difficult times. My husband suggested that we start doing “mental toughness” exercises. In the evenings before bed, we had moments of still and quiet where we practiced deep breathing and concentration.

A Really Long Winter Break

The holidays came and went. School started again in January and with the start of the new year came the Missouri snow and ice storms. Having lived through Utah winters, we didn’t think it was too bad. We had definitely driven in weather much worse. What we didn’t understand was how the weather impacted the dirt roads that are the primary residential roads here in the country. The roads became thick and slick and would not be plowed, the buses couldn’t get down them, and kids couldn’t get to school.

School was canceled for about two weeks straight. Every morning we would wake up and check if we had received another text or email from the school. Our kids thought it was great! We spent lots of time playing outside, sledding on the hill by the pond, drinking hot cocoa, and playing games. Unfortunately, the party did end and we had to go back to school.

The Beginning of the End

And this was the beginning of the downfall. For whatever reason, when we all came back to school after the exceptionally long break, behavior at the school plummeted. There was a noticeable difference. Our kids commented on it almost daily. Other students were not listening to the teacher. They were throwing things in class and the lunchroom, poking each other with pencils, and saying unkind things. The teachers were constantly yelling at the class, with detentions being handed out left and right. The environment was not somewhere we wanted our kids to be for seven hours a day. I started to feel uneasy about sending them to school.

We believe that receiving an education should be a joy and a privilege; I want my kids to enjoy learning and to be prepared for whatever they want to do in life. We started to feel that remaining at our little country school was not going to fulfill our requirements for a good education. We needed to make a change. And so we started talking about other options. Homeschool was unfamiliar, scary, and intimidating to me, but after such a rough second half of the year, we started thinking about it as a real possibility.

As we started researching and exploring with an open heart, the doors began to open. Out here in the country there are quite a few families that homeschool. Several people at our church have been very helpful and given tons of great advice to get us started. I have old friends in Utah who homeschool, I have other family members who has chosen to homeschool, and I researched online and talked to as many people as I could. And the crazy thing was, something that had seemed terrifying was quickly becoming my heart’s desire.

So never say never! When we first moved here, I could never have predicted this new course for our family and that we would be choosing to homeschool. But here we are, and we are trying to move forward with faith.

A Change of Heart, Mind, and Family Focus

The decision to homeschool our kids has already changed our lives and we are only a couple of months into the school year. I will write another post about the homeschool resources we are using and how we are organizing our time. Just know that it has taken a lot of work, time, effort, and prayer. It is definitely not easier than sending our kids to public school. It is so much harder! But I am enjoying the challenge.

I love being more involved and really knowing what my kids are learning! I am also loving being able to teach as well as learn with my kids. We have more time for things that we like to do and are finding other ways of learning that aren’t typically taught in public school. It’s funny that I never considered this path, because now that I am on it, I can’t imagine life any other way. It’s just a powerful proof to me that the Lord is in the details of my life. He wants me to be happy. He knows what is best for my family. And I am so very grateful.

~Rachel