MENTORING
The toughest job you'll every love-
MENTORING The toughest job you'll every love- It was an
ad for the Peace Corps, but for me, the slogan has always exemplified
how I have felt about homeschooling my two children.
It is a tremendous responsibility to be in charge of your children's
education. In addition to those times when you are plagued by doubts
about whether you will ruin your children's lives forever, many of us
have to run the gauntlet of disapproving relatives, as well as complete
strangers who see us out and about with our children and feel compelled
to comment in a way they never would with our public- and
private-school-counterparts.
We all know the questions-Is it legal to homeschool? How can you stand
to have the kids home all the time? What about socialization? How will
they be able to cope in the real world?
And the answers-Yes. We work on their manners so they are pleasant to be
around. If they get any more socialization, we'll have to call it van
school instead of homeschool. Just fine, thank you.
And the comment- I could never do it.
No, and I could never do it either. Not alone. It doesn't take a
village, but supportive people help on the homeschool journey.
In my early years of homeschooling I was fortunate enough to have as a
friend and mentor a Christian neighbor who was homeschooling seven
children. Among the wisdom she shared with me is that in our Christian
walk, we should have someone who is further along than we are to pass
down to us what they have learned, and someone who is not as far as we
are, who we can pass down to in our turn. This also applies to
homeschooling.
Recently, I was explaining this theory of mentoring to a friend with
children the same ages as mine, and she said that we also needed someone
walking along beside us, who is at the same stage of the journey and is
going through the same things we are at the same time.
Homeschooling isn't easy, or everyone would be doing it. Remember to
seek help and support when you need it and to help and support others
when they are in need. That network of support is one of the things that
makes homeschoolers unique.
************
Pam Monck was a civil trial attorney in her previous life-the one before
children. She and her husband, Harry, have been homeschooling since
1993.
