I’ve done quite a bit of thinking lately about how I’ve adapted our homeschooling journey according to our personality types. Caroline is an INFP and I am an INFJ. Caroline’s personality type has definitely had an impact on how I’ve homeschooled her. 

We made the decision to add a fifth year to her high school education for multiple reasons. One of the reasons was recognizing the need to take a break mid-week at this point of her homeschool journey. Many families homeschool Monday through Thursday and then leave Fridays for catch-up, field trips, etc. We selected our day off as Wednesday so we could decompress part way through the week. We don’t do any catch-up or field trips that day. It is an open-ended day when Caroline can do what she feels she needs. It has worked very well this year, especially since January. 

I shared the video below in my post What This Introvert Learned and Did This Summer, but wanted to share it again. In that post, I said:

Caroline (INFP) and I (INFJ) both found this video incredibly accurate. The only part we disagreed with is that neither one of us suffer from social anxiety or fear of going out. It’s often just too people-y (as we call it) and it takes us a long time to decompress from all of it when we get home. By long time I mean it can take days depending on what we’ve done. This was the big issue with my position at church. It meant way too many Sunday meetings which then derailed our homeschool week. We need a different kind of life. We are happiest with a different kind of life. We also didn’t like the word shame as she used it. We would use the word misunderstood instead.

There is no one way to homeschool your child. You should homeschool her in the way she will thrive educationally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says or thinks. You don’t owe them an explanation. 

It is difficult to be misunderstood by those who don’t relate to the way you are wired and what you need. But we should be modeling for our children how to live according to the way God made them in the midst of a culture that frequently expects and demands just the opposite. This includes how we homeschool them. My goal it to give Caroline an excellent education that meets her unique needs, not produce a performance that will win the approval of people who barely know or appreciate us. 

So this video is for the homeschooling hermits and the parents of hermits. It is for the people who love home, are happiest doing their own thing, and are grateful God made them the way He did.

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