Our first year of homeschooling was really hard, I hadn’t yet found my footing or confidence in what I was doing. I was worried about people judging my choices. I didn’t know how to be a confident homeschooling mom and it ate away at me. The worst part about all of this was that I had no one to turn to who understood what I was going through. I didn’t realize the importance of having a support system.
As we are now diving into our third year, I realize how important it is to find your tribe. No one is ever going to understand your struggles or celebrate your accomplishments more than those who are walking the same path. Having that like-minded community to turn to for advice and support is probably one of my most treasured homeschooling resources. People now ask me what the one thing you need as a homeschooler and I will respond with having a community. Which to some might seem fairly obvious but when you are rushing from activity to activity and meeting tons of people all the time you can feel like you are getting enough interaction without growing meaningful relationship and that’s what I was missing out on!
Now that we have been homeschool for a while now I also feel like it’s important for me to be a part of a community so that I am able to share our experiences. I think that it’s so important for those who walk before to share the knowledge with those who are following after. Homeschooling is still a fairly new concept to the general population so I think that if we are all sticking together and sharing knowledge it will make the experience better for everyone!
I’m going to be brutally honest now, if your an introvert and you find it hard to make connections, this is going to be really hard. I mean, crawl under your blankets and try to think up excuses to never come out. I know this because this is exactly how I felt when I started trying to meet people. The good part is that it gets easier and you will find some really great people. I was terrified to put myself out there but after while of feeling alone I decided enough was enough and I planned a coffee night at the local Starbucks. To my surprise, five other people came and they all said they were happy about me planning this event because they were feeling the same, WE ALL WANTED COMMUNITY!
