Today was the first day of Homeschooling for my 11 yr old so

It’s the people who spend the most time worrying who generally have the least to worry about. Sounds like the kiddo’s going to have a great time — and learn! Do you know how hard it is to learn when you’re afraid?

So glad you have taken the first step to improving your child’s ed. and spirits!! You will do fine. I have home schooled the past 2 yrs. and my son is doing great. I have doubts sometimes but my son always pulls through and I feel like I should be more confident in him. I may not be the greatest teacher but there are so many more resources available that I think it is a LOT better than school. You can teach to your childs gifts and not his weaknesses in homeschool.Good Luck, Jan

If you look below, you will see my post about being a “boring teacher”! We just started too, and my daughter was picked on in her old school and in this new one this year…so we just couldn’t take it anymore. We are getting through me being a boring teacher, and my daughter and I are actually ‘learning’ math together rather than hating it. We aren’t going as fast as I thought we would, we are going back over material to make sure she knows it, and we aren’t doing the plethora of field trips I found in our various area homeschool groups. But we are laughing alot, enjoying learning, learning how to learn again…and memorizing my favorite poem “stopping by woods on a snowy evening” by Robert Frost. The Saxon Math we ordered is completely normal, unlike the ridiculous Everyday Math she had in school this year. It’s amazing how much it feels like real math, and Everyday felt like a foreign language.
Just today we discovered one of the most interesting parts. My daughter has been having dreams about school. Just about every night. Today we went for a counseling session with our therapist (who we went to to appease the school Psychologist and the Special Education Team), and she said those are anxiety dreams and a way for the brain to make sense of what happened to her this year. I was afraid she was really missing school…but the exact opposite was true! It’s a way for her mind to almost rewrite the bad stuff, and control the situations that were so uncomfortable for her. She was teased all through elementary school, and this year was tortured by a boy and a girl who were cousins and then of course many others who chimed in and found it acceptable to pick on her. No matter how much the therapist and I tell her that those kids don’t feel good about themselves and that’s why they picked on her…it’s doesn’t help the hurt or the resentment.
So be proud of yourself that you took this childhood saving step, don’t listen to second guessers ( my mom says every week “you have to put her in school, you can’t do this!”) and enjoy the extra time you have together.

You can spend a lot of time questioning yourself and everything that happens from day to day… every mistake you make — because they’ll happen.

THey were happening basically every day, before… only you could only see the fallout, not the mistakes.

Exacty, Sue! My ex-husband said if we were somehow part of the failure before…we can definitely be part of the success now.

I have two boys, 10 and 8, and we’ve always homeschooled. With my older son I wondered if I was doing the right thing- would he be learning more in school? would he be more independent? make more friends? With time those worries went away- in spite of getting off to a slow start, he’s doing great academically and he has really good friends in our homeschool group and in the neighborhood, and his younger brother is doing great too. After sweating through phonics and learning to read (with lots of help from Sue’s posts), I went on to worry about math. I’ve gotten so much info from Victoria’s posts on math that I’m set through Algebra, so I moved on to fretting about grammar and composition!

Second guessing can be a good thing if it keeps you honest about strengths and weaknesses and prompts you to keep improving, but don’t let yourself be paralyzed by second guessing. I’ve made LOTS of mistakes, but the kids are still learning and still enjoying homeschool. Sounds like you’re off to a great start, so relax and enjoy!

Jean

Having had an undiagnosed LD, I was always unhappy, not to mention picked on, in school. I quit going to classes my first year of high school. I can honestly say I hadn’t learned much in school. I went to an independent study program for a few months, one hour a week of one on one with a teacher, and then passed the California High School Proficiency Exam. I tried to go to community college after that but kept dropping out. I read a lot, went to museums, took acting classes, traveled and, of course, worked. I ended up working with children with special needs in New Zealand. There, I was encouraged to go to university. I told them I didn’t think I could do it. They tested me, said I had LD, taught me to use a computer gave me a key to the psychology dept. and the code to the computer room so I could work as many hours as I needed. They also taught me how to write term papers. I was allowed extra time to complete exams. Eventually, I graduated in the 10% of my class here in California… with a degree in psychology, minoring in special education. What I want you to know about homeschooling your child is… a lot of what is taught in school is totally unimportant to your childs well being or future success. A lot of time in school is spent doing things that aren’t even educational. Think about what is really important for you child to learn, don’t worry about what’s not important. If your child’s weakesss is math, they probably don’t have a future as statistician. So what? Help your child to find interests that will motivate them to learn. Take them places that encourage interests. Take pictures of those places. Get a book on taking good pictures first. Write papers about the pictuers. Take classes that are fun. Martial arts, theater arts, visual arts… have fun. Learning is not just about rote memorization of facts that will help you win at trivia games. Being educated doesn’t mean having good penmanship. Very little, of the important thing I have learned, happened sitting in a classroom.

Thank you so much, Rose for taking the time to write that letter. I just read it to my 11 year old daughter who we recently withdrew from school to homeschool. She very much appreciated the peek into what she knows is her bright future, despite how she was treated by her teacher and other students during this horrific sixth grade year. She wanted to know what you are doing now!

Rose,
I want to thank you as well! Your letter really has given me hope. We are coming to the end of the second week of homeschooling. I can not tell you how much I have enjoyed being with my son. He is such an incredible awesome kid! I will continue to focus on the fun part of all of this.

Funny, his and my joke right now is “who’s homeschooling who?” since he really is enjoying sharing his knowlegde with me.

Thank you for your example!

I’m glad you found my message helpful. I hope you have a chance to look at the “parenting a child with LD” bulliten board. The messages that were started by “teacher to be” are wonderfully informational and inspirational, especially the messages from “socks.” As for what I’m doing now… I’m a full time mother of two boys, 4 and 5 years old. I like to say that they “are not geneticly predisposed to conformity.” I know it’s my responsibility to make sure that their educational experience is better than mine was. Someday, I may come here to get advice from you and your experience with homeschooling. Meanwhile, we are very busy having a lot of fun. The things we do probably wouldn’t sound all that exciting to and 11 year old… so I will tell you that before getting married and settling down… I had a very exciting live by anyone’s standards. I traveled, stayed in a remote African village, visited Japanese temples, flew planes, jumped out of planes, went diving with sharks, manta rays and sea turtles, became a kayak guide and helped people who were blind paddle along side of a whale, learned sign language and helped take Deaf youth river rafting, made good friends with people who march to the beat of a different drummer, studied dance and theater… learned how to celebrate life. There are still things I find challenging but they are not as important as all the things I have to be grateful for. At 11 years old, life is mostly what the people around you make it. I remember saying to my mother that it wasn’t fair and she responded by asking, “who told you life was fair?” When I became an adult, I learned that life is not fair… life is what you make of it. Good luck and have fun.

Feel proud that you are taking an active roll in your child’s education. I have always felt that the reason we have so many problems in public education is that the shift of both parents having to work outside of the home has caused a gap in the direction for having the time to focus on their kids homework at home in the evening. I remember coming home from school and setting down with my mom and doing homework. Today we are all so very busy trying to do “everything” and be superpeople that kids just aren’t always getting the support they need. Learning has to come not only from the school but from the home also. Many times as I read segments from these messages what becomes apparent is that these are the parents that are pushing for the best possible for the kids, when they don’t find cooperation within their system they must think outside the boxes. My only advise would be to incorporate your child in your areas homeschooling program for music, activities, and athletic training that will help if you ever transfer into public education again. Bouncing back and forth between homeschooling and public can be the worst case for a child. Stand firm in your beliefs.