How to know if you’re really Called to Homeschool

Do you feel called to homeschool? Maybe you think you might be or feel like you wish you could but are questioning if God really has called you to homeschool.

Maybe you’re picturing your sweet baby sitting all day in a hard desk instead of exploring the wonders of creation at the beach or reading together curled up on the couch, but you’re wondering if you missed this call?

Some homeschool moms talk about feeling called to homeschool.

But I always wondered what that call is supposed to sound like? Was I supposed to get some sort of message from God that homeschool is what I’m supposed to be doing?

I didn’t have a moment I heard God say, ‘and now, you shall homeschool.’ It was more of a gradual walking towards making this decision over time.

But hands down, It is one of the best decisions we have made.

At first, I felt it grew out of selfishness. I have this one baby, this one little girl that I waited to parent for SO LONG. Honestly, I didn’t want to send her away to school as soon as I got a chance to stay home with her.

I wasn’t ready to let her go. She is only awake 12-13 hours a day, I didn’t want to miss most of them.

But the more we talked about why we wanted to avoid public school and what we hoped to gain from homeschooling, the more our decision became clear.

Some of the reasons we came to consider homeschooling

Does the idea of sending your child to school give you a sense of unease?

It really did for me.

Initially, I had missed a lot of her first two years when I had been teaching full-time and wanted to be home with her as much as possible. Then when she was old enough for preschool, the only local preschool was full-time, five days a week with uniforms.

I didn’t feel like that was developmentally appropriate for her or for building family relationships.

More and more research shows that during the early years, children need more unstructured play, more time for imagination, and less organized learning and school. I just couldn’t wrap my head around sending her to an all day school environment over playing at home while learning with me.

We spent hours a day playing, exploring, going for walks, reading books. We learned as we lived, very little formal instruction. I did some phonics, letters, shapes, and number recognition with her and she was reading fairly well and loving it by the time she turned five.

And when it came time to decide about kindergarten, we still felt full days were too much too soon.

God has given us this child to raise to be a follower of Christ, not the world.

Can I really raise a child in two hours a day? Am I supposed to??

By the time we all would get home from work or school, we would only get a few precious hours together before bedtime. Those hours would be full of homework and dinner. If she wanted to play sports or spend time with friends, family time would be even further diminished.  

No judging parents who’ve made different choices, but my daughter needed more of us those early years in her education. She was struggling with ADHD and intense emotions. Helping her walk through some of those things was crucial in her development, as was having lots of free time between lessons.

Homeschooling can usually be accomplished in few clock hours during the day.

School was 3-5 educational hours with lots of time to explore her interests, for silent reading and many breaks for play and creativity. I had the flexibility assess her comprehension with a quiz or by asking her to draw a picture of life in ancient Egypt, or learn through travel & field trips.

Even now, as we are knee deep in fourth grade(!), I cherish the time we spend exploring new ideas together. She gets to spend all day with me, play with her friends all afternoon, and spend the evenings with our family.

Homeschool lets her be little a little longer.

A recent Stanford study agrees that we’re sending kids to school way too early, missing time for play. A lot of cognitive development happens during play. Unstructured play even provides for the type of physical development which must occur before kids can sit still at desks all day.

In the early 70s, my preschool was 2 or 3 half days a week at three and four years old. Kindergarten was half days. My elementary school days were 6.5 hours. We started at 9 and ended at 3:30. We also had 75 minutes for lunch and two recesses. I ate lunch at home with my mom and sisters.

Feeling like you might be called to homeschool? How can you know for certain? See how I heard the call. Click To Tweet

School isn’t the same anymore.

Today, she would leave for the bus stop at 7:25 and get home by 3:45, having a thirty minute at-school lunch and one recess at the end of the school day. Having such a long day seemed to be unnecessarily structured for a kid who started teaching herself to read at 2 1/2 from Super Why!

One parent in a nearby neighborhood said her son would be on the bus at 6:30 and home at 4 for kindergarten in a school with limited recess. When does this little boy get time to be little? Homework until 5, then dinner, bath, bed. She didn’t have a choice, but my heart broke to hear how much she wished there were different options.

