by Steve Lambert

When you made the decision to homeschool your children you took the first step on the journey of a lifetime. Establishing a solid beginning to that journey is essential to long-term success. The first three years of homeschooling are the most challenging. We make them more difficult because of our wrong expectations.

The homeschool industry is filled with books and magazine articles showing deliriously happy families, all lined up like well-scrubbed potatoes, eagerly awaiting mother's next breathtaking educational insight. As we quickly discover, however, few real-world homeschool days actually look like the industry advertising.

When you have a balky five-year-old who is refusing to do phonics today, and a 22-month-old who won't give you more than 60 uninterrupted seconds at a stretch to teach, and a pie that has just bubbled over in the oven and set off the smoke detector, it's all too easy to conclude we are failing as homeschoolers. Our experience is not matching up to our expectations.

But remember: You have begun a journey. Some days you'll make more progress than others. Every day is not going to look like the advertising. There will be days when you're ready to throw yourself on the mercy of the school superintendent and plead temporary insanity in your attempt to re-enroll your children before tomorrow morning.

But there will also be days when you've just finished cleaning up the cat's third hairball of the day and suddenly your kindergartner bursts forth with a thoughtful, well-reasoned insight on the world around him which clearly demonstrates that he's been thinking about what you discussed last week. Just when you least expect it- you cover a little ground on your journey! You're actually going somewhere. The journey doesn't look at all like you expected, but you're under way- you're making progress!

I'll talk more in the next issue about how to enjoy the journey you've undertaken. Surely it is the journey of a lifetime!