by Renée Gotcher

If you’ve been homeschooling for any amount of time, I’m sure you’ve encountered at least one person who has questioned your decision to do so. I remember when we began homeschooling in 2010, every time I met someone new and introduced myself as a homeschooling mom, the response would be, “Why did you decide to homeschool?” 

This familiar conversation got more interesting when the inquisitor found out that my husband and I were both homeschooled for part of our schooling years back in the 1980s—their furrowed brows shot up, their mouths gaped open with shock, and their tone immediately shifted. “Really—you were homeschooled?”

Fast forward to 2025: Homeschooling is far more prevalent, and reasons for choosing it are more commonly understood. In our final years of homeschooling (our youngest graduated from high school last spring), the “why” question became less scrutinizing and more inquisitive. However, even as homeschooling has grown in acceptance, I’m sure you’ve had to explain yourself more than a few times. 

Because we’ve already weighed the pros and cons of our decision, we’re usually prepared to answer without hesitation. After all, we convinced ourselves first before embarking on the journey, then possibly had to make a persuasive case to close friends, family members, or maybe even a spouse. Knowing your initial “why” helped you decide to homeschool in the first place. 

It’s Not All About What You Do

Once you made that decision, you opened up a whole new box of questions. Questions like:

• What is my teaching style? What are my children’s learning styles?
• What curriculum should we use? What “kind” of homeschooler am I?
• What enrichment activities should my children participate in?
• Do we want to join any co-op opportunities?
• What about that homeschooling supermom? Should I be doing what she’s doing?
• What if I’m not doing it right? How do I know what’s right for us?

Even though my husband and I both had a positive experience being homeschooled, I struggled with the decision when the time came. When we finally resolved to start homeschooling, I was immediately overwhelmed by curriculum choices, educational methods, learning styles, daily schedule variances, and everything else that homeschoolers debate about these days. 

Compared to the years when our parents homeschooled, options and resources had become vast and diverse. I quickly found myself filled with self-doubt, confusion, and insecurity, and it was hard not to constantly compare myself with others. 

As you approach the final months of this homeschooling year, you might be experiencing some of this overwhelm—wondering if you’ve made all the “right” choices so your children can do well on assessment tests and you can check off all the boxes on your list of expectations. 

Do you struggle to stay out of the comparison trap? Are you second-guessing your choices and contemplating what you should change as you are faced with even more options promising “better” outcomes? Are you starting to doubt whether you should continue to homeschool?

It’s About Why You Do It

I’ve been there; but by God’s grace, I didn’t stay there too long. As we approached the end of our overwhelming first year of homeschooling, it became clear that we needed to reassess our “why” if we were going to find clarity about how we were going to direct our homeschool.

As followers of Christ, our end-in-mind goal should be to reach our children’s hearts—or as Scripture puts it, to store up God’s Word in our own hearts, and then teach His Word diligently to our children by the way we live throughout the day, every day (Deut. 6:6-7). 

For us, homeschooling was never about “doing school” at home, but discipling our daughters as we educated them. A wise homeschooling mentor who spoke at our local homeschool encouragement group years ago put it in these words: “It’s not what you do, but why you do it.”

Starting With the End in Mind

Your “why” is the agreement between you and God about how to reach the hearts of your children. When you keep this agreement in focus, you’ll be less tempted to stray off your path because of comparison, someone else’s favorite curriculum, more diverse programs, or the latest homeschooling fad.

Along with Deuteronomy 6:6-7, these verses became the core of our homeschooling mission:

• Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6 NKJV).
• Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV).
• For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Mark 8:36 NKJV)
• All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV).

Defining Your Homeschool Mission

Once you have laid the foundation for your homeschooling with the end in mind, the next step is to define your mission in terms that will help you make decisions about “all the things” that come with homeschooling. Every homeschooling family’s mission will be unique to them, but that is the beauty of it all. Homeschooling is about the heart of your family—how you uniquely operate. Whatever homeschooling means to you, trust that God has equipped you for your particular journey. 

Questions to pray about and discuss with your spouse:

• What is the most important reason that we’ve decided to homeschool?
• What other benefits of homeschooling are very important to us?
• Are we on the same page about why we are homeschooling? What still needs to be clarified?
• What are our non-negotiables for how we will homeschool? What areas are flexible?
• What criteria should we use to evaluate our efforts and results?
• How will we approach schooling with the different ages and learning styles of our children?
• How can we work together? How will we manage the workload of homeschooling around our other responsibilities?
• What are we willing to live without in order to accommodate homeschooling?
• Are there any reasons why we might stop homeschooling?

As you answer these questions together, your homeschool mission will become clear. Then put your mission statement on paper and share it with your children. They should also have a clear understanding about the “why” and “how” of your homeschool. 

Once your mission statement is established, you can use it to guide you in evaluating decisions such as curriculum choices, teaching methods, scheduling, co-ops, extracurricular activities, etc. And when “life happens,”  your mission statement can help you remember your “why” and keep you focused on what really matters as you adjust and re-prioritize where necessary. 

Defining our family’s homeschool mission helped us navigate many stormy seasons that followed. It also helped guide us when we struggled to stay afloat financially. We made curriculum changes that fit our mission and our family’s learning/teaching styles. We cut back on enrichment activities to focus on those that supported our mission. After a few years of making small adjustments based on our end-in-mind goal, I had peace that no matter what life might throw at us along the way, God was directing our journey and would work all things for our good and His glory.

If this approach is new to you, ask the Lord to solidify your focus and mission for your homeschool. Dive into Scripture and take note of key verses that stand out as directives for your homeschooling mission. Let go of your to-do list and allow God to direct your steps as a homeschooling parent. He will guide you, equip you, and sustain you to reach that finish line!

Your Homeschooling Friend,

Renée Gotcher

P.S. Are you experiencing feelings of homeschool burnout right now? Or confusion about whether to change curriculum, co-ops, and other available homeschool supplemental opportunities? Share your struggles and victories in this area in the comments below. We’d love to pray for your family!

About the Author: Renée Gotcher

Renée Gotcher is a freelance writer, editor, and recently “retired” homeschooling mother of three daughters (her youngest started attending Bob Jones University last fall). Renée and her husband of 30 years, Kenny, are next-generation homeschoolers who were homeschooled for part of their schooling and started homeschooling when they moved to Castle Rock in 2010. Soon after, she launched a homeschooling blog, NextGenHomeschool.com, and actively supported the local homeschool community through part-time teaching, administrative roles, and volunteer leadership positions at homeschool support programs. As a freelancer, she contributed to “Life Changing Stories: A Devotional Collection Revealing God’s Faithfulness and Transforming Power” and currently writes monthly devotionals for the Daybreak Devotions series on Crossmap.com and her personal blog, The Pace of Grace.