BridgeBox Family

Holy Moly!

School started this month. The kids were excited. I was too. We were ready to put aside the spontaneity of summer and embrace a more structured week.

On the first day of school, I took each child’s picture in front of the garage with their new shoes and backpacks and sent them on their way.

However, the first week of school was really rough. I figured things would get better; we just needed to get back into the swing of things. And yet, the next week was just more of the same. The kids were struggling, and it hurt me to see that.

I wanted to like their new school, but something just felt off.

Their school schedule worked perfectly with my work schedule. Loren looked forward to having the quiet house again to be able to focus on work. I’m sure we could have made it work, but there were a few red flags that I couldn’t ignore.

The thing about getting really clear about your values- the things that matter most to you – is that it’s really easy to spot when things aren’t in alignment with them. Because Loren and I are very clear about our family’s values, it was overwhelmingly obvious that we couldn’t stay at this school.

I had homeschooled before, during Covid. I liked it so much that I did it an additional school year. When I found a charter school we loved, whose values matched ours, transitioning them was an easy choice (and at that time I had a little baby and looked forward to the break). We loved that school. Unfortunately, after 7 years at the school, we moved far away, and driving there every day was just not feasible.

In our new neighborhood, a brand new school was built. It was going to be so close, and I was hopeful, but I knew within the first week that it wasn’t for us.

The minute Loren and I decided to pull the little boys out of school, I was so relieved. The kids were too. Not only that, but I was invigorated by the thought of homeschooling again. Having two seniors living under our roof made me realize more than ever how fast the time goes. This season of childhood goes by so fast, and I want to soak up our time together for as long as I can.

Three values we’ve enjoyed so far with homeschooling:

Legacy: Today we read The Little Prince together, and I taught the boys how to look up vocab words in a physical dictionary, like I did growing up.

I told the boys, “When I was a little girl, and I would ask my dad what a word meant, he would point to the family dictionary and tell me to LOOK IT UP!” I would walk grudgingly to the massive book sitting on the podium and flip through its worn pages until I found the word. As a kid, I was annoyed, but as an adult, I am grateful.

It was something so small, yet so meaningful to me. I think looking up words in a physical dictionary is a lost art that I would want my boys to know how to do.

Freedom: The joy of being creative and learning at your own speed. Freedom is not a lack of structure; it’s being in control of your education. I think one of the biggest turn-offs about traditional school is that after the boys were in school for 7 hours, I had to sit with them to do homework. That’s not freedom to me. I want school time to be school time and family time to be family time.

Adventure: This may be the biggest reason our family chose to homeschool. I want to be able to take my kids on impromptu adventures without receiving a threatening letter in my inbox that if I don’t produce a doctor’s note, then this will be an unexcused absence and that’s bad, I guess.

We still have responsibilities; I won’t be able to leave at the drop of a hat, but taking a long afternoon up north in the Arizona pine trees is more plausible now. I prefer schoolwork in nature over a classroom any day!

I’m so grateful that I could make this happen for my family. We may not always homeschool, but I’m grateful for the freedom to do school how I want. That’s such a gift and a privilege.

If any homeschool parents have any words of wisdom, please send them my way! I’m gonna need it 🙂