Homeschooling two years later.

I have been thinking about some of the advice I got when I started homeschooling and how it really was true. Only I ignored it... I wish I had not.  When we started to homeschool it was out of necessity and out of the blue. We had talked about it on occasion but never seriously and never with a formal plan. I have a video on how and why it came about on my youtube channel. I will link it it below. Once we were homeschooling I felt lost. I felt like I needed to reproduce public school in my home. I was very concerned about curriculum and content. I wanted to make sure I met all the public school standards. Something I would later learn were different for every school and that they were standards that even the public schools did not meet. For example math has 119 lessons in the public school the teacher would plan to do two lessons per day to finish the math curriculum that year. However, by the end of the year with snow days and sick days and assemblies and early dismissal and any other reason the teacher may only get to 100 lessons. But lets say the public school teacher was on target and did get to all 119 lessons. I realized that just getting through the lessons does not give the student mastery of all 119 lessons. These topics are presented not mastered. Of 35 students how many would master all 119 lessons, or even 110 lessons?  Homeschooling is different in that if there are 119 lessons in 3rd grade math and we do math with a goal of finishing these lessons in 9 months time we still have 3 months to finish up if it takes longer to master these lessons. Homeschooling allows for mastery of a subject and understanding of a concept before it is built upon, rather than presented, practiced, tested and finished regardless of mastery. The same with spelling, vocabulary, grammar and science. I have found that we finish with mastery much faster than 9 months for a 119 lesson math curriculum.  However, I admit at this point two years later this is the only subject I have found that is presented in my sons preferred learning style. He is a full year ahead in math now, and I am focused on finding a language arts program now. So that advice I wish I had taken??? The advice was to take time off, just let life happen and allow life learning to be the homeschooling for a year, an entire year. This time will allow you to get to know your children and their learning styles and give you a chance to look at and test curriculum before you invest in it, wasting money and causing frustration when trying to implement a curriculum that just is not going to work for you and your child. The other bit of advice, join a homeschooling group and do not compare your child to another child. When I look at the other homeschool children I know I see each of them so individually and see some that I am blown away by intelligence and others that I am blown away by their creativity but all in all I am impressed with homeschool children and find myself wondering how others view my child. This is not healthy for me or my child so I have had to stop and assess how I see my child and praise him for his strengths in learning and give encouragement to those areas in which he needs a little push. In the end I have finally found peace with the fact that I am raising children that can choose college or a career based on their likes and dislikes. Unfortunately I have a high schooler that we started homeschooling in her freshmen year and these lessons were not learned earlier. For her we have been following a prescribed graduation path of necessary classes and credits for graduation and admission to a college. I feel like I am losing the battle of her really growing into an adult that knows what direction her future will go. I believe that homeschooling is something that takes time to find your groove and to figure out what makes your child excited. I think that this year because my daughter is a year ahead in credits that I will be addressing areas of college and career so that I can get her on a track with what she will like doing for a lifelong career.  I will finally take the advise to step back and assess her instead of press to meet public school goals that even the schools do not seem to meet.