I am an entrepreneur.

My wife is an entrepreneur. (Converted to it after meeting me).

We are entrepreneurs with a family.

We are entrepreneurs with a blended family.

Now, a lot of you reading this just read a lifetime of content in those first 3 lines. If you are an entrepreneur with a blended family you know how much work that takes.

Its a powder keg and you have to constantly keep an eye on the fuse.

Our blended family has 7 children, and now 3 grandchildren. The oldest is 27 and the youngest is 11.

We chose to homeschool our youngest.

So the question asked us often is, "How can an entrepreneur home school?"

Before I get to how that is accomplished, I want to wind the clock back a bit and explain our motivations for home schooling in the first place.

My wife and I both entered our marriage with 3 children each that we both had primary custodial care, meaning we had the children about 98% of the time. That's 6 kids in one house.

Priory to this occasion I had been on the road 3 or 4 days a week with my business and then home around the clock the other 3 or 4 days a week. Once I became the primary caregiver I sold my business so I could stay home with my 3 children.

We had a great concern for our children's education and upbringing so we made sure their school work was completed at night. We also had an after school activity such as a craft or outside the home activity several times per week. We all ate dinner together and we worked to keep harmony in the home, not always accomplished in a non blended family, even tougher to do in a blended family.

A great deal of our time was at school having meetings with teachers running supplies or reports to the school that one of our children forgot, or last minute snack days when we were notified the night before or even that morning that our child had happily volunteered just the previous school day.

As our children progressed thru the grades of school we noticed that the younger children would be associated by teachers with the characteristics of their older siblings assuming that they would have the same challenges or problems.

All or our children were very bright and some of them were exceptionally bright. This lead to problems I was sure because they would get bored quickly in the classrooms which then led to troublemaking by our happy students. They of course would be disciplined by myself and/or my wife and the school, leading to more meetings with teachers and counselors.

I would estimate we were averaging 4 to 6 hours per day with our children's schooling alone not including what we would regard as non-school activities and education.

The youngest of these 6 had a difficult time with school which the doctor and school's was sure was from his diagnosed condition of ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, but I believed it was because he was very intelligent of our children and was quickly bored in school. I used to tell him I was sure he had an IQ of 130. An average IQ is 90. Of course this was based only on my opinion as I had not tested him but he did have highly intelligent conversations with me.

The school tested his IQ when he was in 7th grade and they came back with a score of 136. Surprise, Surprise. To the school, not to me.

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This is a 5 part series. This is the end of part 1.

Authored by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. August, 2008.

Copyright 2008 Timothy L. Drobnick Sr.

No part of this story may be replicated without express written consent of Timothy L. Drobnick Sr.

Call Tim at these numbers:

1(800) 313-0377 24 hour recorded for Portal Directors & connect with Tim on his cell phone

1(866)571-1602 24 hour recorded for Avalanche Money System & connect with Tim on his cell phone

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