Asalamu Alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu,

How are you, my dear sister?  I hope you’ve had a wonderful week.

So we spoke about the ‘irritated homeschool mom’ some time ago. Now, let’s move onto the ‘apprehensive’ homeschool mom.  You either were an apprehensive homeschool mom, went through a phase of being one, or are currently one right now. The reality is, regardless of whether you had decided to homeschool your children whilst they were still in your womb, didn’t even think of homeschooling and it came out of the blue, or whether you’ve just taken the plunge, we all have moments of apprehension.  At some point or another, you get that niggling feeling telling you that you’re not cut out for this.  Then uncertainty takes over, and lo and behold, you start to panic…

When it comes to the academic side of schooling which others may not think you are ‘qualified enough’ for, it’s easy for self-doubt to overshadow all the progress you’ve already made.

But in this post, I don’t want to discuss the fears we have associated with academics per se.  There’s a tonne of resources already out there; homeschool groups, online forums and support both in-person and online that’s available to all of us thus those fears can be put to rest pretty quickly.

The apprehension I want to discuss is the apprehension we as mothers face when it comes to teaching our children their faith, and the niggling feeling you get in this case is…

exactly the same.

However, I think its fair to say that mothers that are more susceptible to this are perhaps sisters who are reverts, who still feel they themselves are finding their own feet so wouldn’t know where to begin with teaching their children.  Or perhaps sisters from  ‘non-practising’ families, who are also trying to perfect their own foundations.

Whatever the case may be, our belief that we ‘don’t know enough’ can lead us becoming apprehensive of teaching our children, and we begin to question our decision to homeschool in the first place.   So we google search local Islamic schools, thinking it would be better if someone else took that role, whilst we can continue to ‘find our feet’.

But the reality is, we are never going to be knowledgeable enough.  Seeking knowledge is a lifelong journey, it never stops. And rather than viewing homeschooling or teaching our children in general as a halt on that journey, why not use it to our advantage?

Why don’t we become students alongside our children?  Let us allow that desire to learn and strengthen our faith to be intertwined with teaching our children.

Because it’s all too easy to have the mindset of

‘Well, my time to learn has passed. Now its time to focus on my children and give them the strong foundation that I didn’t have.’

But that doesn’t have to be done at an arm’s length.  Join in!

Build your own foundation whilst building theirs.  Teach them general concepts, whilst they’re young.  And then utilise the time you have until they are ready for more detailed concepts to delve deeper yourself, so when they are of age you feel more equipped.

If you haven’t memorised much of the Qur’an yet, memorise with your kiddos, there’s no shame!  In fact, it’s a good thing for our children to see our continued efforts of actively seeking knowledge.  I remember reading about a sister who was homeschooling her eight children and memorised Qur’an alongside teaching them, how inspirational subhanAllah!

And I’d like to clarify that I don’t mean we shouldn’t get our children teachers etc.  That is definitely beneficial.  What I mean is that we shouldn’t feel that our learning journeys should stop in order for us to start our children on the path to seeking knowledge.  Or that there is shame in not knowing everything.

I mean, what better time to start??