I had already made the decision -- I was going to homeschool my son. But I also knew I needed to continue as assistant editor at the magazine publishing company where I worked. This job required a 25-mile round trip each day, and took me away from home for about six hours a day.

We made the decision to homeschool after my son finished the 6th grade. I had heard of homeschooling, but never knew anyone who had done it. I spent that summer trying to find as much information as possible.

After much research, locating homeschool support groups, and complying with Florida's homeschool requirements, we were ready. The only fly in the ointment was knowing that I'd be working much of the day.

In our case, my son was older, and he had always been a responsible child. If he had been younger, and I had decided to homeschool him and continue working, I would have enlisted the help of family and friends. As it was, we live in a safe, secure neighborhood, and I did not need to worry about Devin's safety at home. He had been coming home after school on his own for some time, and we had specific rules in our home. One of the most important rules -- and one which we feel made our homeschool situation work well -- was that no one else was ever allowed at the house when parents were not at home. That was the rule when he was 13, 16, and even 18. And never did we encounter any problems with his being at home alone.

However, that was not the way I wanted our homeschool to function -- with my son home alone and myself away at work every day. I knew I was going to be quite involved with his homeschooling, and I knew I was going to continue working. So I needed to devise a plan that would work well for our particular situation.

Coming up with a plan
It did not take long to realize that the actual "teaching time" to cover all the subjects we planned to cover totaled about 3 hours each day. (For younger children, it might require just 1 to 2 hours actual "teaching time".) I recalled numerous evenings, when Devin had been in school, that he spent 3 hours on homework alone -- math homework, English papers, reading assignments, and history lessons. And this was after spending 6 hours at school!

I decided that those 3 hours in the evening could be our quality, one-on-one, uninterrupted teaching/learning time. Then he could do his "homework" (reading, math, English papers, etc.) and other educational projects during the time I was at work. He would be getting at least 6 hours of learning a day, and probably more.

Yet, I still did not relish the idea of leaving him alone for 6 hours a day. So I spoke to my employer about what I planned to do. Magazine publishing, like many jobs, has cycles -- some times of the month are busier than others. I felt that by "working smarter" and planning my time better, I would be able to accomplish more during certain times of the month, which would free up the "less busy times" to spend with my son. I also realized that certain parts of my job could be done at home.

When I spoke to my employer about what I planned to do, he thought that homeschooling was a great idea and was eager to help it go as smoothly as possible. I was fortunate in having an office to myself at work, and was encouraged to bring my son along to work. This had additional benefits, as I was able to oversee the work my son was doing and help with any difficult areas or questions he had. Then, after he was done with his schoolwork, he was able to assist in the various publishing departments -- a wonderful learning experience for him.

A unique schedule
He did not go to work with me every day, so that he could remain at home some days to work on special projects. While I was at work, he would construct an automated robot from a Capsela construction set, which he'd show me when I came home that evening. Or he would have spent the day creating an animated movie, using clay figures he had fashioned and painted, and recording them with the video camera.

He also took piano lessons, and, later, guitar lessons, so he needed to practice each day. He had daily chores and responsibilities in taking care of our 5 cats and assorted other animals that made their home with us over the years. And he had certain household chores he was required to do. Prior to our decision to homeschool, we had lengthy discussions about how our schedule would work, and his responsibilities in complying with the daily schedule. Therefore, he was already aware of what was expected of him as far as completing lessons, doing his chores, and being prepared to show me the learning activities he had been involved in during each day.

From the time he was 13, he worked in an apprenticeship position for a comic book shop in town, and continued helping out there for 5 years, learning much about the retail business. As an avid comic book collector, he spent hours organizing his own collection, and drawing and creating his own comic book characters and stories.

As the years went by, his interest was caught by computers. He spent time setting up his own online bulletin board service, learning computer programming, Web page designing, computerized art, computerized music, building his own computer systems, and much more. Most of what he learned was self-taught -- a result of his own interests and his desire to learn more about those interests. He was able to learn these things because of the large amount of time he dedicated to researching and exploring them while I was working at my job.

If he had been in school during those six hours each day, or if I had been filling those six hours with what I felt he should be learning, he would not have had the time to explore these areas of interest, or the time to pursue them. Now, at 19, he has his own business designing Web pages for businesses, and building and repairing computers. He also takes college courses as he pursues his bachelor's degree.

The importance of trust
Early in our homeschool experience that first year, I learned that I could trust him to do his required studies while I was away at work. Some days he went with me, some days he worked at the comic book shop, some days I was able to go home early or take the day off to take part in science experiments and to read a play together. But every day, his "homework" was always done before evening and presented to me. And, every day, the projects he had worked on that day were shown and described to me.

The ability to trust him to follow through was another key to why our homeschool experience was successful. We were required to maintain a portfolio of his lessons and papers, and these were evaluated at the end of each school year. He knew how important it was to do his lessons and to have proof of his work in his portfolio. If he did not, he could be required to go back to school -- something he certainly did not want. Therefore, he happily accepted the responsibility of doing his lessons each day and keeping them in the portfolio.

Making the most of the time together
He also knew that when I arrived home, we would do some fun, hands-on activities together, so it was beneficial to have the other lessons out of the way. We read together every day, usually a classic or other popular book, and discussed what we read, either before I went to work or after arriving home. We did science experiments in the kitchen nearly every day, took our nature walk every day, and played Frisbee or football in the evenings.

We prepared dinner together, or he sometimes prepared dinner for us and cleaned up the kitchen afterwards. We always ran errands together. He learned how to do price comparisons at the supermarket, or whenever planning purchases. He learned to handle his own money, set up a budget, start a savings account, and eventually a checking account.

Saturdays and Sundays were busy days for our homeschool. If there were hands-on activities we didn't have time for during the week, we did them on the weekend. If Devin was working on a research paper, or there were additional topics he needed to study, we spent a couple hours at the library. We often created our own "field trips" for the weekends, although we also went on frequent field trips with the homeschool support group.

Lesson plans
On Sunday evenings, I wrote the lesson plans for the upcoming week. Since I had the "typical course of study" guidelines from our state department of education, as well as guidelines from various homeschooling books, I knew what we would be covering each month. In fact, I kept a chart of the topics we would cover each year, with a bar graph running alongside the chart. As Devin accomplished each subject area, he shaded in the bar graph, providing a visual image of how he was progressing over the year.

We allowed for flexibility in our weekly lesson plans and took advantage of opportunities that arose. Devin might branch out to another topic we had not planned on, simply because it was an interesting spin-off to what was being studied. This occurred often, and this style of studying turned out to be the most interesting and inspiring. Not only did Devin retain the information learned, but he developed the initiative to explore, research, and seek new knowledge -- a habit that still serves him well today.