Homeschooling our children

I was motivated to jot down some of our reasons for homeschooling Mason. These are just a few, but this seems to be my "short" answer when asked, why we are doing this......

The most important reason we are homeschooling is the spiritual side. Proverbs 22:6 - Train up your child in the way he should go, even when he is old he should not depart from it. This verse has been on my heart for months and both Allen and I feel that that is best accomplished with us being the primary teachers in all areas of their lives.

Educational reasons came in to play with Mason, since he is above grade level in all subjects. He is reading at about a 2nd grade level and really his school could not accommodate that. His teacher had 29 other students to help learn letter recognition, that Mason was the least of her worries. He didn't seem to mind this at school - but doing the mindless homework was a battle at home. We tried to challenge him at home, but his brain was already done and he didn't want to "do school" anymore.

Emotionally: I feel that kids grow up too quick these days. Girls as young as 4 are watching High School Musical and Hannah Montana. These shows are not bad in themselves, in fact they are great shows. But these shows are all about older girls who are boy-crazy and my little girl doesn't need to know about this stuff until much later. Boys are more violent these days and I know it plays into the video game/TV overload of our society. We are very conservative when it comes to what our kids watch, sometimes I think we might be too conservative, but this is just how we choose to play it. If I can "shelter" him and keep him young as much as possible, then that is a plus for our decision. We want to be the ones to mold his character, not his 5 year old peer. We want to be the one to teach him right and wrong and to give him "God knowledge" through out the day.

Just yesterday, our first day of homeschooling, Mason asked me about being baptized and what that meant. We were reading a bible story that mentioned that. This solidified my decision. I was there to answer an important question in his mind. The most important subject that we can teach our kids is about loving Jesus and I'm excited to be able to be there to do this with him.

I feel like most of my reasons can be accomplished in a school setting, but for our family it can be accomplished better at home. Allen and I have to stand before God one day and answer to the way we raised His children and we want to be able to say that we did the best that we could.