I struggle with this too. I grew up Catholic, but very Easter-Christmas and a lightweight CCD program. My husband grew up without much religion at all but with passing references to Christianity. Both of our families are very eclectic with religious views from athiests to hardline Catholics and actively practicing Pagans of various beliefs. My kids are exposed to so much, but I would like a religious home too. If I am given a chance to truly homeschool, that would throw more into the problem. Things are compounded by the fact that in our area, there's a good diversity of religions! Hmm. Very tough! Can you participate in both for a while and see where you are comfy? The only think I can think of right now is that even if your children pick up a belief you might not really hold, they might end up doing that as a teen or early twentysomething on their own anyhow as they explore the world. I don't know if that's comforting or not, but it is reality for a lot of people. I have a sister that ended up loving her husband's United Methodist church and going faithfully after her lightweight Catholic fairly non-going upbringing. My husband's brother has gotten into the non-denominational Christian his wife has attended since birth.

We did not get as much done as I'd hoped, but I am thinking about changing things around. Since I know it will be crazy in December with all our commitments, I have decided I am going to put together a unit study of some sort and just do that. Now I'm not sure what I want to do!

Thank you for all your thoughts. I have much to consider! I am not going to make any changes until January. That will give me some time to work things out.

I am going to go against the grain and ask why the GED might be a bad option in this case. We live in a different state, but one of my brothers left high school, eventually took and earned the GED, went to a community college and received an associates, transferred to a university in state and earned his BS and MS. Now he works as a physical therapist. During this process he also applied for and received scholarship money, though I don't remember if he did for that first year of community college. Just to provide another experience example...

I am confused and not sure what terms I should be using to search. I was introduced to SOTW last year which is how I found this forum. I am drawn to the classical 4 year approach to history. I am using SOTW 1 and 3 with my children for afterschooling and am really liking the idea of history being taught in an all-encompassing chronological sense. My kids in public school cover history in weird chunks with each year focusing on one chunk. My 6th grader is covering Ancient history in school and will be mummifying an apple after Thanksgiving Break. My 3rd grader is doing colonial times now and doesn't even cover history in the spring; she will learn things about each state. Today at school their classroom will transform into something like Little House on the Praire with 'slates' and only benches and the lights off and learn from Mcgruffy readers. My first grader is holding up a mayflower in a school play- that's all I've seen her do with "history" at school. American history was taught in 5th grade but was only touched upon. They did do many hands-on activities. Knowing all that, and knowing I am afterschooling with SOTW right now (and hoping my husband will come around to homeschooling in the future), would you continue the every-four-year approach and finish SOTW (and move onto something else the next 4 year cycle) or would you take out a chunk of time and present American history? I was thinking I might do things like a whole-family unit study for American history and start out at the beginning of June next year. It could go into fall and be continued whether they are still in school or if I am given the opportunity to homeschool. I could taylor it to their level and add in timelines or main record book. Then I could pick up again in where they left off in the 4 year cycle. Is this confusing? I feel like they have fun with history in their public school if they cover it at all, but from what I've seen, they don't take it seriously until they start covering civics in 8th grade. (their school is K-8 self contained, no separate middle school.)

What an unfortunate situation. I wish you strength in dealing with this.

hmm. I tried to edit and got " SQL server problem". Weird. I wanted to add that keeping the peace in our family is my priority. Even if I end up unable to homeschool or can only attempt with my youngest two that haven't entered school yet, I really want to enjoy afterschooling with them. I know there are likely many in the same boat that I am where they can't or don't want to homeschool but still want to be active in their kids education. My kids are in school about 7 hours a day for 180 days. A good handful of those days are wasteful and the others are productive. I still have them the rest of the time, and I will make do with it.

My husband has been a teacher for years and years, though for high school aged kids. He is coming at me with that sort of background, so I get a lot of the stereotyped arguments. He also enjoyed his years of school. I however did not fit in socially throughout school and was not challenged. I ended up at the top of my class, but I was lazy and it didn't take much effort. I ended up having to find things on my own outside of school to learn more. I don't want that for my kids. However, right now they are currently in a smaller, more rural school. They have a small class size and do a lot of hands on activities. They are using Saxon math for now, but I have heard it will be dropped when the state switches to Common Core standards. It's not ideal, but they don't seem to have many of the peer problems I see in the bigger cities. It would be an entirely new ball game for high school though. I have always done spontaneous teaching lessons for my kids in my favorite areas- art, life and physical sciences, and history. As I learned and talked to homeschooling families in the area, I started actually planning things out and using more materials. I do things on weekends, evenings, days off, and all last summer. My hope is that my husband will see I can handle things and will relent and let me have a test year. I do have a 4 year old that would be going to K next year so maybe. He gives me the socialization argument and the 'band' argument. I can refute the socialization one, but he is right in that we wouldn't be able to financially provide music lessons to the kids and the schools wouldn't allow partial enrollment here. Baby steps!

My husband is still on the fence regarding homeschooling and I'll be honest- I was (am still) very jealous of the homeschoolers I met. About a year and a half ago I started learning about all the options and materials out there and decided to add to their education. It has been an interesting adventure! I am also envious of those that have their kids in private schools or schools they love. I notice that I pay much more attention to the materials they use in their classrooms than I did before. it helps me see the strengths and deficiencies of their current school. (They are in a small semi-rural public school.) I'm not very happy with the peer influences and my accelerated learners are not challenged very well, but it's adequate. I made this thread because I am new here and I want to record my journey and learn! I don't know if my husband will ever change his mind, but I hope even afterschooling will help us out. I have four kids that are school aged and one will be going to preschool next spring for delays for two hours a day. They use Saxon for math at school and do a lot of hands-on activities. They unfortunately also have to do standardized testing all the time. It's been interesting trying to strike a balance within the restraints of the public school calender.

hello! I am new too and was also lurking. I'm glad I'm not the only newbie here.