Poll: General feelings about homeschooling.

[8filltheheart]

 

 

I guess I'm not as good at getting through to my child than you are with yours. I have done all of those things on a daily basis sometimes and she just does NOT swallow that "I don't wanna do that" attitude. If I ignore it, by about 20 minutes she's compliant, but I feel like she's "winning" when I just ignore it. She writes JMJ on her papers and she knows that school is her God given job. For us, we haven't found her currency yet. :(

 

I don't want to derail the thread and I am packing up to leave and will be offline for a few weeks, but since your child is older, have you considered giving her more ownership of what is studied? My kids do have a lot of control over what we study and our homeschool methodology fits our life. Maybe the approach is not fitting her learning style?

[Rosie_0801]

"Other" for the last question. I didn't expect reality to match my dreams anyway.

[PachiSusan]

I don't want to derail the thread and I am packing up to leave and will be offline for a few weeks, but since your child is older, have you considered giving her more ownership of what is studied? My kids do have a lot of control over what we study and our homeschool methodology fits our life. Maybe the approach is not fitting her learning style?

 

Yes, we have and are considering this as well. She is having a character issue: She does not want to do that which must be done when it must be done regardless of whether she wants to or not.

[MidwesternMom]

Both now that we are after-schooling and during the years where we homeschooled exclusively and with multiple kids at different grade levels, most of our days were smooth and none of them were "yowza". So I don't feel like the poll represents our experience.

 

The primary way our homeschooling experience of 10+ years is different from our vision for it is that when our fourth child rolled in, it was overload and we "outsourced" his pre-K to the nursery school down the street. There really wasn't any way for me personally to span high school and pre-K and middle school and elementary school all at once. (Hats off to those of you who do!).

 

The way it has been better than expected is that even with somewhat sporadic efforts in certain areas (math!) and definite lopsided-ness in favor of history and literature before high school, my kids have been successful in transitioning to college (the older set) and public school (the younger set).

 

So, we loved the years we did it, and that's why we're after-schoolers now.

[*Lulu*]

Our days are a balanced mixed and I agree with pp that most of our days are better than just okay. It is not what I envisioned, as we have several issues that complicate things in ways I did not foresee, but what it is is good. I am happy enough and do not regret for one moment our decision.

[redheadmom]

I never had "visions" of homeschooling so reality is what it is. I do think that our bad days occur because of parenting/behavior issues more than homeschooling. I quickly realized that my dd is much like me and prefers to just be given an assignment list and schedule. If I had to teach in the school sense of lecturing everyday, she and I would possibly never talk again, lol. But customizing not just curriculum but teaching style to the child can avoid some of those bad days. I see images of kids homeschooling around the kitchen table and laugh at the thought of trying to do it here. We school on the couch, in the office, in bedrooms, everywhere really. My ds almost literally climbs on my head and the furniture while we are doing reading; I can't imagine him sitting at our table for hours. Again, understanding and accepting this has been a benefit.

 

I love that we can homeschool. I notice that while the kids enjoy going to classes and events, we stay on schedule better the fewer activities we do. Balance really is an important word in everything...parenting, curriculum, teaching style,etc. I don't want to say it is a struggle because that seems a negative connotation. Perhaps it is more of a challenge to be overcome. Life doesn't cooperate with my schedule either. Today we did zero book work because we only got a few hours of sleep due to the weather and tornado warnings for hours. So, we watched documentaries and I said good enough.

 

Unrealistic expectations set people up for failure because reality can seem like a let down. This applies not just to homeschooling but parenting and marriage. When talking with others it can be easy to gloss over the trivial stuff and make it sound very easy. To me this is not a job or a burden; I look at it as a continuation of my responsibility. "To whom much is given; much is required" I have been very blessed with this life so all the difficulties are simply a part of that blessing.

[freeindeed]

We are mostly happy. The biggest problem we have is when a curriculum I've chosen doesn't "fit" my child.

[Mommy22alyns]

I didn't plan to homeschool, so I didn't have any vision or expectations.

 

Most of our days are great, but some days make me wish I could hit the bottle at around 10 am. I'm very happy with homeschooling as a whole.

[Crimson Wife]

 

Yes, we have and are considering this as well. She is having a character issue: She does not want to do that which must be done when it must be done regardless of whether she wants to or not.

