Homegrown Learning: Local homeschooling moms share their experiences | Warrenton Lifestyle

This article was originally published in the May 2025 issue of Warrenton Lifestyle magazine.

Click here to browse an e-edition.

I have to admit, I have always been impressed with parents who homeschool, who take on their children’s education as well as the other responsibilities of raising a family. They must be exhausted. 

For this Mother’s Day issue, we decided to explore the experiences of local moms who choose this route for their families. 

I put out a call to homeschooling moms who would be interested in sharing their thoughts, and the response was huge and varied. Some moms are in their first year of homeschooling, others have many years of experience. Some have preschoolers, others have adult children who have graduated. All were generous in telling us about their experiences. 

Homeschooling is not easy and comes with sacrifices. A lower income, for instance, if the mother is not working full time outside the home. The stress of responsibility. The isolation that sometimes accompanies staying at home. Maintaining a balance between family life and education.

These moms are very honest about the challenges, but the thing that shines through is their dedication to, and pride in, the children they are raising and educating and the strong relationships they are creating with them.

For these moms, it’s working for their families. They power through the ups and downs, often pointing out the importance of support, both academic and emotional, which comes from many sides: spouses, parents, friends, homeschooling groups or co-ops, and online. 

The best way to understand their experiences is to hear it in their own words. While I don’t have room to include all their thoughtful responses, I thank the moms who reached out and contributed to this feature. 

Bethany Hutchinson

For me, there’s a mental load that comes with homeschooling. Not only am I their mother, teaching them manners and morals; I’m also their teacher and completely responsible for their education.

At the end of the day, no one else will ever be as invested in the education of my children. That keeps me going on the tough days.

Anytime we can incorporate food into what we are studying, the children are very happy!

A community is a must! We joined the homeschool community at our church and have been blessed to meet so many amazing families and make lifelong friends. We also joined a co-op that has been invaluable for providing educational and social activities. When the kids were little, it meant we would get out of the house, and I would be able to interact with other adults. Now that my kids are older, I love that I can outsource some tricky high school classes like biology and chemistry.

I love teaching history! I feel like a lot of areas of the world and events were glossed over when I was in school, and I love learning new tidbits with my kids. 

Teresa Hogan

My oldest is 17, and when he has finished with his curriculum for the day, he gets to work on his balloon business, Brennan’s Balloons. Homeschooling has provided him with the time to open a business, grow it within our community and save for a truck.

Honestly, everything we do involves creativity because we constantly figure out ways to teach different things and try new activities.

Homeschooling has been the best decision we have made as parents. We focus on our kids by teaching how they learn. We make special accommodations if we need to …They enjoy it more because they feel like they are learning things that they can apply to their lives when they are adults.

Marilyn Brown

It was very hard to adjust at first. The task of drawing the line between mother and teacher was difficult because you want to make everything a learning experience, but you need that boundary.

I really enjoy the opportunities for growth for my children. They can pursue sports, socialization with all ages from infant through adult, hobbies, and have time to learn. A benefit is the flexibility to take advantage of travel at reasonable rates, furthering their education in a more hands-on way.

My absolute favorite is teaching the girls to read; the excitement when they crack the code is like no other. My next favorite is writing. I feel strongly about the importance of being an eloquent writer especially in today’s society of AI.

Melisa Garney

It’s incredibly rewarding to watch him grow on his own timeline.

I love teaching life skills—everything from communication and cooking to problem-solving and goal setting. Watching my child grow in areas that will help him thrive as an adult is so fulfilling. 

My least favorite subject to teach is math, mainly because my child is really good at it—he’s often one step ahead of me!

Homeschooling has been a transformative experience for our family. It’s not always easy, but it’s incredibly rewarding. It’s allowed my child to thrive in ways that a traditional school setting couldn’t accommodate, and it’s given us the chance to grow and learn together in a deeper, more personal way.

Homeschooling has made us incredibly close. We have the time and space to talk deeply about hard subjects and real-life situations—conversations that might not come up during the hustle of a traditional school routine. I truly feel that our bond is stronger because of this journey.

Kristy Schneider

I think my favorite thing to teach has been service learning. All four of my children have found a love for serving in their communities and have gained so much from their service. They have served at local food banks, a local farm sanctuary, the library, and participated in local clean-up efforts. Collectively, they have served for over 800 hours, and I couldn’t be more proud! 

When we had children, I had never thought of homeschooling, and it has been one of our family’s biggest blessings. It opened up new learning opportunities for our children. It was a different approach that has created four, in my humble opinion, beautiful human beings that have a heart for their communities and are all pursuing their passions. 

It has always been our children’s decision to remain homeschooled, so they love it! They love having the ability to learn about art in a museum instead of from a textbook. They love seeing where Abraham Lincoln was shot instead of watching a movie. They love special opportunities like sleepovers at the Smithsonian. They love attending presidential inaugurations instead of watching it on the news. They love learning how to be their own boss by running their own businesses.

