My Naive Heart’s Desire

“When I have children, I’m planning to homeschool them.” I stated it confidently from the back seat of my now-husband’s car, while he was still friend-zoning me. I had my eye on him, but I was so confident in my desire to homeschool, I just wanted to throw that out in case it was a deal breaker for him — before we even started dating. Ha!

Homeschool had been a dream of mine for several years by that point. I had a Bachelor’s Degree in Education, was pursuing a Master’s Degree in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), and spent my days helping little ones learn to read. After seeing the “Literacy Lightbulb” turn on in so many youngster’s brains, I knew I could never miss that moment for my own children. I was going to have a large family, with 4-6 children, and spend my days delighting in the wonder of learning with them.

Our Family’s Story

Fast forward six years, and we’d gotten married, walked through three miscarriages, had a happy,healthy preschooler, and were facing a season of infertility. All the homeschool families I knew at the time had 3+ children, and most often several more. I began to feel restless – if the Lord never gave us any more children, would it really be okay to homeschool an only child? Would I be depriving her of a community that she desperately needed in pursuit of a selfish dream?

I began to pour out my fears to my husband, and he was hesitant to share my concern. I began to search for mommy-blogs on homeschooling small families, and even found a couple of one-child homeschool families who had shared their experience. My husband encouraged me to continue walking forward in the direction of homeschooling.

Around that time, we finally became pregnant with our son. By then preschool “lessons” (a.k.a fifteen minutes of fun with letters and numbers) had started, and I was loving it. She was too!! We had found a few ways to practice social skills, and by now my biggest fear was how I would manage homeschooling with a baby (spoiler: I did, we all grew, and I loved it).

My pregnancy was hard, so hard, in ways that I’ll not share the details of right now. It was so hard that we will likely not pursue having another biological child. However, at this stage, with a seven year old and a two year old, I’m so happy in our decision to homeschool our little family, and I truly believe our children are thriving. I’d wholeheartedly recommend homeschooling in small families, and no longer see it as a detriment to the child.

Thriving in Homeschooling a Small Family

While I truly believe homeschool to be one of the factors that is enabling our entire family to thrive, I’ll be the first to say that homeschooling in a small family does look different. In some ways, the differences make it easier. In other ways, the differences make it feel challenging. Here are a few choices we’ve made along the way to accommodate our smallness as a homeschool family.

Prioritize Community

Because our family is small, we’ve chosen to intentionally pursue building community for my daughter. Her only peer in our home is a toddler, and we’ve valued building peer relationships within her age group. During the past two years, this has looked like a combination of church small group, AWANA club, library events, and now our beloved co-op. Our co-op has been particularly life-giving to our family. While these events represent a small portion of our week, I believe the time has been extremely valuable for her.

In addition to prioritizing peer-based community, we also believe in prioritizing community for the entire family. My husband and I view community within the local church as essential to the life of a growing and mature believer, and we’ve seen the benefits for our entire family as we pursue such community. We also value building community in the community-at-large, and are constantly working on building a community of believers and unbelievers in our area within our extended family, international friends, and neighborhood. While this has taken a great deal of intentionality, and we’re constantly reevaluating our efforts in order to maximize our community, I believe the value is great – both for our own hearts and our children’s as well.

Prioritize Structure

Homeschool time in a little family can be both simpler and more challenging. With only one student to focus on, we can move through our subjects fairly quickly when we’re able to have quality, focused time. It’s also been fairly easy for me to organize our curriculum and to follow along in all the areas – I don’t have multiple older students and multiple curriculums and materials to prepare.

However, building those focused sessions in with a toddler has been tricky. Since I don’t have multiple young children to play together (or multiple older kiddos to take turns distracting the little one), there’s been more need for training my youngest to play independently and create structure and systems that support his independent play time.

When both my children were around 18 months, we began to introduce Blanket Time, and it was such a valuable exercise. We trained them to play independently on a blanket for a set amount of time (starting small and working up to around 20 minutes). This allowed for me to shower, cook, or handle another activity after they were too old for their baby seat.

Now that my son is nearly two, we’ve begun to work on independent playtime in his room, as well as independent playtime in the living room near our school table. I’ve also found it helpful to follow the same basic routine each day, and he’s come to anticipate and look forward to his play time. Now that he has gained the skills for independent play, we’re much more likely to have those focused school sessions that we need while he’s awake (rather than waiting for naptime). It’s taken us a while to get here, but I *finally* feel like we’re rounding the corner of being able to complete the majority of our school day while he’s awake, which felt impossible six months ago. I’m so thankful for this milestone!

Prioritize Delight

I’ve been challenged this year to shift my concerns from worry and scrutiny over the things I cannot control to DELIGHT in the things that are given. Rather than spending my days worrying over the amount of children I’ve been given, I can spend my days DELIGHTING in the two precious souls that the Lord has entrusted to my care. Rather than spending my days fretting about the future, I can spend my days DELIGHTING in the day that the Lord has given me. And rather than spending our days questioning every single decision, I can spend my days DELIGHTING in the God who is over and above every detail and decision, using all my mundane moments and daily decisions to weave together my story for His Glory and My Good.

I’m ever so thankful my husband was not swayed by my fears of homeschooling with a small family, and for him lovingly encouraged me to pursue what we felt the Lord had called us to do. It has been ever more delightful than I anticipated and is growing sweeter by the week. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!