 

Is she showing any signs of puberty? Sadly, 9 isn't too early these days for that to happen. I have seen more bad attitude in the past 3 months or so since my DD started developing than the previous 5 years combined. :glare:

[Tracy]

I never had any illusions that I could provide a fun homeschooling environment. I knew I was a good teacher but that it would be a big challenge to make sure my kids enjoyed school. I am pretty sure they enjoy homeschooling more than they would a b&m school, but dd7 struggles to complete what little work she has. That is partly her personality, partly mine, and partly the clashing of the two.

[Ailey]

We didn't plan to homeschool, but made a very quick decision the week before ds was set to start kindergarten. I knew right away, from Ds's personality and my own, that we wouldn't be crafty or creative homeschoolers. I'm okay with that. Apart from some health issues that throw us off, our days are very happy and smooth. Ds really loves to learn and has a great work ethic, so we have a lot of fun together and get through the tough stuff without any tears. This could easily change next year when I begin kindergarten with Dd. She's a little more dramatic.

[Annie Laurie]

Homeschooling is much smoother now that there are only 3 and the youngest is 10 (as of today!).

 

 

This is why I voted kind of negatively. I am the opposite of this situation, I have a 2 yr old who has been very high-needs since birth. I have been sleep deprived for 2 years. He is now going through a very hard stage and is into everything, very destructive, prone to fits, needs lots of attention and redirection.

 

Luckily, this is temporary, but it does affect our schooling. It's not what I want it to be right now, I've had to do some things certain ways that aren't my preference, just because my reality right now is that I don't have the uninterrupted time or the focus (with the lack of sleep) to do things the way I'd prefer. However, things are not bad, they're learning and we're managing. But things should be a lot better once the toddler is older.

[Tracy]

 

This is why I voted kind of negatively. I am the opposite of this situation, I have a 2 yr old who has been very high-needs since birth. I have been sleep deprived for 2 years. He is now going through a very hard stage and is into everything, very destructive, prone to fits, needs lots of attention and redirection

:grouphug: I just want to send some hugs your way. My youngest was like that, and I was sleep-deprived for so very long. At almost 5yo, he still does not sleep through the night, but we have found ways to get better sleep. He used to scream all the time, but after speech therapy, he became such a mellow little guy (most of the time).

[Annie Laurie]

:grouphug: I just want to send some hugs your way. My youngest was like that, and I was sleep-deprived for so very long. At almost 5yo, he still does not sleep through the night, but we have found ways to get better sleep. He used to scream all the time, but after speech therapy, he became such a mellow little guy (most of the time).

 

 

Thank you! Though it scares me a little that your son still doesn't sleep at 5. I think some kids are just wired that way, and I've said that to dh before, that even when my toddler gets older and moves into his own room, I have a feeling he'll still come in and wake me at night a lot because he's just a light sleeper.

 

He can talk clearer and says way more than my other boys did at this age, he just wants what he wants right this minute. We're working on limits, doing some Love and Logic stuff. (Choices, action and not a lot of lecturing or trying to reason with him, and so on.)

[Tracy]

Thank you! Though it scares me a little that your son still doesn't sleep at 5. I think some kids are just wired that way, and I've said that to dh before, that even when my toddler gets older and moves into his own room, I have a feeling he'll still come in and wake me at night a lot because he's just a light sleeper.

 

 

We finally broke down and tried Melatonin. (It is what your body produces that makes you sleep.) I am really leary of using anything like that, but we were desperate. And I did talk to the pediatrician before trying it. He still wakes up during the night, but he can go right to sleep at bedtime and go back to sleep when he wakes up. Without it, he is up for hours during night, even though he lies still with his eyes closed, bless his heart.

[nono]

Compared to any other job I have taken on, homeschooling is pretty darn great! And, while I may have had visions at the start of being some loving, Charlotte Mason-esque figure, I adjust pretty quickly to my reality of a wise-cracking, slightly not-right homeschool that probably mirrors my Catholic school upbringing more than many here would probably prefer (blackboard, anyone?!) I love my kids as they are. I also grant myself the same consideration ;) , and make the best of our unique combination.

[Alte Veste Academy]

Thanks everyone. I am really enjoying reading through the responses.

