When my son Nathan was 3 years old, his uncle asked him,"What's your favorite story?" He expected him to sayor something like that, and Nathan said:"Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo." His uncle was floored.
I think my decision was influenced by my experience of public school. I saw that the days were long and filled with a lot of busy work and I really wanted to teach my kids to think for themselves and be lifelong learners. I didn't see that happening in public school. Plus, I was kind of teased at school—I wasn't in the"in" crowd and I wasn't that happy. I didn't want that for my kids.
He was always ahead, and I didn't want to feel like I was punishing him for being faster—like,"OK, I've got to find more work for you to do because you finished so fast"—so I let him keep moving ahead. He was doing fourth-grade math when he was 5 years old. I think his homeschooling experience helped him develop this entrepreneurial spirit. Not just in developing his independent thinking, but the fact he was immersed in real life. The classroom is an artificial environment, whereas my kids learned in our house. We started building our house right after Nathan was born and it was never really finished in all the time we lived there—there was construction going on from the time he was a baby.
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU HOME SCHOOL