It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
L.R. Knost
Why do we Home Educate?
I guess everyone arrives at the decision to home educate their children from a different place. Each family has it’s unique challenges and flavour and our family was no different. At the end of 1999, my husband and I and our 3 young children, made the decision to shift to Australia. We shifted from the medium-sized New Zealand city of Dunedin to a regional centre in the North East of Victoria.
As the new year began, we dutifully sent our eldest son, who was almost 5 years old, to the local primary school. The first year (prep) proceeded well, with a few hiccoughs along the way. The following year, he entered a composite year 1/2 class and he became increasingly difficult, as his behaviour and happiness deteriorated. He had experienced severe bullying at his 4 year old kindergarten in NZ and traces of this were reappearing.
By Easter break, we were contemplating what would be best for him, going forward. I then had a “chance” conversation, at church, with a Father of 5. He and his wife were home educating their children and were enthusiastic about the benefits. I was intrigued and could not get it out of my mind, and so we set up a visit to their property. After much discussion and thought, my husband and I decided we had nothing to lose; we took our son out of school and have never looked back.
When I told our son of our plans, his reply was “thank you so much, Mummy!” That son, Jordan, is now 26 years old with a lovely wife and a little boy of his own. I have no regrets about our decision and our other 4 children have never had any formal schooling. As I write this in Sep 2021, they range in age from 26 to 15. The three eldest (2 boys and a girl) are studying at University and the 2 youngest boys are still home educating.
It has been and continues to be a wonderful journey, full of challenges, laughter and successes.
What you will find here
In these pages you will find resource and curriculum suggestions, helpful articles and links to great websites, as well as my curriculum outlines for studying Australian and New Zealand history. I hope you find encouragement on your journey or even motivation to dive in and give it a go yourself.
