Repost and update from 2-21
It’s a good thing people in their twenties don’t listen to anyone older than themselves. Why? Well, if twenty-year-olds listened it might be the end of the human race. Because raising kids has to be the hardest thing ever.
Not only do you have to keep this little person alive, but you have to make decisions that affect the course of their lives. My overactive imagination just might explode with the pressure of these decisions from time to time.
In all honesty, my kids are the reason I get up and usually the reason I go to sleep as well. I am so thankful for who my kids are, and the woman they are making me into. But nearly every year I go into a wrestling match with myself over our school choices.
Nowadays there are so many options, Public, Private, Homeschool, Co-op, Charter, Classical Homeschool, Charlotte Mason. Then now thanks to Covid-19 we can add virtual schooling to the list also.
Each one has positives and negatives, maybe not negatives but sacrifices. Then some parents have the option to make a choice and some have limited options.
But I loved what one fellow momma at my church said once, ‘Every year we try to make the best decisions for our kids and our family. Some years that’s a charter school. Some years homeschooling, and sometimes public.’ When she said this, it took a lot of weight off my young momma’s shoulders.
The school’s decision isn’t set in stone. It’s fluid and can change if that’s what’s best for your kiddo. And what might be best for one of your kids might be different for the next.
One of my kiddos struggles in social situations, and at some point in the school year, I always have to seek the Lord, if the decision we’ve made is truly what’s best for him. Even he begs for a change in schooling sometimes. And I have to communicate to him that his Dad and I are taking this decision to the Lord and leaning on peace and godly council to make the right decision. God has always been faithful to give us an answer.
Even in the pandemic, while doing on-line school, I had to approach the Lord about the ‘homeschool’ opportunity he had provided. Because there was both fruit and famine in that season.
What I’m hoping to communicate here, is that you can let go of the decision-making pressure when it comes to school choices. Good kids come out of bad schools and bad kids come out of good schools. The focus of any decision with your kids needs to be the health and goals of your family.
God is a god of the details and wants good for you and your kids. He will direct your steps and guide you toward His best if you seek him.
Bible Teacher Jen Wilkins had some great points in a recent debate held by the Gospel Coalition. She raised some really good points about public school and the attitude even people within the church have toward not just families in the public sector but teachers as well.
Some great tools I’ve used in my school choice journey are listed here below.
Going Public- by David Pritchard
A Delectable Education Podcast by Liz Cottrill, Emily Kiser, and Nicole Williams