Handling The Person Who Doesn’t Agree With Homeschooling

When I made the decision to try homeschooling*, I remember feeling so excited that God had answered my prayers to so much of my confusion, that I couldn’t wait to share it with everyone.

Hahaha! Now looking back, I should have just kept it to myself.

Only one person was kindly supportive. A few were downright mean. Some were considerate enough to say a quick word. Most were silent.

I still remember when I shared it during prayer requests with my women’s group at the time.

The leader blurted out, “Don’t do it! I know a woman who does that and she can never do anything! She always has to leave everything early!”

I left that meeting feeling defeated, sad, angry, depressed and most of all, very worried.

Now that I’m done homeschooling, I can admit that she was somewhat right with what she said! 🙂

There is nothing you can ever say to change a person’s mind about homeschooling.

I realize now that my biggest mistake was thinking that I could actually persuade someone into changing their opinions or that I could convince someone to be supportive.

If anything, having those conversations only made the situation worse and discouraged me even further. I was a total newbie regarding homeschooling. I had so many questions and doubts myself and I certainly didn’t know enough to be able to persuade anyone else.

The thing is, if you allow the arguments, it will do nothing but suck out all your energy and make you more depressed. Which is the last thing you need.

I desperately wanted to find support and encouragement for what I was about to do, but I eventually realized that it wasn’t going to come from the current people in my life.

With my husband, I didn’t know this when I first brought up homeschooling, but he actually did know some homeschoolers from when he was in seminary. These were people who were educated during times when homeschooling was underground and in some areas, illegal. All he could say was that they were weird. Just the stereotypical unsocialized homeschooler, I guess, so he was very much against it.

For a reluctant spouse, there needs to be a time when both of you are calm and can discuss the doubts he has. Then you can address each of the doubts and what you will do to handle it.

Try not to go too far into the future because it will only confirm their suspicions that you don’t know what you are doing.

Which was true…I didn’t know what I was doing!

Our daughter was three and he was asking me questions about high school and college. I had no plans to homeschool that long and I certainly didn’t know anything about those years! But he was worried that homeschooling in the early years was going to affect the latter ones.

I tried my best to reassure him that I wouldn’t let that happen and that if there was ever a time when I felt like it wasn’t working, I would put them in school right away.

I had to keep in mind that he had his own dreams for our kids. He had high hopes of sending them to the best schools, doing extracurriculars, winning academic accolades and on and on.

He was seriously afraid that doing something as crazy as homeschooling would cripple their futures.

So as a compromise, we made some goals. The first goal that we agreed upon was to get our daughter to start reading. She was a few months shy of four and I had a book that a homeschooling mom I recently met had recommended, so I just followed the book and did what it said.

Shockingly, the book worked and by 4, she was reading.

For the first few years, I kept advancing her education to where there was not much my husband could say. I made sure that she wasn’t behind in any way those early years because I knew that if she was, it would always be blamed on me and homeschooling.

I’m not going to say that my husband ever embraced homeschooling or that he changed his opinions on it. We had many, many discussions and arguments because he was so worried about their education.

He is a numbers and statistics guy and he went years without numbers or statistics, so I do understand. Even as our daughter’s first “real” standardized test scores started coming in, I think he just didn’t believe it.

Until that is, he started helping me with college applications for her. I think seeing all the different parts of her application come together helped him to realize how much she had done. Then when the scholarships and acceptances came rolling in, he was converted.

With anyone outside of my husband, I regret ever discussing homeschooling with any of them.

So my advice here is just don’t engage them. I never derived any encouragement from any of them so what was the point?

The negativity is intense and you need to protect yourself and your mental health. Recalling some of those conversations now, I remember how hopeless I felt because in the end, I really didn’t know how it would turn out. I had so many doubts of my own.

I simply stopped discussing homeschooling with anyone and if it ever came up, I just diverted the conversation. If the other person would keep pressing, I’d just say, its not up for discussion. And that was the truth.

I rarely discussed it with anyone. I got answers to my questions from online message boards and I found encouragement from wonderful older homeschool moms and that was it.

Through it all, buried under all the negativity and doubt, I knew there was no other option for me. I felt the intense need to keep my family and my kids free. It was something that I had to think upon on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis to keep going.

Was it hard? Of course! There were years when I was downright depressed but I never found another option. The benefits outweighed the negatives and somehow I just had a intense conviction that I was to keep going.

With that, I urge and encourage you to keep your eye on the prize and to keep moving forward!

God is faithful and if this is what your family is supposed to do, it will work.