Whine About It

Don’t mind if I do!

…Homeschooling is hard. Why doesn’t he just do his work? When I get home after spending the day at work, I’m tired. I don’t want to do math. I don’t like math. And, common core math is icky. When the directions tell him to write a paragraph, why do I get a sentence or two? Is the word ‘paragraph’ invisible to him? Or worse, did they not teach him what a paragraph is? Why is the 8th grade math familiar to him but the 7th grade social studies material is not? …

Oh, I could go on but I’ll spare you. I’m a silver lining type of girl but I have my days where I cannot be Miss Mary Sunshine all day. I have a good day at work to come home to find the boy has had a reasonable day of homeschooling but the psychologist is holding me accountable for him socializing.

No, my whole day is not ruined with this news. I’m an adult. Although, truth be told, I’m resentful of the psychologist’s insinuation that my child isn’t socializing.

Is he socializing as much as the psychologist would like? No, because he’s not in public school. But, it’s not like the child doesn’t ever leave the house. He talks to people. He can order his own food when we go out. He has a good friend he hangs out with when they both have time and he has a group of boys he games with every month or so. He spends a lot of time with his brother and he also spends quality time with his grandmother which is good for him. The word ‘socialization’ gives me hives (a topic for another day) so I digress.

I have to keep in mind that whining about it isn’t a bad thing as long as I don’t do it in front of my son. Homeschooling has taught me a lot in the past two months. I worry I’m screwing him up but there is an ‘unschooling’ period that we have to go through. I mistakenly thought we’d be through it by now but I have my eye on the prize.

My prayer for this experience is that my son learns to love learning and retains the information he’s presented with. I did what I was supposed to in school – I read the material so I could take the tests then I moved on (again, a topic for another day). I want him to learn and retain and I’m doing my best to figure out how to make that happen for him.

Getting closer

After three full weeks of school, we're still trying to figure out our way. I'm not surprised though. I read a ton on homeschooling. I have books with links to other books. I subscribe to websites on homeschooling. I even found some (one article) information on homeschooling while working full time (yep, it's official - I'm crazy!).

Reading is nothing like doing.

Remember reading the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting? Yes, it was helpful but it wasn't anything compared to actually experiencing it. I read that book early on in my pregnancy when the things that were going to happen to my body hadn't happened yet. A book is nice. It's nice to have that edge but you still need to adjust once it actually happens. Plus, everyone is different so not everything in the book happened to me. That's nerve-wracking. Did I miss it? Is it supposed to happen? Will it happen later? ACK!

We're still adjusting and that's fine. I still like homeschool. I get to utilize my organizational skills and it's nice to have something that I have to do besides work.

I know what you're thinking. Why would you need anything else to do besides work?

Well, let me enlighten you. I'm a very organized person. At work, I know what I need to do and I tackle it head on. I've been struggling a bit with my sense of purpose at my job (another post perhaps) but I have a daily plan and it all gets done.

At home, I just want to sit and watch Castle on TNT.

I mean, I've been working all day and despite what my father thought, I do work every day. It's mentally and emotionally challenging and I'm tired when I get home. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology. I use it every day. Every. Day. Best money my parents ever spent.

Obviously, I have purpose when I come home. I have to clean, do laundry, etc. but if I don't do any of that, nothing happens except my house is a bit dusty, you might have to wash a glass or a dish before you eat and we have to wear those rarely worn clothes (you know, the ones you don't really like but keep in case you haven't done laundry yet and need something to wear).

So my house is messy, so what? I have a sign in my entry way with my disclaimer, "My house was clean last week. Sorry you missed it." :) My husband does all the cooking (yes, I hit the jackpot there) and the kids can clean if I need help. My husband cleans and does laundry too. Everyone pitches in. If I don't do my homeschooling job, my child suffers. That's a BIG motivator to get off the couch and get something done.

So far, so good

Hmm, hope I didn't just jinx myself with that bold statement.

Yes, we've have some bumps in the road but I think, overall, it's going well. The beauty of homeschooling is that it's flexible. On the other hand, that also makes it difficult.

What??

