When I had my first child I remember trying to care for her to perfection. I began motherhood with such excitement and enthusiasm it was almost exhausting. I made her baby food, I breastfed on demand (until she self-weaned), I taught her baby sign language, my husband and I took turns reading a book to her every night, singing a song, and saying prayers…I had to do everything just right. Not that this was necessarily bad, just ambitious, like most new mothers. Then the idea of teaching her began to creep into my mind. Where was I going to begin and what was I going to do?

I started searching through Pinterest with all of the zeal of a new mom, planning, and implementing amazing craft projects, “toddler” science, learning ABC’s, and numbers. Does this sound familiar at all? We did so.much.stuff. I’ll admit it, it was lots of fun but somewhere (early) in the process I began to get a lot of outside pressure that I wasn’t doing enough. I had forgotten what I already knew about early formal education. Then at some point I just felt like I needed to be doing more. Can you relate, have you found yourself thinking this too? Well this was me, I hope my transparency in this guest post Charlotte Mason And Formal Lessons: Waiting Until Six, will give you some confidence to wait during the early years.