I also had unease about the quality of our local schools. All schools (including homeschools) are imperfect, but I had concerns. Our district zoned elementary school was very much struggling to provide recess, music, and art. I doubted the curriculum would be the right fit to challenge and excite my little creative ADHD child.

And, I started examining the entire idea of sending her to school.

What is your goal for your child’s education?

I want my daughter to grow up to be a productive member of society, learn to work well with others, but mostly, be a powerful woman of God. Was school really going to offer her the best chance of becoming those things, more than I could?

No teacher would care about her and her development more than I did. School teachers might have more resources and more training for the special needs of elementary students, but I knew God would guide me if this is what He wanted for us.

One of our biggest concerns was socialization, but what is socialization?

On one hand, it means learning to behave socially with others. Between co-op, play dates, an organized bible study homeschool class, church, and actually being in the world, my daughter gets LOTS of chances to be social with all sorts of people. She visits the nursing home and is the hit with the ladies there. She makes friends in the waiting room at my doctor’s office. Being social isn’t an issue for her.

However, socialization doesn’t just mean socializing.

It means the deliberate transfer of values and morals from adults to children. When I thought about it that way, whose values did I want her to have? God’s values are my highest priority. While I don’t do it perfectly, I know that she is seeing me learn and grow in Christ daily. Even through learning to teach her math . . . and my journey is teaching her to love Jesus and seek Him.

Can parents realistically hope to combat the secular worldview being presented in every subject in just a couple of hours each evening and Sunday mornings?

I’ve also become concerned about the secular humanism in public school curriculum. Increasingly God is not just removed from public schools, but Christianity is attacked. Even more alarmingly, other religions are presented more favorably. In 2004, I noticed this trend when choosing new world history textbooks four our district.

The indoctrination is exceedingly subtle, but over thirteen plus years, the messages of secular humanism become the base normal without us even realizing it.

If private Christian school isn’t an option for you (geographically or financially), homeschool allows you to choose the focus of your curriculum. We chose God’s viewpoint to be the focus of everything we learn, which is why we love the Lifepac curriculum from Alpha Omega. It’s affordable and all-inclusive if you purchase an entire grade level, but you can purchase the subjects individually if your child is gifted in an area.

LIFEPAC Grade 1 Core 4-Subject Set By Alpha Omega Publications

So, I prayed.

I didn’t want to spend all day apart. Actually, I enjoy spending the days with her. So, Should we homeschool?

I didn’t have a clue how my husband would feel about it. We had agreed that I would go back to work when she started school.

I took it to God in prayer.

Have you taken the question to homeschool to God in prayer?

Then I asked my husband what he thought about sending her to kindergarten.

And my husband said, “I think we need to homeschool.”

WHAT?!?! I was expecting this to be a serious conversation, maybe even heated discussion. I was floored when he agreed with me.

If there was any moment I felt called to homeschool, it was this one. 

But even as a veteran high school teacher, I was overwhelmed at the thought. Can I do this? Will I mess up my kid? Will I ruin her life, education, etc.?

These are normal feelings, but kids have difficult experiences at school, some teachers shouldn’t be in the classroom, the curriculum will have gaps, and you won’t be there to walk through the tough stuff together. Sending them to school isn’t a guarantee of a good education necessarily.

You really only need one thing to do a great job – desire!

Are you willing to learn and grow as much as your child will?

If so, you’ll do just fine.

You love your child and will strive to provide the best education you can. Find mentors, talk to neighbors, join a co-op. From field trips to the beach or local museums, you’ll find so many amazing programs and supplemental materials available. It’s difficult to do poor job homeschooling if you feel strongly you’re being called to homeschool.

And if your family answered these questions differently, that’s okay.

Homeschool might not be the best answer for your family, even if you wish it were. If you’re working full-time or going to school, homeschooling might be impossible. And really, doing what is best for the whole family is important.

God has a different calling for each of us. What’s important is that you’re listening to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and paying attention when He opens doors for you.