Ever since I set up my ‘how to start homeschooling‘ free mailing list, I have been getting a lot of questions.

I realized that the same questions come up over and over again. Like this one :

Here is my answer…

I think that schools have done us a great disservice in making us think that we must ‘teach’ children!

Children are hard-wired to learn and you will probably find that you can’t keep up with him. My children are forever surprising me with things they know – things I don’t know even! We often learn things together and it is amazing how much we learn from conversations and just being out and about.

You are sure to be able to teach him ‘enough’ – it will be hard not too!

In terms of grade, that is an arbitrary level imposed so that schools can monitor their effectiveness. But this doesn’t need to apply with homeschooling. Children fluctuate in their learning. Sometimes behind, sometimes ahead. Learning isn’t a lovely smooth curve. It happens in leaps and bounds then a chance to catch your breath!

Sometimes you might feel that you aren’t keeping up in certain areas and then ‘whoosh’, you will do a whole lot in one go. And over a period of time all the grade level subjects will be covered.

I have collected together my answers to faq, and those of my facebook fans, into a downloadable book. Just go and ‘like’ my homeschooling-ideas facebook page and you will find it under the ‘downloads tab’.

What do you think? Is this something you worried about when you started homeschooling? What answer would you give?