Not sure if that is the correct title. Not homeschooling this year or not homeschooling until we feel led to make a change. We've been so deceived into thinking we can plan out our lives and everything go according to plan but life changes constantly. Change truly is the only constant other than God.
I have had a varied life experience. I have attended public, private and homeschool. I know what I liked best. Kids can be cruel and my husband and I both had our share of bad experiences. He's friends on Facebook with kids that went to his high school. Things are different as adults but none of them were really his friends in high school. He doesn't want to go to his reunions. Just not a lot of happy memories associated with public school for us.
When our first child was born, I thought for sure I would homeschool. It was awesome. I loved it. I was passionate about it and determined to do it. And then a bombshell, Autism. How could I teach a child when I couldn't even get him to talk? So we used several public school resources and found the wonderful reverse mainstream classroom with the passionate teachers and therapists that not only helped him but taught me things to do that continued his success.
Then he aged out of preschool, we went to talk to the local county school to see where we would go from there. There wasn't as many resources as he had been accustomed to. I found myself having to explain autism to some of the people I met within the system. And while many were lovely people that would have done their best with him, in my gut I felt that it would be overwhelming and spell certain regression for him.
I was scared to death and prayed over it for a long time before finally decided to homeschool not only my two boys but my niece and nephews as well so that we created opportunities for working on social skills. I did a lot of tweaking to find teaching methods that helped them grow. For a while, unit studies that expounded on his obsessions at the moment were the primary curriculum. Pirates resulted in history lessons on privateers, science lessons on nutrition and sailor diseases like scurvy, math with pieces of eight, art with making a treasure chest and more.
We moved to another state and no longer had cousins homeschooling with us. The new state requirements and the smaller class helped us to accomplish a lot of study. We studied dinosaurs, American history, Presidents, States, etc. We finished books and started new books. We discovered through standardized testing that the reading comprehension was a significant weakness and planned for a more classical approach this year so we could read, read, and read some more.
We began this year mid-summer. We realized the reading comprehension wasn't a problem with dealing with concrete facts like science. The difficulty was in abstract concepts. So we sought out books like Amelia Bedelia to think less literally about stories. The spelling proved very difficult for our second child and after investigating it further realized that his non-sensical approach to spelling could be dyslexia. We adjusted the curriculum to address that and prepared to keep on trucking.
Since we had started earlier, I didn't jump in full force right away. We did half the first week. For the next 6 weeks, I tried to get us on task so that we were covering all the subjects each week. Once we adjusted the math and spelling for our second child, his competitive nature kicked in and he endeavored to finish so that he could "beat" his older brother. We had tried ADHD meds with our oldest with side effects becoming worse than the symptoms of dawdling. We tried Natural solutions. We then wondered if maybe it is not ADHD after all and just further symptoms of his high functioning autism. We worked on routine, structure, and tricks like using a big paper with a hole to allow him to focus on one problem at a time. Some mild succcess. Even began taking the 3 yr old and 1 yr old back to the master bedroom to watch Sesame Street while I folded laundry or kept school records to give the older boys the table and a quiet half of the house. When we couldn't get it done in the mornings, I had them use the quiet time during naptime to finish up lessons. And yet still, sometimes school work was still being dealt with til supper and sometimes the next day. The last straw was a history test that contained 60 questions took three days to complete. I had allowed them from the start to use the text to find the answers since we had covered the three chapters over weeks and really couldn't expect them to remember what they had read a month or more ago. I also allowed them to work together. Most questions were multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank or yes/no. Three hours would have been reasonable but it took 12 + hours and several questions to me when my second was convinced that the answer was not in the text.
I got to thinking of whether or not I could focus in the craziness of our house or if I would need a quiet library to study. A quiet library would be my choice. I couldn't give that to them. I couldn't focus on one-on-one time with them because I was trying to keep the little ones separated to buy a little bit of quiet. And I was expecting another little one so time was going to be stretched even further between the five children. I fought the feeling that I needed to consider other options. I hated that I was thinking of a major decision amidst pregnancy hormones. But I came down to two options, I could continue doing what I wanted in homeschooling and risk them falling behind. Or I could make the safe choice, send them to public school and then if I felt I could handle it better next year, resume homeschooling. I hated it, but I felt the right decision for the kids was public school. So many homeschool families talk about how they work around a new baby and how the kids learn life skills even if not much schoolwork gets done. But these families may not be dealing with autism and dyslexia. And I just don't feel that I would be right in sacrificing their education that way. We might could continue homeschooling and use a few more days to complete everything. They might still be fine. But if things are crazy still next year, I run the risk of considering public school with them behind. That isn't the case this year. They both have strengths and weaknesses but they aren't behind. And nearing the end of the first week, I don't see the curriculum being above their abilities in either grade. They may actually be ahead of their grade level in some areas.
So after discussing it as parents and then with the boys, we decided public school was the wisest choice for them. I spent the evening near tears. I knew it was the right choice but I hated that it was. I hated feeling inadequate to meet their needs. I requested prayer from other moms I knew and after meeting a lot of the staff and getting the boys settled in on their first day, I actually felt excited for them. This week, I have enjoyed helping them with their homework and hearing about what they are learning. They are both likely to be reevaluated to see if there are any helps that special education can provide. I am using the All about Spelling curriculum to help our second boy to prepare for spelling tests. I'm going to use the Latin curriculum as extra learning on the weekends and holidays. Latin isn't something that they would learn in public school and something to help them in their faith as Roman Catholics as well as studying science. And our oldest really enjoys conjugating verbs.
So what comes after this year? More decisions based on how they have done this year, what they desire, and what we feel is the best course for them. Our oldest would go to middle school next year so that is a major transition. We just have to take it a year at a time.
