Tuesday Top Ten (or Eleven): 10 Pieces of Advice I Would Give to a New Homeschooler (plus a bonus!)

So you've decided to homeschool your kids. If you're like me, it seemed like a great idea (not that my husband and I made the decision lightly) until the time to actually start crept closer.  Then the panic set in: "What was I thinking?!"  "I can't do this!  I have no patience!"  "How am I going to teach chemistry?!"

First, take a deep breath.  Relax.  You can do this.  There are a few things to keep in mind to make sure you're successful.

1. Your relationships need to come first.  You are their parent, first and foremost.  Yes, they need to learn discipline, but let that come from household chores rather than academics.  We want them to love learning, right?  Julie Bogart of Brave Writer has lots of great advice on this.  She says to make brownies and tea or hot chocolate and maybe give them a little shoulder massage before they sit down to write.  The point is to make them want to write, to look forward to these times.  If there is a subject that they're really resisting, take a break from it and reflect on why they're resisting so much.  Then you can approach it in a way that is more appealing.  Your goal as a parent is to promote healthy relationships.  And as my Montessori teacher-trainer used to say, "Never get into a battle of wills with a child.  They will win."
2. Become familiar with different learning styles.  There are many, many books on this topic.  Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences is a classic.  Another that I like is Discovering Your Child's Learning Style by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle Hodson.  Knowing how your child(ren) learn will make life for everyone involved much easier.  Expect that if you have more than one child, they will most likely have different learning styles.
3. Don't buy any curriculum until you have a sense of what will work for your children.  Just because your friend loves a particular curriculum doesn't mean that it will work for your family.
4. Use the library.  Your library is a great resource for books, and librarians usually love to suggest or help you look for books.  Some books you will return to again and again so you'll want to own those, but really, most we use for a short time and them move on to something else.  I also recommend going to libraries in neighboring towns as well.
5. Get your kids' input, especially as they get older.  When they're younger, you can try to tie academics in to their interests.  When Swimmah was about 6 and 7, she was heavily into dinosaurs.  I found dinosaur math worksheets at enchantedlearning.com.  I also found early readers at the library about dinosaurs.  They were really a little too advanced for her at first, but because it was a topic she loved, she put more effort into them than she did other early readers.  I was amazed at how quickly she learned to read words like "pachycephalosaurus".  Last year, she and I discussed which Algebra curriculum would work best for her and I narrowed down some of the options so she could choose from 3 or 4.  This helps them learn to take charge of their education.  And really, isn't that the point?
6. Find a support group.  Unless you live way out in the boonies, there should be other homeschoolers around.  It's so nice to have friends who get why you're doing this (for the kids, too!) and to have people to bounce ideas off of, as well as possibly get together to form co-ops and classes.
7. Have them help clean the house.  Really.  You can't do it all, at least not without driving yourself crazy!  Besides, I like to think of it as part of their education.  Someday they will need to be self-sufficient adults.  They will need to know how to clean, do laundry and some basic cooking at least.  And possibly some basic home repairs, like changing a washer on a faucet.
8. Don't sign them up for every activity that comes along.  You will run yourself ragged trying to get them to everything.  I know all those classes and co-ops look so interesting, but try to stick to classes that tie into what you're already studying and/or are related to your child's interest.  Having goals for what you want to accomplish during the year helps with this.
9. Re-read your favorite homeschooling books regularly to keep yourself on track.  This will remind you of why you chose to homeschool in the first place, and keep you motivated.
10. Remember that you are the expert of your own family.  You know your children better than anyone else.  You (and your spouse) should be the ones to make the final decision about what goes on in your home, not the expert on TV, or who wrote that book, or even the well-meaning relative. 
11. Remember that just when you think you have it figured out, they change.  Kids do that!  They grow physically, emotionally, academically.  Every few months, sit down in a quiet moment (or hour) and reflect on what's working and what's not working, and how to fix things if they're not.  I've been doing this the last few years, and I find that it helps immensely.   

Homeschooling is a lot of hard work, but it is so worth it!  Our first year homeschooling, I remember being so tired, it was so much effort.  Like any new job, it gradually got easier (not easy, easier).  Nine years later, it's just life.  :)

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday.