Natural Black Mom

by Patrice London author of Empowered to Birth Naturally

I always knew I’d be a mom someday. I was one of those little girls who absolutely adored children. I still do. I loved taking care of my younger cousins and because I’m an only child, I always wanted a large family.

What I couldn’t have guessed is that I’d be a homeschooling mother. I always assumed my children would attend school as I did.

I had my first daughter when my husband and I were still in college. I’d take her to some classes with me and she always attended different rehearsals for Opera Workshop, drama clubs and any thing else I was apart of.

I took every opportunity to introduce her to new things in the world around her. I truly enjoyed being with my daughter each day. I loved being there for moments when she discovered something new or was able to verbalize something that I’d went over with her months earlier when she wasn’t even speaking. I didn’t want to miss a single moment.

I didn’t know about homeschooling at all then, but looking back, that’s exactly what I was doing. In fact we were unschooling. All the learning we did together was completely child-led. It was all centered around my daughters interests and it was a lot of fun.

By the time I put my daughter in day-care, I chose a teaching day care so that she could continue learning when we were apart. That’s when we began to have issues. It ended up that because my daughter was fully potty trained and she knew all the material being taught to children her age, she ended up in the class with 4 years old and she was still only 2. This caused many problems as my once self proclaimed “big girl” quickly became a baby again. I wanted her to be able to learn at her own pace but still be a toddler, however, the environment she was in just wasn’t able to provide her that opportunity.

Thankfully, around that time, I met a woman who homeschooled her son. After learning that this was an option that was available to me, I read every book I could find on the subject and, looked up state laws. By the time my daughter turned 4, we left the school system and never looked back. My two younger children have never been to school.

I never imagined I’d live as I do today but I can’t imagine living any other way. I really enjoy being with my children. I only have them for a short time and I want to make every moment count.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Features, Natural Child. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.