Thursday, May 31st, 2012
Okay! Welcome to my new blog!
Today is the last day of the school year for 2012. This blog is primarily to chronicle my journey into homeschooling my two daughters next year. They will be in 2nd and 3rd grade. I see a lot of blogs and websites about the awesomeness of homeschooling, but hardly see the pitfalls. I mean, does every Mom really love having absolutely NO time to themselves ever again??! Am I the only one that was freaking out today that I was having my last 4 hrs of freedom and alone time for the next 15 months (longer if we keep up the homeschooling but I am living one year at a time)?
I will write about how it really is for me. The days when it is going poorly and I want to run out of the home, and the days where I might realize that I am learning something and the girls are listening to me.
Today, I am terrified! Really terrified about homeschooling my girls! I am not energetic or excited. So, I know what you are thinking, why are you doing it in the first place then? My oldest daughter asked me to months ago. She is very book smart and noticed that her teacher could only give her so much work and it was all easy. She always does her work without asking and was eager to learn. She took the test for getting into G&T, but she wasn't dreamy and artsy enough. Figures! She has a friend who is home schooled who is ahead of her grade. I think that is where she got the idea.
Well, to tell you the truth I tried for 3 months to talk her out of it!! ow, what mother in their right mind does that? Homeschooling is such a great way to learn and it is so fun and has those "go on vacation whenever" perks, right? I would go to see her for lunch and say, "wouldn't you miss all these people?" "No." She kept asking and asking, I kept ignoring.
I am a Mom that gets a little upset when I have the kids for too long without a break. I sort of thought of the school portion of the day as their escape from me, it was to their benefit, really. I have two small boys too and four gets to me a little. Silly for me to home school, right, with all those families with 12 kids and they love it! Really?! Seriously?
So, after a few months I HAD to research it at least. I went to FEAST, the building that helps home schoolers and sells curriculum and I talked to all my friends who currently home school. Funny, they had the same reaction to it as I did - "YOU?? Seriously, YOU ARE GOING TO HOME SCHOOL? At first I felt validated, but after the 12th person had that reaction, I started feeling kind of, well, insulted. We even attended a homeschooling convention/curriculum fair for two days. I have to be honest. I felt really weird when the family with 8, yes, 8 kids came into a workshop with a speaker that was going to talk for 45 minutes, and sat down all lined up nice and quiet, not complaining. My husband and I had our two boys, aged 4 and 5 and we could barely contain them with a IPad, a Leapster and 4 snacks each.
I kept looking for the workshop called "What the he@# am I doing starting homeschooling!", but that was not offered. Even the next day when we had to bring the girls too, bringing our family to 6, we were still the minority there, when usually we pretty much never come into a room unnoticed.
I do agree that it can be a better learning environment than the public school system can be sometimes, but I want someone else to hold a home school in their house and let my girls attend. I feel strange that I am solely responsible for their learning, doesn't anyone feel completely not equipped for that job? ME!!!!
Selfishly, I am most concerned about myself. Can I admit that? I am sure I will get vilified for it but it is true. Kids are great, they can adapt to anything, they are resilient and casual and capable. But me? I gave all those qualities up years ago, replaced them in the IV at the hospital giving birth, with guilt and forgetfulness. You know when you walk from the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom and as you enter the bathroom, you forgot what you came in there for? Yeah, that was in the IV. I know it was because I did not have that problem, or any guilt before I had the children and I have lots of both now. Anyway, I am worried about having time for me. How will I do any shopping? At 11pm? What about if I need to get an outfit or go to the dentist? Mom meetup lunches are definitely out, and I love those. I am scared to death that having this much influence on my children may be a bad thing, not a positive one.
Don't get me wrong. I have been a Stay At Home Mom for 9 years now and I have 4 great kids. I know this because other people will watch all of them for me sometimes. Anyone who watches that many on purpose, well, they must be okay. We all know kids are better when they are with other people, usually. At least mine are. They save all the bad stuff for us. I say that is better than the other way around.
I know what you are thinking, why aren't you concerned about the kids? Exactly!!! That is why I am scared of this job. I want to do so good at it, I really do. Some moments I think I am going to do great, then the next moment, I remember how mad I was when they interrupted me watching General Hospital, and it all goes away.
So, this is my story. We are going to chronicle our journey through this year of home schooling. I am a very honest, brassy person so I can write with ease about the good, the bad and the ugly. We start curriculum officially in the fall but there are plenty of things to write about as I gear up for this challenge. My hope is that I can inspire other Moms that say, No way, not me!, into trying it if they have been thinking of it at all. Let's be scared together! It's much more fun to walk through a haunted house crushing the life out of a friend's arm and screaming to each other then to go alone. So, even though I just compared homeschooling to going through a haunted house, let's do it anyway.
Hi Amy! A mutual friend of ours linked me to your blog. Kudos to you for undertaking this. You CAN do it. This, of course, coming from someone who has not yet taken the plunge, yet has been talking about it since the day I gave birth. I totally understand your fears - I have the same ones. The one thing stopping me from homeschooling is my kids' love of their schools. Though, I must admit that I'm waiting for "just one reason" to pull them out, be it a bully, bad grades, bad attitude, bad teacher. Honestly, I didn't think I was capable of homeschooling, but after teaching my eldest, and now teaching my 2nd to read, I'm so much more confident. It also helps that I have met several homeschooled kids, who are some of the most well-rounded, mature, well-spoken, and thoughtful people I've met.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is teaching kids to teach themselves. By the time they are in middle and high school, most of the learning they are doing is through their own volition (not through you). They read their books and learn from them. Also, by that age, they have co-ops where other parents volunteer to help them out with subjects they know well (be it math, chemistry, physics, etc.). My big concern of kids that age is the college courses they often take, which translates to tuition for those classes.
I have a few suggestions for you. Check out your state's reporting requirements and talk to other homeschoolers about their methods in doing them. Also, you don't have to wait until next fall to get your feet wet. You can start now and then not be so rushed to cover everything. The other beauty of homeschooling is that the world is your classroom. A trip to the museum counts as class time. You can get an idea of what needs to be covered over the next school year and start incorporating it into your regular day. Money? Start letting them take care of their own purchases. Set up a bank account for them. Teach them the value of the dollar, and how to count change. You can do that through the summer if they buy snacks at the pool. Map reading? Go buy a map and ask them to figure out where they are and try to get them to figure out how to get from point a to point b. Or make a map of your neighborhood yourself and do a scavenger hunt. Or have THEM draw up a map of where you took your evening walk. There are so many things that you can incorporate into your daily routine without it being a sit down, pen to paper event.
Good luck with your new adventure!!