3 Unexpected Lessons Homeschooling Taught Me

When we first embarked on our homeschooling journey, I could not have guessed what it would bring to our lives. I knew it would be more work, I knew it would require me to research things, and in some instances, it would severely test the boundaries of my own intelligence, not to mention my patience levels.

I expected those things. I expected that we would sift through different curriculums until we hit the right one. I expected that there would be easy and hard days. I expected the archaic question, “But what about their socialization?” (Insert rolling eyes here.)

There were three really big things that I never counted on but which have been amazing.

Exploring Mayan Culture in Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Freedom

Though it seemed at first that the only way to teach the children was to re-create traditional school inside our home, we quickly found that wasn’t the case. With the exploration of different ways to learn, we embraced freedom. Time freedom because we could learn wherever, however. Learning didn’t stop with a bell, or on a weekend. Textbooks didn’t need to be hefted everywhere in order for their brains to learn.

We were free to explore marine biology marshside or astronomy by waking up in the middle of the night to stand outside and stargaze. We brought chemistry into our kitchen and suddenly began having entrepreneurial discussions over breakfast.

We weren’t limited, and the unlimited possibilities before us brought in a new found desire to explore. Freedom never hit home quite this way before.

Deeper Relationships

It was a wonderful and strange moment for me when I realized my 19-year-old was choosing to spend Friday night home with us all, enjoying pizza and game night instead of hanging with friends. He has some really awesome friends who enjoy doing a lot of different things. Yet, he will still choose to come hang with us on a Friday night or sit for hours around our Sunday dinner table.

“What is this phenomenon? How did this happen?” I wondered. It wasn’t until I heard him talking to his 16-year-old sister, her best friend, and our then 11-year-old that I realized what had happened.

These years of homeschooling together had taught them like nothing else has that we are a unit, a team. We operate as a team. We do life as a team. We learn, grow, love, and play as a team.

While we all enjoy many friends and have active social lives (homeschoolers socialize a lot), nothing beats hanging with our teammates.

I find that the busier my teens are working, volunteering, and hanging out with friends, the more eager they are to get home for Friday Night Family Game Night or Sunday Funday.

They do life together not because they have to, but because they choose to.

Simplicity

We love the simple things. Once we slowed life down, stopped racing around (thank you so much Burnout Recovery), we embraced simplicity.

We don’t need to be entertained, we practice and enjoy the art of conversation. We don’t have to be running from event to event anymore; we are super content playing pickleball (I am a work in progress) or cornhole for hours.

We love baking together or cleaning out the garage. Our home now has a gentle rhythm of simplicity.

That simplicity helped us all to thrive.

I am sure that each family experiences its own unexpected lessons for whatever road they travel. We all have memories of the journey we’ve shared with our family. It’s funny the things you take for granted. It's interesting the things you expect. And it’s wildly wonderful to be able to reflect on the unexpected things that have irrevocably changed your life without you ever having thought about putting them in motion in the first place.