Have you every thought about who knows your child best?
I am pretty sure that I am not the only person who has encountered a relative or friend or neighbor or even a doctor who told you something that just did not sit quite right about your child. If you have ever been in a situation where someone tells you what you should be doing with your child, remember who knows your child best.
Have you ever been faced with someone who tells you at a playground or at a backyard BBQ that your child really needs ____?
As homeschooling parents we can probably fill in the blank with any number of choices from a menu of those all-too-familiar objections to homeschooling we have all heard. It might be that someone thinks your child needs more structure in his day, or testing to determine that he is learning whatever the state has determined constitutes a rounded and complete education for a child of a given age. It really doesn’t matter what is in that blank.
The real point is that you know who actually knows your child best.
When we are young parents, with our first child in diapers, we are uncertain. Carrying the responsibility for care and raising of a human being is a huge responsibility and many times after my children were born, I turned to books and experts and family and friends for advice. I think at the time I wasn’t really looking for advice though, I was looking for someone to tell me what was best for my children. I was scared to take on the full scope of that responsibility.
Over time I have come to realize, though, that asking someone else for advice is fine but asking someone else for answers is a mistake. You are your child’s mother. You were the first voice he heard and the first heartbeat he felt. You have been in turn listening to him, feeling for kicks, listening for cries in the night that need to be understood, knowing his moods and sensing immediately when his toddler self was going to make a break for it and try to run across the grass in the playground.
If you stop reading this for just a moment, close your eyes, and think back, you will realize that you knew all along when your child needed you over the years. You knew what he needed too.
You were probably wrapped up in life at the time and did not realize how much you already understood and so you went out seeking the advice of others. But you actually knew. How? That part is easy. You knew, and you continue to know what your child needs because you have been alongside him his whole life. That is where your intuition comes from, and if you listen you will hear that voice in your inner self telling you what he needs and when he needs it. If you are busy with life and forget to listen, you will likely feel a nudge. That tap on the shoulder always feels to me like a hugely important thought that I just cannot shake. Sometimes I know what that thought means and other times it is just a nondescript thought. I know where these nudges come from, and I suspect you do to.
But the overall point is that you are the person who knows what your child needs.
You are the person who senses when he needs it, and you are the person who is best qualified to identify the path and the means to helping your child.
It does not matter if your child needs to learn to walk, read, do math, learn history writing, or a foreign language. If your child is hurt, or has lost sight of the boundaries of decent behavior. You, Mom, are the person who knows best what he needs and how to reach him.
You might need advice or study, or even someone to provide some help, but you are the person who knows. Only you. So don’t worry or second guess yourself. Trust your instincts and that tap on the shoulder that tells you to pay attention. You have got this, Mom. Yes, you will need help along the way, but you have be best ability of anyone to know and help and reach your child when he needs help.
