With the pandemic, I know that many families are in an educational conundrum and investigating homeschooling. I have seen increased traffic on my site, which I assume has to do with homeschooling. Parents wonder if school will be live in the fall. Will their kids have more e-learning? Will their kids bring home COVID-19 to an at-risk family member? What educational gaps will occur because school was missed or may continued to be missed? There are so many questions and unknowns.

I just wanted to take a minute to share that we are still homeschooling successfully. Eleven years strong. I am thrilled with my children’s education. They each speak two languages. They each play two instruments sufficiently. Our science work rivals my pharmacy school (I went to pharmacy school and then medical school.) biology and chemistry classes. Mathematically, we are on track to complete calculus in the junior year of high school. Athletically, each child has picked a sport they love and practice year round. They each know how to cook. They (can) help me with laundry. I have some fantastic art pieces hanging here and there. They love to watch a good historical documentary or a stupid, cheesy Hollywood movie. They are interesting PEOPLE to be around.

We have a bunch of fun, and I love my family dearly. This is exactly what I envisioned when I realized that I could not practice medicine and raise my family the way my heart wanted to. I had to make a choice. I am a bit particular, and there was not enough of me to raise my kids so that I had no regrets.

I keep very busy heading a gymnastics non-profit club and assistant coaching high school volleyball, and I have not made time to write here for a long time. I would like to. But no matter what, I want you to know that homeschooling can be an exceptionally successful educational platform.

I check my site for comments and questions routinely. If you have homeschooling questions, I can share our experience so you can hear one family’s personal experience.

Here is what I am telling myself during this pandemic:

I WILL see opportunities to learn from tough times. I will NOT FOCUS on the storm in front of all of us now, although I will do what it takes to weather it and see its reality. I WILL know that, although we cannot do what we did before, we can find things that we CAN do. I will know that, although it feels like nothing is going right and everything is going badly, if I am honest, I can find at least a couple of things that are good that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t had to go through this storm.

Best wishes,

Terri F