Our family has just begun our sixth year of homeschooling. I am looking forward to it with excitement and anticipation and a tiny bit of nervousness. Homeschooling my children is one of my favorite things in the world. I look back to our first year of homeschooling. When our oldest began Kindergarten I was very nervous and scared. The idea that my child's entire education rested in my hands terrified me. After five years, I still have my moments of insecurity but feel much more confident in our homeschooling endeavor. There are several things I have learned over these past five years (and I am sure I will learn much more in the years to come) but the main thing I have learned is to keep Christ the center of our school. In the past, I have sometimes allowed other gods to rear their ugly heads and to control our homeschool for a time. I am sure I will struggle with them in the future as well. I would like to share with you about my experience with these other "gods".

1) The Schedule god: This is the god that I struggle with the most. We have five children. I am home educating four of them, have speech therapy with another one of them, have a toddler that needs my attention, want to make sure that I keep time for my husband since our marriage needs to be a priority, and then of course there is church, ministries, housework, laundry, and everything else that comes with being a full-time, homeschooling, churchgoing wife and mother. Because of this, during the school year, I have to keep a some what rigid schedule. This is important and a good thing for me to do. However, I need to remember that this schedule is not my god. There are many ways that I have allowed "the Schedule god" to control me. When one of the smaller children get and "owie" or want me to get a puzzle down for them when "math with Joshua" is on the schedule, it can be frustrating to me.  When the toddler wakes up early from her nap and "cleaning the bathroom" is on my schedule, it can be frustrating. When one of my children come running in to tell me of some wonderful discovery they want me to come and see, I may smile on the outside but inside I am frustrated. I need to remember that God is in control of "my" schedule. He has allowed these interruptions to happen in my life for a reason. 

Another way that I have been a slave to "the Schedule god" in the past is by not taking the time to teach and train my children in chores. My older boys are truly a help to me as they help me with the work around the house but the younger children are definitely still in the "training" period. It is much easier and quicker and, of course helps me stay on schedule, if I do all the work myself and let them go off and play. However, it is my responsibility as a parent to train them, even if it does take them longer. To not teach them these things would be failure on my part as a parent to teach my children responsibility, work ethics, and life skills.

Yes, a schedule is important. I really need to have one in order to accomplish all that I need to do. God allows interruption to happen. I need to give my schedule to Him and not feel that I am in complete control of it. Basically, it boils down to trusting Him over myself.

2) The Curriculum god: Another god that I have been guilty of following in the past is "the curriculum god". First of all, before I even order school material I need to pray about it and ask God to show me what he wants me to teach my children that year. There is so much good material out there. In the past I have had all these "wonderful" ideas on how what books would be best for my children's education without taking the time to pray about it and then I wonder  why our school year is not going well and the books just "don't work". Every time that I have taken the time to pray before I order books, we have had much better success with our material. 

Another thing I have been guilty of in the past is to allow the curriculum to control our school. For example, when the phonics program I ordered to teach our oldest child was a good program but there was one aspect of it that I did not like. I thought of another way to teach that part of phonics to my son that I thought would be much more enjoyable. However, I had put money into this curriculum and felt that we "had" to use the whole thing. When the year was nearly over I tried my idea and my son learned this concept more quickly and enjoyed it better. That experience taught me to "Make the curriculum work for me instead of me work for the curriculum". I occasionally still find that I am a slave to "the curriculum god" but I did learn this lesson much more quickly then I have learned to not bow to "the schedule god".

3) The education god: Next to salvation and godly character, I feel that the most important thing for my children is that they are well educated. Math, language arts, science, history, geography and all the other subjects are very important. My children's education takes a high priority in our schedule and in our lifestyle. However, I pray that I will remember that if occasionally our older, lonely neighbor lady drops in for an hour in the middle of our "prime" school time or one of the children are sick and we have to miss school that day that life as we know it will not come to an end. In fact, one thing that I plan to do this coming school year is to take one day off from our regular subjects each month and have a "ministry day". I hope to use that day to visit lonely, elderly neighbors or to make a meal for another church family that may be going through a hardship or to write letters to someone who needs encouragement.

I also need to remember that character comes first. If one of my younger children is being disobedient while I am doing history with an older child, I need to go deal with the younger child's behavior and leave the history lesson for later (This has been a tough thing for me to learn. I still struggle with it.). Actually "the Schedule god" and "the Education god" are twins. They often over lap. Yes, all those wonderful school subjects are important, in fact they are essential, but they should not be worshiped as gods. I pray that I will remember that this coming school year. 

4) The personal pride god: Ouch! This one hits close to home! I have to confess that in the past I have had a "holier than thou" attitude with people who do not homeschool. Homeschooling is one of my "passions" and something that I feel very strongly about. However, this is not an excuse to "look down" on those who do not home educate their children. 

The Lord really showed me how sinful this attitude is with a certain experience. A friend wrote to me telling my why she would never homeschool. I suppose it would have been appropriate to write back and explain why we homeschool if I had done it in a kind and gracious manner. However, instead I wrote her back with a "holier than thou", superior attitude. She wrote me back and correctly accused me of being proud. I later wrote and apologized but the Lord used that experience to humble me. I no longer look at people who do not homeschool with a "I can't believe you SEND our child to school when you could be homeschooling him!" attitude.

Another way that I need to guard against "the personal pride god" is with other homeschoolers. There are many, many ways to home educate our children: textbooks, unit studies, Charlotte Mason's methods, the notebook method, classical education and many more. Obviously each of us believe that our method is best for our children or else we would not be using it. However we need to guard against the "my way or the highway" attitude. Just because God has led our family to homeschool in a certain way does not mean that God has led every family to educate their children that way. 

This coming school year, it is my hope and my prayer that I will not bow to any of these gods but only to the one true God. I pray that I will always remember that He, not me, is the one in charge of our home school. I pray that I will not see interruptions as intrusions but as situations that God has sent into our lives. I pray that I will God's desires for my children will be mine and, therefore, godly character training will have top priority. I pray that everything I say and do as I teach my children will be honoring to Him. May God bless each of you as you home educate your children.

If you feel it would be an encouragement or a blessing to someone, you have the Stilwell's permission to forward this article in its entirety. They just ask that you include this note at the bottom of the article with their name and e-mail address (Jeff and Kim Stilwell, jkstilwell@juno.com) in case someone wishes to contact them. Thank you.

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