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Why do you homeschool? Encouragement needed.
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Katrina, I think that the first thing that you and your husband need to do is get a game plan in action on getting your son to cheerfully obey you. A five year old that won’t obey his mother is in for a hard life down the road because there are lots of other people he will need to obey too like the police officer, the boss, etc. This is your first priority. After this teaching is easy. Childtraining is the hardest part. You can’t expect the schools to do this either. Anyone can teach a well behaved child. But no one will love him as much as you do. Love him enough to train him up in the way he should go.
Katrina, I am was so sad to read your initial post, and happy to see your follow-up! Glad things have clicked again and you are back on track, at least heart-wise. I feel the same way so often; I hope you realize you’re definitely not alone. A few words of advice from a relative novice, but also a fellow Alaskan….
1. Next year, be vague on your ILP. Don’t be too concrete or finite, backing yourself into a corner you’ll feel pressured by all year. (I got that advice last year from a very seasoned hs mom and I cherish its wisdom.)
2. Talk with your contact teacher and get some tips on the very minimum amount of schooling that “counts” as a particular subject. We are pretty loosey-goosey with our schooling right now with both dds – ages 4 and 7. Our contact teacher here in SE is fantastic; I hope yours is as well!
3. I totally agree with Sue above… focus on the training and habits first. Just touch on the actual subjects each day, but spend most of your time with chores and attitudes, etc. We’re using the six character booklets from http://www.iblp.org (NOT covered with stipend) and they are very good. We have stretched them out over the whole year, adding in various activities and my stubborn, independent girls are really enjoying them and seem to be learning. I think I need a course on “How Mommy Can Stay Consistent”, but otherwise, I’d say they are a success.
Sending prayers your way. Oh, and are you guys doing IditaRead? I’m gearing up my curriculum and activities for the big race. Always a fun break for us each year.
One more thing – I never answered your question… why do we homeschool? Because the schools in AK (and the US) are generally awful, but our girls are bright and God-willing, we’d like them to stay that way. Amen! 🙂
My reasons (this weeks only!)
1) We celebrated Lunar New Year with the same two families we always have celebrated with only two of their girls missed out on all the fun (and learning) because they were in school for the first time.
2) My 6yo neice came off the bus with a paper with a drawn picture of buns, boy privates, and pee that an older student gave her.
3) My neice is the first off and first on for the bus so she adds 45 minutes two times per day to her full school day.
4) My girlfriend’s discussions today regarding tuition, next year’s five day/full day kindergarten mandate, and how to negotiate driving preschoolers and going to work at their part time jobs.
5) Our local public school monthly newsletter that sounded more like a “Here are the Reasons You Should Not Send Your Kids Here” rather than what it was intended to say.
Ask again next week and I will probably have new ones! Oh, and ditto on above responses.
Our ds is currently in ps K, a decision we prayed about and had peace about initially…but now clearly know that homeschool is right for our family, and plan to start next school year for the long haul. Overall, the school itself is a positive environment, ds has a godly teacher, and he loves it…..but these are a few reasons we are choosing not to continue with ps…..
1. we think the reason we had so much peace and guidance to send him to school in the first place was that God knew after 1 year in ps we would NEVER wonder “did we make the best decision to homeschool?”….we will ALWAYS know the grass is not greener in the ps system, even when life gets tough.
2. in his music class, the music teacher was asking if anyone had a Keith Urban poster to place in her classroom. Ds has recently come home singing the chorus to the country song “I like it! I love it! I want some more of it!”….go figure….when I was in ps K I learned “She’ll be coming around the mountain” and “I’ve been working on the RR”.
3. the fundraising is OUT OF CONTROL
4. when he was out sick for several days (for which he was under a doctor’s care and I called the school to let them know), we got a recorded message with the principal’s voice each day saying that attendance is important and parents need to make every effort to send their child to school. I asked the principal personally to remove us from the call list and he says it is federal policy to call in case a parent didn’t know their kids were “skipping school”. Now why would a K student skip school?
5. The teachers got a note from the principal that the word Christmas was not to be mentioned by staff. Also the talk of gifts was banned because gifts assume reference to the wise men in the Bible and that would be offensive to some. However, weeks before Halloween our ds came home singing a catchy song “I’m a little ghost and I say boo, I’m a little ghost and I’ll scare you” and he was prancing around the house like a little “cute” ghost, excited to be doing it how the music teacher showed the class. I had to send a nice note to the music teacher asking he not participate in that song.
