Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments We decided to take the plunge into homeschooling

It looks like I have a lot of company!

Cathy,
Welcome! We are homeschooling on the West Coast too!

We have hsed off and on and partially hsed. Right now, dd#1 is fully in middle school and doing well. Dd#2 is being supplemented with EPGY math at home and I would love to take her out entirely. I work pt, though, and I just can't figure out a way to do this financially without sinking my family. Do all of you have dh's who are making enough $ to make this work with a single bread winner?

Well, we are sacrificing our ability to buy a house... but otherwise, we are ok on DH's income.

That's a sacrifice and wonderful that you are doing so. I think that the biggest issue in terms of making sacrifices on our end is that dh isn't on board with sacrificing. He is 14 yrs older than me and not in the best of health and I realize that, at some point, I am going to have to support us. He really isn't in a career type of job & I am more educated so my prospects may be better long-term.

Unless I can figure out a way to work from home & come close to replacing my pt income, I would be forcing the income loss sacrifices on him & I don't think that would be a wise idea.

I'll stop derailing your thread now, though ! Good luck to all of you who have made the plunge! I am jealous.

We have family that is helping us out or we wouldn't be able to do it since DH owns his own business and the economy sucks. However since both Bear and Wolf need me at home we would have made it work no matter what it took. Money is not necessary to happiness. I know, I work with a budget for a family of four that would probably make most people's hearts stop...

We started "officially" homeschooling this past fall and I was terrified. We go through an Independent Study Program because there was NO way I was about to go it alone. Now I think I could, but I love having access to the program's resources and teacher, as well as the social aspects of it.

I think the best advice I could give is if you are worried about missing something or whether your are providing enough of a challenge, stop worrying about it. Your kid(s) will let you know if you are and 99% of the time you are probably on the right track anyway.

For example I was worried that Wolf was actually getting enough "school" each day (honestly we do almost nothing it seems). His teacher sat down with me and we wrote out everything educational that Wolf does each day (leapster, computer stuff, martial arts, cubscouts, certain TV shows, reading, etc... as well as official school type stuff). It was really eye opening. Needless to say I stopped worrying about that aspect. I'm still looking for another to get paranoid about! LOL

Welcome, homeschooling newbies!

Cathy A., you'll be great! I've read enough of your posts to feel 100% sure of it. No worries at all.

Just go easy on yourselves. It's a learning experience for you, too. Accept that mistakes happen and don't kick yourself for them. You just wind up bruised.

What a nice little support group you have here. I'm so happy that none of you is going it alone.

So exciting!

We're fortunate that DH has a job that he enjoys enough to pull overtime so that I can be home managing everything, especially the BUDGET. DH wasn't on board for the homeschooling thing until the psychologist said 'you have to get this kid moving!'. It was either difficult SD advocacy, private school (scary prices here) or homeschool. It's actually cool now because his eyes are open and he's excited as well.

We are very fortunate that DH is PG himself and has a very strong work ethic. He works from a home office and allows me to be the Learning Coach/Teacher for our DD. The budget is tight, and we were not prepared to have to pay tuition for an elementary education for a 4 year old and a 20 year old in college at the same time.

Even though DH is totally aware of DD's needs, I find myself sharing some of the posts from this board to him. I want him to feel good about our decision to homeschool our DD, and I constantly tell him how thankful I am that I am not having to stress over advocating for DD.

It is an exciting time to be homeschooling. I think with the amount of gifted kids joining the homeschool ranks, we are changing many people's perceptions of what homeschooling is.

Welcome to the world of homeschoolers.

Deep breaths, you will be fine! Take it easy and don't get discourage if you have a bad day or two or three You don't have to do everything right right at the beginning. There is plenty of time to change things. As a matter of fact I spend most of our school year tweaking things around. LOL.