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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

What to do when your spouse doesn't want to homeschool

Deciding to homeshool is not an easy decision (at least it hasn't been for us) but I have felt from the very beginning in my heart that it was something I wanted to do.

I am certainly not an expert in any way but for anyone that has a spouse that does not want to homeschool I thought I would share a few suggestions that helped me:


1. Approach the subject of homeschooling when you are both in a good mood .  

2. Offer your spouse a book to read on the subject so they can learn about it at their own pace. I really like "Family Matters" by David Guterson.

3. Make your own list of why homeschooling would benefit your family. I started off by googling "benefits of homeschooling" as a starting point & came up with my own list that way. Share the list with your spouse. When they are ready ask them how they feel about your list (in my experience it took a couple days for my hubby to go over the list mentally in his head...he asked me for space & then came to me when he was ready to talk about it.)

4. Assure your spouse that whatever decision you make doesn't have to be a forever thing. One concern  I discovered with my hubby was that he was worried our son would not be able to switch back to  public school if at a later time we decided homeschooling wasn't right for our family.

5. Start reaching out to other homeschoolers. I found that as soon as my husband started hearing about/seeing other homeschooling families it made it easier for him to connect with the thought of homeschooling. Make an effort to meet a homeschooling family...your spouse will see that they are just like any other family out there!

6. Go ahead & homeschool your child!   While my son was still attending school I spent time on evenings & weekends doing "cool homeschooling stuff". My husband saw how excited my son was & best of all how much he was learning!

7. Do not play your child against your spouse. I made sure to discuss the IDEA of homeschooling with my son to make sure it was something he would be interested in doing, but I also made sure not to pit my son against my hubby about the issue.

8. Give them time to think about it. This was the hardest part for me! I always like to be talking about the things that interest me & it was hard not to share all my ideas & excitement about homeschooling with my husband.

9. "Accidentally" leave an article on the benifits of homeschooling sitting on the table ;)

   It is hard when one parent wants to homeschool but the other does not. This has definately been the biggest challenge in homeschooling for me so far. Good luck!

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