ABC: Always Be Comparing - Part I: Kids

I'm coming (it's hard for me to say this, I still can't say it definitively) to the conclusion that I will always be comparing my children to other children, no matter what.

When I first started thinking of homeschooling, I dreamed how nice it could feel to not compare my kids to other kids so often. As I walked the halls of the school, I would see the wonderful work of all the kids. I admit, I was looking, mostly to see what my own children were doing and how their artwork, handwriting, sentence structure, use of colors (and the list goes on) compared to that of their peers. I would take note of where my kids excelled, where they needed help and where they landed somewhere in the middle. I would delight in the ares where they excelled and think how brilliant they were. I would wonder how I could help them improve when they fell in the middle. I would panic if I saw that they were lacking in any area. I thought all of these feelings would go away. But I was wrong.

When we first began, I wondered how they were doing. Are they doing more than what is expected of a child their age? Are they falling behind because I'm not doing enough? Is it too much for me to expect them to do so much on their own? Are they too young for a project I picked and I should be more "hands-on" when helping? I felt really lost, and to be honest, I still do.

Their education is in my hands now. I can no longer say,

"Let the teacher figure it out."

Or

"Let the state determine what my child should know and how capable they are."

While I wanted to tailor their education to each individual, a big part in our decision to homeschool in the first place, it is an awesome responsibility. I realize how much I've been relying on others to figure out what my child should know, when they should know it and how they should learn it. For a long time, I haven't had to think about it. I just enrolled my child when they were supposed to, packed their lunch and sent them on their way. Now that the curriculum is up to me to decide, I realize I do not feel confident to make all the decisions.

Without other children to compare to my children, how am I supposed to know if they are ahead, in line or behind? Does it matter? Why does it matter? Should it matter? If they are where they "can be", is that good enough? Do I need to push them to where they "could be"?

Now that we've joined a few homeschooling groups, academic and extra curricular, the comparisons are there. Whether imagined or real, I still feel it. I watch the other kids and see how mine stack up. In some ways it's very comforting to have this gauge. Whether I feel better because it's a familiar place I've been before or whether it gives good feed back as to how we're progressing in our own milestones, I still don't know. For the most part, I like that these comparisons keep me from panicking too much as I see other children excelling and struggling (maybe in some of the same or different areas) just as much my kids are.