6. I’ve met parents who regretted sending their child to school, and I haven’t met one parent who regretted homeschooling.
my 3 cents worth!
I wrote a blog post about this very thing a while back. I’ve had several family members be “convinced” by what I had to say in it and have had “strangers” (other HS Mommas) say that it is exactly what they’ve thought but not been able to put into words. You are welcome to read it. It might give you some encouragement.
http://irienarrowpath.blogspot.com/p/why-we-homeschool.html
Let me know what you think.
Many blessings on your path.
Melissa
just reading you six reasons and remembered when I picked up DS 5 from school early one day and a 5th or 6th grade class did PE outside with the radio blasting some R &B music all over the school property “oh baby let’s do it all night long”….I called my husband yelling in the phone:”Do you hear that?? That’s why we need to home school!”.
@ibkim2, your description is just awful. I had a similar experience and I really wanted the ps system to work for our dc, too, and felt I gave it a fair shot, but in the end, it just wasn’t for us.
Yes, the preservation of innocence is a huge advantage of homeschooling. I slipped up with my son the other day and told him not to keep his Kindle on his lap because it could affect his ability to have kids someday (oops!) He had no clue why I would say that….but at his age my husband (almost 40 yrs. ago even!) had already heard how babies were made at the bus stop. Gina
P.S. Total side note, but is anybody else concerned about that? I’d read that men should not keep laptops on their laps for that reason….but maybe the risk is more if you’re doing it all day long.
I’d like to preface that fact that before dh and I even had children we planned to send them to public school just because we thought that is what everyone did, and we both went to PS and turned out fine.
Then we actually had children, then reality hit. lol My order of preference was Christian school (at our former church), public school, homeschool (never gave it much thought, but knew people kept their children home). We planned all the way until oldest dd was going into K to send her to our (former) church’s school. They use Abeka, so we made sure to view the curriculum and felt semi-comfortable with it. Wasn’t crazy about teaching from videos however.
Well, then we looked at reality and how it’d be a 25 min drive ONE way to drop off our girls at school, plus the cost of the school. SO next we decided okay, the public school is only 5 mins away from the house, and I hear the teachers there are Christians. I then started praying, Lord please show me your will. Should we do public school or homeschool. I decided to start researching what homeschooling was all about. I looked ahead at what was taught in the public school and didn’t like the looks of my girls reading Harry Potter books in 3rd grade. We don’t allow witchcraft books in our home. We also don’t celebrate the holidays or watch tv, listen to the radio (except classical) so we’d be having to reteach EVERYTHING when they got home. Plus would we have time with all their homework anyway?? By that I mean, the influence of other children because they will talk about their fave shows, songs, etc and our girls wouldn’t want to feel left out, I’m assuming. Plus evolution, reteaching that God made the world in literall 6 days, our ancestors were not apes, etc. And we teach our children are supposed ot respect their teachers, but then have to turn around and say the teacher is wrong/lying. Doesn’t make sense so send them in this environment.
Once I read what homeschooling was about and it’s not just families with 20 kids wearing homemade clothes, etc. lol I felt at peace in my heart this is what I want to do! My husband was in agreement but reminded me of the hard work it will take and that he cannot help with most of it since he works full time. I agreed it would be my baby to take on! I found out about Charlotte Mason education and began with it right away! I loved not having to buy a boxed curriculum that other homeschoolers warned me about (the expense for one thing).
I’ve been excited and am still excited about this journey and it’s been 5 years now! Oh, I did “practice” homeschooling when dd was 3 since I thought it foolish to send her away to prek when I went to school to teach Birth-3rd grade and worked in a prek classroom for 4 years prior.
The Lord has defininately blessed us for obeying Him. Our girls are so well behaved and have a great love for the Lord! They all 3 want to be missionaries. They act as 9, 7, and 4 yr old little girls should act and know what that age should know!
I know it’ll get tough as the years go on but I know the Lord will give me the strength and wisdom! He tells me to pray for it! That way we know it is HIM at work and not our own strength.
Tara
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