Homeschooling Story Part 2

Clark was a SUPER cute baby. I may be biased, but I don't think so. And he loved animals. He made animal noises before he ever said a word. He would sit in his high chair and I would ask him about animals and he would make their sounds. We did this A LOT. He would carry around the Little People farm animals. He did go through a very serious spoon phase wherein he loved spoons and slept with them and bathed with them and took them to church, but that only lasted a few months. Mostly it was animals all the time. One time I bought him a huge Little People city hoping to turn him on to cars, but no. He just placed his animals in the city.
He learned all his letters and sounds because each letter had an animal. A-alligator, B-bear, C-crocodile. You get it.

Meanwhile, there was this issue about what to do about education. Now I knew that there were other options besides public school. I did not feel I had to homeschool and I really didn't want to, but this idea had been planted in my head. I saw that there were some benefits and I also knew that I had a child who operated just a little bit different from all the other little tikes I knew.

I went to my first UHEA (Utah Home Educators Association) conference the summer that Clark turned one. I heard ideas that inspired me. I came to feel that homeschooling not only had some benefits, but that it was something I COULD do and SHOULD do. But I was scared. What if I didn't do a good job? What would people think of us? What if I went crazy? What if my children couldn't function in the real world? What if they can't get into college? What if? What if? What if?

I was definitely afraid. Then I made up a mantra for myself. "Fear is not a good enough reason not to do something". If there are other good reasons, then I will consider those and deal with them, but fear alone is not a good enough reason not to do something.

So for the next few years I went to lots of conferences and read books and talked to everyone I could. During this time it seemed that everyone in our similarly aged neighborhood were taking their tots to preschool and I didn't take Clark. I sometimes mentioned that I was considering homeschool, but I felt quite alone on that note. We read a lot of books-- lots of juvenile animal encyclopedias. We learned all about the continents and habitats and mammals, reptiles and insects. We hunted for bugs and watched Steve Irwin (the Croc Hunter). We went to museums and the zoo- a lot.

By the time kindergarten rolled around we had decided that we would homeschool. Partly because we were already reaping the benefits of home education and partly because I didn't feel school would be a positive experience for Clark at his age and stage of development.

To be continued.