My youngest is in Kindergarten and we are closing in on two weeks of homeschooling. My older three are in public school: high school, middle school, and elementary school; which puts me in an awkward spot in the homeschooling culture. I am not new to homeschooling, in fact, if you add up the years that I spent teaching my older three the way that people sometimes do add up their experience, I have taught my children for over 12 years in my home. But, practically speaking I homeschooled some or all of them for a solid 7 years. And, really, I never thought I would go back.

Homeschooling and I? We are not simpatico.

We had our good times, but we also had our misery. I feel like the misery of homeschooling isn’t much talked about, but I promise you. It is there. Or, it was here at any rate.

But, Kindergarten is going ok. Sometime over the summer my daughter decided that she didn’t like learning to read. So, that’s been fun. But, she loves her math and she keeps a notebook where she asks me to help her spell words. Stuff like that is rewarding. We’ve added Charlotte’s Web as a read-aloud to our day, which she loves, and we’ve stepped up our picture book reading. Just this morning I bought her a handwriting book. We’re slowing moving into the year.

I’m still conflicted, but we are pressing ever onward.