Adventures in Parenting: Homeschooling

Sometimes life throws curve balls.

Earlier this month, we were confronted with a problem. The school year was off to a very bumpy start for our oldest daughter. Our middle daughter had just switched into the same school as her sister, which only made things more complicated (take my word for it). After trying several traditional schools, we’d been really happy at this unconventional one for a couple of years, but the problems that had come up were too significant to overlook. We had to face reality: this school was no longer the right fit.

Our options going forward were not great. For many reasons, we felt that transferring the kids into a public school (or another private school) six weeks into the new school year would be really hard for them, both socially and academically. There was only one good choice, so we took a deep breath and made it.

We withdrew the girls from school and I’m homeschooling them for the rest of this year (and maybe beyond — we’ll see). My youngest is staying put in preschool for now.

I’m used to being busy, but there was no feasible way for me to keep my entire workload at Magic Beans and manage homeschooling at the same time. So for the time being, I’m scaling back my responsibilities at Magic Beans… somewhat. I’ll still be in the office a couple of days a week, I’ll stay involved in strategic decisions and I’ll keep doing many of the marketing initiatives I love (including the blog). I still won’t get much sleep. I just won’t be as involved in the minute-to-minute aspects of the business. I’m not worried — the beauty of running a business with your husband and brother-in-law is that you know they’ve always got your back. And we have a truly amazing team here, which helps a lot too.

So life throws curve balls sometimes. This is a big transition, but a good one. I’ve been focused on building Magic Beans since my oldest was just 20 months old. Now, suddenly, she’s 10 and her sister is 8 and I get to focus on them for a change. It’s a little scary but also refreshing and wonderful.

It’s possible you’re reading this and thinking, “she’s crazy.” And that’s probably true. But we’re going to give this a shot and see how it goes. So just wish me luck.

I’ll blog about this new adventure periodically, and you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram (sherigurock). And for any of you veteran homeschoolers out there, I’ll take any advice I can get.

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