Hi, this is my first post. I've read through quite a bit on these forums and I'm hoping that someone could offer some advice on "starting where we are". My dd attended a French immersion program from maternelle (age 2) through 4th grade, after which she unschooled for two years. The unschooling period saw her transform from a struggling, miserable, emotionally insecure schoolgirl (which snowballed in 4th grade) into a self-assured, happy-go-lucky ballerina. Literally. She went from having severe executive function issues, daily tears, and feigned illness to demonstrating discipline, passion, and enthusiasm for her ballet training where she had no problem at all remembering variations, pieces of music (and their composers and titles), what she needed for class, her schedule, etc. Her academics were chaotic but present. Sort of. She started reading for pleasure again, although she was never with a book for long. We moved from New Orleans to Pennsylvania two years ago so she could train at one of the best schools in the country for classical ballet. She is thriving! She asked for more structure in regards to school so I enrolled her in Commonwealth Connections. My ability to help her is limited since I am a single parent and I work full-time during the day. She trains from 4:30-8 or 8:30 M-F and from 9 am - 6:30 pm every Saturday, with Pilates every Friday. Next year it will be 3:30-9 M-F with the rest the same. She is competent in most of her subjects (scoring Bs working mostly on her own) but cannot construct an essay to save her life, her note-taking skills are nonexistent, and reading puts her to sleep much of the time. Speaking of sleep, I let her sleep until she wakes up most days, because most of the injuries in the studio happen when the dancers are overtired. You cannot imagine the schedule these teenagers maintain who go to the local high school and dance in the pre-professional program. I am certain my dd cannot endure that. To be honest, I am also certain she is not at all prepared to begin the work of a ninth grader described in "The Well-Trained Mind". Has anyone here gone back to the basics with an older child? Thank you for taking the time to read all this!!
