Returning to School After Homeschooling

Beverley Paine

"I just wondered if anyone had any experience with starting kids in school after having homeschooled." Ruth

I am sure your children will be fine at school - they may find they have learned different things at different rates and in a different way to the other kids but at this age it's not that critical and they'll quickly settle.

Don't give up your dreams... Okay, you're not homeschooling from now on and your little angels won't be with you all day long but you're still a mother intensely interested in their education and well-being. You'll find that you still have the most important role to play in their education: education success depends not on the quality of the schooling experience or even the type or quality of resources available but on the loving attention and care of parents. When we give our children the attention they deserve they thrive. If we delegate that to strangers then we can expect ad hoc results.

So, continue being a hands-on mum whenever you can - after school, before school, on the weekend and during school holidays. Don't be all over them, giving them more school work or lessons but be there for them, answering their questions, making sure they have enough art and craft materials at home, keep building your science resources, keep going on those educational excursions as a family, etc.

Don't think of this as giving up your dream of educating your children, but rather as building it in a different direction.