If you are thinking about homeschooling but really don’t know what to think about it, I think I can help you!
If you know nothing about homeschooling, it is a legal option for educating your children in the United States. It is legal in all 50 states, but there are different regulations for it from state to state, so you should consult a site such as www.HSLDA.org to find out what the regulations are in your state. Some states have quite a few regulations and others are totally free to homeschool without having to report anything to anybody. Texas is completely free of restrictions or requirements!!!
You can homeschool your child! If you don’t have any children yet, or if you only have a baby so far, it’s never too early to start preparing or at least researching to find out what it is like, what it takes to do it, why it is a good thing to do and if the Lord might be calling you to do it.
There are many books written on the subject, but I would like to recommend some books that I think explain the value and importance of homeschooling in a way that will touch your heart and bring you to a place of understanding why so many are choosing to teach their children at home – not just academics but character, spiritual training, relationship skills, and self-esteem and security from being in a warm, loving environment that is natural and comforting for children, younger and older.
I call homeschooling family schooling because it is so much more than just teaching children the Three R’s.
In my opinion, if we do homeschooling right, it becomes the lifestyle of our whole family. God established marriage and blesses marriages with children so that they can raise godly offspring.
He gives us the responsibility to raise them for Him. They are His children, but He gives us the privilege of loving and guiding them and being loved by them.
I will list some of the books that have guided and influenced my thinking and helped me to formulate my philosophy of education, consolidated my reasons for homeschooling, and given me inspiration and instruction for doing it in a way that gives God the most room to lead us in the way that He would have us to go.
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (daughter of the late Francis Schaeffer)
Teaching Children by Diane Lopez
For the Family’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Beyond Survival: A Guide to Abundant-Life Homeschooling
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dorothy and Raymond Moore
The Three R’s by Ruth Beechick
Each of these authors has many other great books that will also help you, but these will get you started.
Sally Clarkson also writes some very helpful, encouraging books that will inspire you to be the best mother you can be and give you a balanced perspective of how to raise children through all the different seasons of their lives. She also gives tips for teaching and homeschooling children with great success. Her blog at I Choose Joy is very inspirational and encouraging.
Another source of help and guidance for living life together as a family in the fragmented society that we live in today is Lifestyle of Learning with Marilyn Howshall. Her website at LifestyleofLearning.org is full of articles and videos and some free materials to help you get started with a lifestyle that emphasizes the importance and value of relationships within a family and teaches the mother how to do the heart work that she needs to do so that she can properly raise her children in a warm, loving environment that encourages them to explore their interests and become the people that God intended them to be.
I would be remiss in my duty to inform you of great homeschool authors and speakers if I left out Cindy Rushton. She has lots and lots of good information and audios, books, articles, etc. at her website at CindyRushton.com. Her support and encouragement helped me to hang in there and inspired me to center our homeschooling around our family life and my husband’s schedule and make memories together with my children at a time when things were really rough and unstable for our family. She and her audios and online seminars probably helped save our family at a very perilous time.
One more very encouraging ministry that encourages mothers to stay at home with their children and see the calling of motherhood as an important, vital ministry is Above Rubies with Nancy Campbell. Her website AboveRubies.org is very helpful, too. She is an amazing woman who has raised unbelievable children, and I think you will find lots of encouragement for your homeschool journey there.
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
