I just can't compete...

[ktgrok]

My son does not want to be homeschooled next year. He wants to go to the middle school with his friends. I really get this. It is a rite of passage almost. I feel for him. Today he found out that all his 5th grade friends are going to the local theme park as a class trip before the end of the year. And they are having a talent show and his best friend is going to do skateboard tricks on stage. My son is totally jealous and really bummed. Not to mention mad at me.

 

Obviously, it is silly to determine your education based on a school trip or talent show, or on getting a locker or whatever. But in the moment, I don't expect him to understand that. I really hope that he someday thanks me for this, and doesn't hate me for it.

 

sigh.

[Twilight Woods]

:grouphug:

[~Amanda~]

This is the exxact problem I'm having with my 2. We just finished our first year, and it wasn't exactly the best.

[Impish]

If you don't already, make an effort to take field trips, etc that wouldn't be possible while attending ps. Point out the freedoms he has as a hs'er.

 

Growing pains are tough, and nothing is perfect. The 'grass is greener' syndrome hits us all at times. :grouphug:

[creekmom]

If you don't already, make an effort to take field trips, etc that wouldn't be possible while attending ps. Point out the freedoms he has as a hs'er.

 

Growing pains are tough, and nothing is perfect. The 'grass is greener' syndrome hits us all at times. :grouphug:

 

:iagree: - His friends are going to only bring up the positives of ps- make sure he has some things to brag about also!

[Mom2boys]

Maybe he needs to go do something fun with his homeschooled friends. :001_smile:

[Margo out of lurking]

Oh, I think you can compete, and it may not take much effort. What does your ds like to do? What would he think of as a treat? It might be going out to lunch, going to work with dad for the afternoon, working ahead in his school work to take 1/2 day off each week, watching a favorite tv show in the middle of the day, staying in his pajamas, playing board games with you instead of "real" school work, doing school work outside/in a tree/in a tent (or in a tent in your living room), baking cookies with you one afternoon a week.

 

Or perhaps you can add something in to his school work that he would find "cool." Stop motion video camera? Photography? Growing frogs from tadpoles, sea monkeys? A worm farm? What's his passion? Art? Science? Math?

 

He's 11? Where can he volunteer that he would love? We have homeschooled volunteers at our library. Ds's 12yo friend volunteers at our local transportation/train museum, giving tours, befriending all the older men who volunteer.

 

Again, what's his passion? How can you turn it into a special activity that would be limited, or impossible, if he were in ps?

[justasque]

If you're going to keep him home, then make sure he has both homeschooled peers and activities he's interested in. Our homeschool co-op went to a theme park and has a "talent show" aspect to the end-of-year assembly. As more DIY-ish activities, we've gone to plays and dance performances, put on our own shows, gone on a bazillion field trips, built Viking slingshots and other fruit-chucking devices, dressed up as pirates, dissected frogs, learned to sew, taken dance and karate, worked on a LEGO robotics team, go figure skating, do a once-a-month roller skating event, play capture the flag, go to historical festivals (ren faire, etc.), go camping and biking and boating with the boy scouts, have board game parties, join the swim team, etc. etc. etc.

Friends kids go hunting, build native American-esque huts in the woods, play lacrosse on the local public school's team, play ice hockey, ride horses, take fencing lessons, do origami, etc. etc. etc.

 

Bookwork is all good stuff, but there is value in other things too. Yes, it's hard to fit it all in, but keep in mind too that often it's these activities that end up being an advantage in college admissions (if this is your path). You never know what these middle-school-age activities will morph into.

[K&Rs Mom]

I know what you mean. I joked with dh that we should enroll them in ps every year just for the month of May. Here it's field day, career day, assemblies, trips, pretty much the entire last month of the schoolyear is just fun-time. My 8yo is really hoping I might have been actually considering this. :glare:

[Teachin'Mine]

To me, junior high is a great time to homeschool. They're old enough that you can do a lot of cool things together and their academic requirements are such that you can take lots of field trips. Don't compete. Blow them out of the water! :D Lots of good ideas were given here. Even if money is tight, there are lots of fun things you can do that will have the ps kids going wow and asking their parents if they can be homeschooled too. :)

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

What my boys were looking for at that age was belonging. I don't think my oldest son would have been happy homeschooling if he hadn't found Civil Air Patrol. My second son feels the same about his taekwondo school.

 

Does your son belong to anything where he can bond with some other boys his age?

 

(The younger me would not have believed this 'socialization' thing would ever be an issue. The older me knows that it sure can be an issue, and if it is, something has to change. It isn't really strange or a problem that he wants more people consistently in his world than just his Mom at age 11.)

 

We never did really click with homeschool groups around here. "Not going to school" wasn't enough of a common factor for my boys, I guess. We've done better with Martial Arts, Civil Air Patrol, music organizations, and volunteer work.

[Jean in Newcastle]

What my boys were looking for at that age was belonging. I don't think my oldest son would have been happy homeschooling if he hadn't found Civil Air Patrol. My second son feels the same about his taekwondo school.

 

Does your son belong to anything where he can bond with some other boys his age?

 

(The younger me would not have believed this 'socialization' thing would ever be an issue. The older me knows that it sure can be an issue, and if it is, something has to change. It isn't really strange or a problem that he wants more people consistently in his world than just his Mom at age 11.)

