Friday, January 23, 2015

A Secret

I have a secret. Its really not that big of a secret but its not something I feel the need to tell everyone. You see... this secret is something that people are always totally opinionated about.
Here it is... Deep breath.
Im homeschooling my kids!
 Ok now its your turn to take a deep breath. I know not everyone agrees with this choice. I think about 4 people outside of our family (and most of our family doesn't even know) actually know about this little secret and I have already received a nice lecture or two about how my kids will fall behind and that it will be so hard for me to integrate them back in to public school if we ever choose to do that and of course the whole "social" thing.
I know. I know. I know. Trust me. I have seriously consider EVERY aspect of this. Including ones that aren't actually aspects but more of  "what if" kinds of situations. Homeschooling has been in the back of my head since before I even had children... mostly because of my own issues but that is a different story for another time. (I promise... I tried really REALLY hard not to let my own experiences affect this choice... and I think I did a pretty good job.. with Andrews guidance of course)
At this point the homeschool thing is only temporary. The plan right now is just to finish out Kindergarten this way wand then AnDee will start 1st grade at our public school next year. However we are open to continuing with the homeschooling if it is what works/is best for our kids. We are basically just giving it a try and then we will go from there.
What spurred this change? Well... My kids have been in 4 different houses in the last 4 years, not to mention the random month we spent at my sisters house. In the last year we have not only moved 2 times but we have moved to a different state completely and then threw AnDee in to school. She was insecure. She went. She did well. But it was hard on her. Every day was a challenge to keep her motivated and to get her out the door without a full on melt down. When we packed her up and moved her to another city right after Christmas (again)  the insecurities went crazy. She didn't even want to go to church or leave the house for the most part. She even had a hard time playing in a different room. She wanted to be next to me ALL the time. I couldn't decide if it was better to give in and let her feel secure and safe. Or to push her outside of it and make her go to school and tough it out. I had decided that she should go to school. It was getting to be too much and she had to just work her way through it but when we went to register her they sent us aways saying we didn't have all the forms we needed. Christmas hit and school was closed so we couldn't register her then. Then we were sick and even when school started back up we were too sick to attend or to even make the trip down to get her registered.
Then I went to our ward for the first time and met two moms who homeschool their kids full time. They didn't try to convince me of anything. It was just casual conversation about how school was going....
And then I met their kids.... and they were WEIRD. Like totally the typical "homeschool kids" that everyone imagines. Which should have put me off right? Well it did. I just felt right about it. I presented the idea to Andrew (again) who has always been a little more against it than I have and he started his typical questioning (which I always take as arguing) and then suddenly mid-questioning he said "Ok, lets do it." I felt confused because I knew he was no where near done questioning me "Wait what?"
"Lets try it and see what happens"
"What made you decide that?"
"I just feel good about it."
So here we are... Im stressed out of my mind trying to gather curriculum. My kids are in heaven. AnDee begs for more school every day and Pep is blossoming like I never imagined. We have only been at it a week and the kid has transformed.
I hope this doesn't send a confusing message. I want my kids to be "normal" Im not even sure if that is possible considering who they have parenting them but I want them to have a shot at having friends and not being "weird homeschool kids" and maybe next year we will be throwing them right back in to public school. Who knows? But for now we are doing it at home and its hard. So hard but so good and so fun to watch my kids understand things and challenge themselves.
This week we did a unit on penguins. I guess Friday is our "fun day" because we did lots of fun penguin stuff after our normal lessons.
We dressed up like penguins and did a penguin dance and then we tried to carry our eggs (a ball) on our feet while we waddled
 and then we did an experiment on how a penguins  blubber (the orange glove) protects them from the cold vs only having feathers (the cotton glove)
It was a fun day and if we are being honest... Mom is learning WAY more than the kids are in this homeschooling adventure but they are troopers and are sticking with me!

2 comments:

  1. I love this! I've thought about doing it a thousand times, and one day still might. I know lots of people who homeschool their kids, and they turn out fine. You're kids will be fine. Probably better than fine. A lot of times there are homeschooling groups that get together so your kids get more socialization, but seriously, your kids are in swimming and stuff, they are going to be fine. Good work!! I wish we lived closer so we could do homeschooling together. (And don't worry, I still get comments about homeschooling my preschooler. When did getting rid of your kids so flipping early become a thing?)

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  2. I found my blog info and therefore found your blog info! I think it's so cool that you've been aware of the needs of your kids and are willing to do what it takes to help them. I've known many parents who have been in very similar situations as you and decide homeschooling is best, too. I wish I could attend your class and learn about penguins!

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