Erika Warner 

Remington

Children: 10-year-old daughter in 5th grade

Years homeschooling: first year

We are enjoying our specific (educational) situation because it allows my daughter to learn what real life work will feel like in her adult life. We homeschool out of my office so when I come to work, she comes to “work” as well. Because of this … we get to have some separation from fun at home and school at work. This is a unique situation … but it is working very well for us. It is also affording her the opportunity to meet lots of people, (and learning to) make good eye contact.

For our family, it’s a collective effort. I have a strong science and math background, so I take the lead in those subjects. My mom is stronger in language and spelling and editing. My husband takes the lead for all questions in her Bible course. 

When we are … visiting some place during normal school hours my daughter will often say, “Just think, if I were in regular school, I wouldn’t be here having fun with you guys.” This makes my heart sing since so many kiddos slowly seem to lose the fun of hanging out with their parents and grandparents as they get older. 

Krista Philips

The most challenging aspect of homeschooling for me was trying to remember the ins/outs of advanced math that I spent years in class rolling my eyes at and thinking, “What do I need to know this stuff for? I’m never gonna use it in real life.” Ha! 

I wouldn’t have traded those (homeschooling) years for anything in the world. Both girls have their master’s, are gainfully employed and productive members of society. The oldest swam competitively in college then coached at the university level. The youngest has two undergrad and two master’s degrees and is an avid runner.

Being a mom is the most important, often least appreciated, but certainly most rewarding job/responsibility God bestowed upon us. To couple that with being a homeschool educator, WOW, just wow … We are so blessed and grateful to have had and seized the opportunity to homeschool.

Lisa Anderson 

We choose to homeschool for many reasons, and with each year, I find more reasons to continue. It works for our family now, and I am loving this season of life! I get to do what I love with those I love most and watch them grow emotionally, behaviorally, mentally, academically and spiritually. I have a strong desire to give my children the best education possible, which, for us, is homeschooling.

There are so many amazing things about homeschooling; it is hard to pick just one, but my favorite part is family time. Other perks include following their individual interests and letting them dig deeper and learn at their own pace, many museum trips, ample socialization, flexibility, helping and guiding them to make appropriate choices and responses when faced with adversity with friends … and an amazing homeschool community, and so much more.

My favorite and also most challenging subject (to teach) is phonics. There is a quiet, incomparable magic in watching your child learn to read and then read to learn.

Sherrie Davidson

I believe homeschooling has helped forge the close bond that my daughter and I share. I have homeschooled my daughter since kindergarten, so we’ve spent a lot of time together! We have so many shared experiences and memories. It’s no secret that the teenage years can be tough, and I’m grateful that I can be here for her whenever she might need me. Although we have a wonderful relationship, that doesn’t mean homeschooling isn’t challenging. We have butted heads a lot during school over the years … There have been tears and I know she has been frustrated with me on countless occasions. But we always work through it, and I think our relationship is stronger because of that. 

Once we decided that we wanted to (homeschool), I personally didn’t think we would be able to make it happen financially. But here we are, twelve years later, and I wouldn’t change a thing. When we first started, we said we would take it a year at a time. At the end of each year, we would discuss how it was going and if it made sense to continue doing it. With every year we saw more benefits of homeschooling. Looking back, I feel so fortunate that we were/are able to homeschool … I feel she has not only received a well-rounded education, but she has also had so many life experiences that have helped mold the amazing young woman she is today. 

Tiffany Musser

No one wants our children to succeed in life more than my husband and I do! 

Twenty-five years ago, when my husband and I decided to homeschool, I had no idea how much I would come to love this decision. Were there hard days? Yes. Was there a lot of trial and error? Yes. Did we pivot direction a few times over those first several years? Yes. But our desire to be the main educators of our children, to lead them and love them through their growing up years, was motivation to persevere through those first years. And here I stand, almost at the finish line, with only two years left in this journey before our last child graduates. Almost thirty years of homeschooling ‘in the books!’ The years have flown. The saying is true, “the days are long, but the years are short.” 

What I loved most about homeschooling was that my children and I could learn together, work together, love together. It gave us the opportunity to be more involved in the community, helping our elderly neighbors, the farmer down the road, the new Mom that just moved to the neighborhood. And getting involved in volunteer activities, sports, music, apprenticing. And with such a broad range of personalities and ages that we were interacting with, it enabled my children to become good communicators, able to hold conversations with the very young, up to the very old, and everyone in between. 

Tracy Lenuik

Like many things, the biggest battle is in the mind. It can be easy to doubt your abilities, convince yourself that you are not fit for the job, or even fear that you may fail your child… the truth is that we have been teaching our children ever since we first met them, and there is no one more equipped to teach children than those who love them the most and know them the best.

I love spending time with my children, and I love that they are building strong relationships with each other. With homeschooling we can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time, and so we enjoy so many things outside of academics—sports, music, gardening, Bible study, serving in the community, etc.