Not Another Homeschool Blog

About 18 months ago I launched a Kickstarter to get my homeschool curriculum published.   The Kickstarter did not work out... at all.   That did not deter us a bit. Instead, my business partner and I financed the purchase of our homeschool history textbook from our own pockets, as we had the finances to do so.   Several times I posted. Coming next month... coming soon, but we were not able to launch.  We have our not-for-profit homeschool program to run, and the kids are our first priority.   Finally... I feel 99% confident that we are almost there. We are in the layout process. We have launched our YouTube channel where we talk about homeschooling and history. 

  Seeking collaborators:   People who homeschooled and/or people who chose traditional education.  What do we have in common? What can we learn from each other?  email ahermitt at gmail if you are interested in doing a youtube collaboration, using zoom.

When kids contact me through social media, it is usually with the intention of getting ammunition to convince their parents to let them homeschool. Clearly, I am pro-homeschooling, but I am not so much for kids leading the charge to homeschool.  I mean, I'm kind of impressed with kids who bring it up, but homeschooling isn't the children's responsibility, it is the parents. The parent must put in hours each week into looking at curriculum, instructing, checking work, and keeping records.  Homeschooling is as much as a chore for the parent as the kid. The is why the parent must lead the charge to homeschooling, and not the child. In celebrity news, Rapper/personality T.I. had an argument with his teenage son about homeschooling.  When asked how school went the child said "school sucks" but homeschooling would not... WRONG!  Homeschooling a child who hated school is darn near impossible.  Once he gets his freedom he will not go back. In the argument, T.I. told...

Let's just say, that once we verbalized our intent to homeschool, things got interesting.

It took a while from the time I started learning about homeschooling to when we actually did it. This video shows our awkward journey.

I don't know if I ever told the full story about why we homeschooled our children. It was so many years, ago, but the journey to homeschooling will always stay with me.  Some people homeschool for religious reasons. Some homeschool for academic reasons. Some feel that homeschooling protects their child. Why did you decide to homeschool? So why did you decide to homeschool your children?

Well.. It's been 2 years and 3 months since I last had a child I could call a homeschooler. My youngest is now a college Jr.  I think a thoughtful retrospective is in order.   So, here are 8 things I would do differently if I were to homeschool all over again , and a couple things I would do the same. 1. Consistency is visiting museums, parks, playgrounds, and shows weekly.  I think I did this well when they were both in middle school, but the wigglyness of them when they were little and the busyness of them as high school students got in the way. But, It was a great bonding time and I wish I had been more consistent. 2. Food control. Kids do what you do, and I did not mind what I was eating very well, nor what they were eating. The kids and I had too much access to the fridge. I should have planned ahead better and kept fruit on the table instead of a free-for-all. 3. I should have been more strict about deadlines for assignments.  There were plenty of times...

I just got an email about paying for registration for next year's homeschool program.  I stared at it for a minute, wondering when I should pay and then realized.... I'm done with that.  No more homeschool classes.  Wow. Other things that I won't be doing anymore... with my kids anyway: Late night curriculum preparations, so kid can start homeschooling at a decent time the next morning.  Driving an hour for a 1 hour class or rehearsal, then driving back home.  Hanging out in coffee shops to kill time while my kids are in classes. Deciding between a traditional science class, or letting the child explore science from cooking or nature.  

I am spending this morning getting my son's laundry done  so we can take him back to college. ( I know he should do it himself, but these kids will let a wet load sit in the machine for hours).  It has been an interesting break.  He is clearly more mature (and bossy) than he was when he left home.  His opinions are strong.  His patience is also short. ... and I can't tell when he's serious or joking anymore. I look back at the period of my life when I left home and remember how necessary the distance was.  I was getting to the point when I was becoming my mother, and I was still a teenager. Every glance, every opinion, every argument I had, and someone would comment how much like my mother I was.  Now, my mother was a perfectly lovely person and I wish I had half her sense of humor, but I was not her, and in order to become uniquely me, I needed time and space- off by myself to deal with the world.  This is my son's time.  I may not like...

So how much does homeschooling cost anyway? Do you need to spend a lot of money to homeschool? What can I do to lower the cost of homeschooling? Find these answers in this video FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE MY BUSINESS WEBSITE

This is in response to questions on "how do I get my parents to let me homeschool"... it is basically advice to teens. Transcript: Hello, this is A. Hermitt, and today I want to address teenagers deciding they want to start homeschooling, and I am going to go ahead and read from an article that I wrote some time ago on this subject. Excerpt:  I like to peruse questions and answer boards on homeschooling. I also get lots of emails from