It’s a good thing people in their twenties don’t listen to anyone older than themselves. Why?
Well, if twenty-year olds actually 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 the school choices we’ve made.
Nowadays there are so many options, Public, Private, Homeschool, Co-op, Charter, Classical Homeschool, Charlotte Mason. Now thanks to Covid-19 we can add in 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 charter school. Some years homeschooling, and sometimes public.’ When she said this, it took a lot of weight of my young momma shoulders.
The school 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, on 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 online school, I really had to approach the Lord on 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 on any decision with your kids needs to be the health and goals of your family.
God is a god of the details and he wants good for you and for your kids. If you seek him he will direct your steps and guide you toward His best.
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