Trepidation:

        Hello fellow traveler.  So you've started on this wonderful, scary, and exciting journey.

        Trepidation, I've been there, too; revisit it often.

        The thing I've found that helped the most, is thinking about what I set out to achieve with my son.

        "I want him to be able to do what ever it is that HE wants to do with his life."

        I felt homeschooling was the best way to that end, and still do.

Note:  My goal is a long-range one.  I won't know how successful I have been for a long time, but things look good so far.

        Another thing that helped me dispel "trepidation" was reading homeschooling success stories, but they were both good and bad.  They usually referred to kids that were the "best" at certain things.  The stories let me know it could be done, but they also seem to put some pressure on me.  I have perfectionist tendency that I have to fight for my sake and my children's sake.  I had to decide long ago that even if something "could" be done, doesn't necessarily mean it "should" be done.

        I've decided to go with a Renaissance (Renascence) kind of education for my children.  That means exposing my kids to lots of things so they can decide what they want.  This means my son won't be the musical child prodigy he had the talent to become, and might have been had he had someone else for a mother.

        My mother and others, (occasionally myself on one of those horrible "what if" days) see this as a waste.  "If someone has the talent, they should be PUSHED in that direction," she says.

        What if, while I'm busy PUSHING him down one road, he miss the turn off to the path he should have really been traveling?

        Not knowing where he may choose to go, it has been my goal to give him the tools it takes to learn whatever he wants to learn.  Where institutional schools seem to teach the facts, I tend to share how to find those facts; how to evaluate the facts he has found; and how to form his own opinion based on those ever changing facts.

        This is the only way I know not to be overwhelmed by the task of homeschooling my children.  There is simply too much to teach, but sharing a love for learning is an enjoyable task.

        I guess there are times when I've lead; other times when I've followed behind ready to catch him if he falls; probably times when I pushed, but the best times are when we traveled together, side-by-side.  It is an incredible adventure.

        I can't wait to see where the Rachel takes me.