Yes, it's wonderful to have a flexible schedule. I don't have to rush home every Friday to give a spelling test. If I want to give it the following Monday because we have stuff going on, that's fine. But (ah, the but), it's hard to get out of the structured frame of mind. I blame public school. :)

There needs to be structure. I work full time but he's old enough to manage himself and he does. He starts school around the same time every day and is done around the same time every day (I can see what he's doing on the portal of the program I picked for him. I can also tell how many minutes he spent on a assignment, test, etc.). The goal is to keep him on this schedule during the week and when it's necessary, to work on school work at night or on the weekends. This might prove to be a fight but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The part that is not good? The psychologist. Since my son attended the anxiety program he sees a psychologist to help him deal with the social anxiety he has. As you can imagine, homeschooling is not an option he agrees with. I like the doctor and so does my son but I feel like my parenting is being questioned by offering the homeschooling.

To reiterate - I suggested homeschooling to my son in January of this year because he was having trouble with his asthma and I thought it would be better for his health to be in a controlled temp environment for a year to see how it went. This was before he was diagnosed with the social anxiety.

Truth be told, I am not liking where the school curriculum is going and that was also part of my decision to homeschool him.

I agree that he needs to be able to walk into an unfamiliar situation and deal with it but I'm positive we can achieve that while giving him the best education possible.

I'm loving homeschooling so far! I wish I had chose to do this when my oldest was in middle school.

Bump in the road

The month of April was not a smooth road in our house.

Easter was spent cleaning and disinfecting since I was the only one in the house not sick. My youngest had a stomach bug and my hubby and oldest had bad colds. Easter dinner at my house was canceled. I missed Good Friday and Easter Sunday services at church. Our Pastor emailed me the following week because he was worried about us. If you can't tell - we normally do not miss Easter.

My youngest spent 8 days at home with that stomach bug and missed 6 days of school. Went to school for two days then never went back.

Yep, he refused to go to school.

We had 29 days left.

The anxiety and depression got the better of him and he couldn't face it. My baby couldn't make himself leave the house.

This whole school year has been a fight to get him to go to school. If he's having problems breathing, he doesn't want to leave the house. He leaves after I do so he has 40 minutes to dwell on the fact that he doesn't want to go before he needs to leave and that's enough time to make himself too anxious to move.

After we discussed homeschooling in January before 2nd semester started, he was going to school regularly. It was short-lived but really exciting while it was happening. I praised him by telling him how proud I was that he was going to school without complaint. He told me he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Only a few more months left.

As the weather turned, his allergist changed his medicine which made it hard for him to breathe so had to change it back. He missed some days there and then it started again like it had earlier in the year. After spring break, the bullying was taken care of but who knows how long he'd suffered before he said something to us.

This has been a long school year for both him and for us.

We made it through but he attended a school refusal/anxiety program at a local hospital and that helped a lot. As you can imagine though, they were not on board with the whole homeschooling idea. The outside psychologist he sees is not on board either but we have to do what we think is best for our son.

The Start of My Journey

My youngest is a Head Start kid. At the test for preschool he sat with his head on the table asking his lap when we could leave. He was deemed "uncooperative" and he was in. His preschool teacher was amazing. His kindergarten teacher told me she never would have guessed he was a head start kid. By 3rd grade, it seemed like all her hard work was unraveling. By 6th grade, he was the kid he was for that preschool test. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until 7th grade. Total mom fail. And here we are.

He's missed a lot of school because his asthma has gotten worse this year. He's been to an allergist and a pediatric lung doctor to get to the bottom of this weirdness. He's had asthma since he was 2 years old. It only bothered him when he had a cold. Starting in the 5th grade, that changed. Not sick but still couldn't breathe. It freaked him out. Freaked me out too. My kid can't breathe. We were hoping he would grow out of it but now it's worse. He even spent a night in the hospital a couple years ago.

Over Christmas break, I talked with him about homeschooling. I work full time but found a program he can do on his own with my help in the evenings. He thought it was a great idea. He was visibly relieved that this was his last year in public school. That made me cry. I felt like such an awful mom.

After spring break, we found out that he's been getting bullied. Originally, we thought it was just being picked on and teased because that is what he told us. Spring break he tells us that these kids are hitting and kicking him in gym class before the teachers are in there. Vice Principal took care of him and for that, I'm grateful but I'm not really feeling as though the teachers and administrators are really on my side. He's missed a lot of days and the teachers are frustrated. I get that. We're frustrated too. We only have two more months of school and we're both excited for them to end.

My son is bright, witty, smart, kind and caring. I'm hoping that my adventure into homeschooling will help my son go from surviving to thriving. Wish us luck!