 

We never did really click with homeschool groups around here. "Not going to school" wasn't enough of a common factor for my boys, I guess. We've done better with Martial Arts, Civil Air Patrol, music organizations, and volunteer work.

 

:iagree: (It was taekwando for us too.)

[ktgrok]

Thanks everyone. i agree that he needs some other way to bond and find friends. His main interest is skateboarding. Not sure how to turn that into a bonding experience, as it is pretty much an individual sport. He also has Aspergers.

 

I think I'm going to look into the local skate park and see about taking him during the day, when kids are in school. But that doesn't solve the friends issue.

 

I did just start a middle school home school group, but so far there are only 3 other people coming to meetings. I'm hoping that increases.

[Tree House Academy]

For the first few years I homeschooled, I made it a point to take the kids out after we finished school around noon. As we drove past the public schools, we would yell "na na na na boo boo" because they are in school and we aren't. I also enrolled my sons in middle-of-the-day (on a weekday) Karate class which was taught at a local homeschool co-op. They loved it so much and I always reminded my older son, especially, how we couldn't do this if they were in school.

 

Other things I do that my kids think are "cool" homeschooling only things: let them chew gum in "class," sit on the couch with the dog to do their reading, take a break from math to eat a snack, have school store at the end of the week, have reverse day (fun in the morning, school at night!), and for my older son - it is a huge plus that he gets to visit his dad whenever he wants to! We are divorced and if ds were in ps, it would really limit my ex on when he could get our son. Now, he just tells me when he wants him and I take that week off school.

 

We also do a lot of stuff to be around other kids - church, co-op, sports, playdates, etc.

[ktgrok]

Ok, with all this encouragement I just posted on the local skate park's FB page. I asked them about setting up a weekly or monthly homeschool class or event. If they did that would really help!

[Starr]

It's hard finding the right activities and friends sometimes. We find that once our dc's friends reached ps high school they were never invited to anything that included school friends except birthday parties. Keep looking, something will avail its self. School comes with all the headaches as well as the occasional fun. :grouphug:

[mhgillil]

I once went through a period when I really wanted to go to public school and I loathed my parents for homeschooling me. Then they sent me to public school. I didn't last a day. Yes, my friends got to do some cool stuff because of their school. But I quickly realized that I was going to be bored to tears every day and held back academically because my learning pace was much faster than my peers. Today, I wrote a blog post about why I am thankful that my parents homeschooled me. Hang in there.

[trailofsparks]

Ok, with all this encouragement I just posted on the local skate park's FB page. I asked them about setting up a weekly or monthly homeschool class or event. If they did that would really help!

 

That's great! Go get 'em! :D

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

Ok, with all this encouragement I just posted on the local skate park's FB page. I asked them about setting up a weekly or monthly homeschool class or event. If they did that would really help!

 

That would be great! I hope it works out.

[Peela]

For us it was a particular circle of homeschool kids, non Christian (because we aren't Christian), and also the whole Scouting movement (which is co-ed here). Then a teenage gymnastics class with a mixture of some of both those circles of kids in it.

The feeling of belonging to a peer group, and the sense that they had a world apart from their parents, was crucial to their contentment with homeschooling. And eventually, for us- my kids are extremely social- even that wasn't enough, but it got us through many years of periodic rumbling discontent.

[creekmom]

For the first few years I homeschooled, I made it a point to take the kids out after we finished school around noon. As we drove past the public schools, we would yell "na na na na boo boo" because they are in school and we aren't. I also enrolled my sons in middle-of-the-day (on a weekday) Karate class which was taught at a local homeschool co-op. They loved it so much and I always reminded my older son, especially, how we couldn't do this if they were in school.

 

Other things I do that my kids think are "cool" homeschooling only things: let them chew gum in "class," sit on the couch with the dog to do their reading, take a break from math to eat a snack, have school store at the end of the week, have reverse day (fun in the morning, school at night!), and for my older son - it is a huge plus that he gets to visit his dad whenever he wants to! We are divorced and if ds were in ps, it would really limit my ex on when he could get our son. Now, he just tells me when he wants him and I take that week off school.

 

We also do a lot of stuff to be around other kids - church, co-op, sports, playdates, etc.

 

What's school store?

[Jenny in Florida]

As we drove past the public schools, we would yell "na na na na boo boo" because they are in school and we aren't.

 

Just be sure your kids don't forget and do this sort of thing in front of their schooled friends (or their mothers). We used to do it, too. Our version was yelling "Suckers!" at the closed window (so no one could hear us) as the school bus drove by each morning. Unfortunately, one time we were having what was then a dear friend of mine and her young son visit us from out of state. My kids yelled, and my friend got very upset, because she was planning to send her child to public school and felt we were insulting her choice.

 

Our friendship has never been the same.

[twoforjoy]

Just speaking as somebody who remembers middle school, I think it's likely that, no matter what schooling choice you made, your child would complain. If they were in public school, they'd complain every morning about getting up and having to go, and then about the homework they had to do, and about their teachers, etc.

[Jenny in Florida]

Weren't you insulting her choice? And encouraging your kids to do the same?

 

To be fair, until she mentioned it to me, I had no idea she was planning public school for her child.

 

But, yes, of course I can see how what we were doing was insulting. That is why I would not have said or yelled such a thing in front of someone I knew was making a different choice. In this case, we didn't know that. In fact, this friend had told me repeatedly that she was planning to parent just like I did. And my kids were both quite young at the time and had no idea they were doing anything wrong.