 

I personally voted most days are wonderful (and when they are not, it is usually a mood or planning failure on my part :tongue_smilie:), happy as a clam, and pretty close. I don't know how to properly convey that it is almost exactly as I imagined it would be (yes, warts and all) but still manages to surprise me practically daily.

 

I have long known that I would have struggled terribly if I had to educate older kids with babies and toddlers in the house. I think those who do need to give themselves extra grace, because it is no small thing to juggle those challenges. My kids can do so much for themselves, and my job is much easier for it. The older the kids get, the more I like them and the more I enjoy homeschooling. It is starting to get really, really good!

 

As to expectations as a function of personality, I think that is probably a big enough question for a new thread.

[PeacefulChaos]

I answered most days are good, I'm happy as a clam, and Other.

I voted other on the last one because I honestly didn't really have any set 'vision' or any clue of what it would look like. I just know I'm perfectly happy with the way it is. :)

[Hedgehogs4]

I wanted to address the last question. I voted that our reality matches our vision, but I think it is important to specify that over seven years of homeschool, the two have had to move toward each other. I have had to adjust vision to what is possible, and what is possible toh the vision. There are times when I push and times when I let go of stuff. It just depends...Overall, I believe that we are satisfying our overall longterm vision of what we wanted when we chose to homeschool.

[MerryAtHope]

If I ignore it, by about 20 minutes she's compliant, but I feel like she's "winning" when I just ignore it.

 

 

I have one child who really needed me to stay and help or oversee, and another child who took any oversight (during school, chores, whatever) as a challenge that instantly set up an adversarial relationship. I learned to just state what I expected and walk away expecting it to be done, and found the same--eventually the child reached compliance. I never felt the child was winning though--I felt we both won.

 

Years ago I read that arguing is an act of cooperation--a child can't argue with us if we don't cooperate with them. I view walking away as not cooperating. If I stay and answer the argument in any way, that's like saying I think their argument is valid, as if they are a peer. A child is not a peer in a parent-child relationship. That's not to say that I don't take the child's input into consideration--I very much do, in fact I ask for input and we often work together to find solutions, new curriculum, and so on. But if I expect something to be done, and have determined that it's within the child's ability, there's no arguing. I'll help or not as needed--I can be there every step or not at all, or anything in between. Kids can easily try to turn the relationship into an adversarial one--I view my job as parent to be to show them how we can cooperate to achieve a goal together.

 

At a later time, when the child has calmed down, and possibly over a snack, I might ask, "what is it about xyz that you don't like?" and, "why do we end up fighting about xyz?" and, "do you want to live in a house where we fight a lot? How can we change this?" and so on. Ultimately if I am going to guide, teach, coach, disciple this young person...I may have to learn different methods that will be successful with this child--really, both of us have to learn how to work together. The answers aren't always easy, I know. Hang in there!

 

Merry :-)

[Nan in Mass]

I am an accidental homeschooler. Most of our days are smooth. We plug through our schedule, which is mostly an order in which we do things with a few marker points for non-negotiable things like math, to make sure they don't get skipped. We don't always get everything I had hoped done because I am rotten at estimating how long things will take and because other people's estimations are equally off, but that sort of thing has been happening since they were born so it was no surprise that it also applied to homeschooling. I went into homeschooling without any pre-conceived ideas about what it would look like so I answered other to the last question. Well, I guess I had some vague picture in my head of a mother reading to her children (something we did regularly before homeschooling) or a mother sitting next to a child helping with math (again, something I was already doing helping with public school homework). I didn't envision us taking turns reading Canterbury Tales while paddling our feet off the dock, or reading Antigone in parts huddled in the cockpit under a tarp out of the rain, or sitting on the sofa between my two younger ones in front of the fire with the dog on our feet and the cat trying to sit on the Latin book open on my lap. However, I wasn't surprised by the fear and sleepless nights and endless negotiations with teenagers. I wasn't surprised that it was hard to get things done with a toddler nephew and the dog and the cat and the ducks and the ... interrupting us constantly. I was surprised by some of the major focuses of our homeschooling, but not surprised to be surprised, if you see what I mean, because my life always seems to take surprising turns here and there and this seemed more like one of those than a homeschooling thing. Homeschooling just made it possible. I'll tell you what continually surprised me - what happens when you do TWTM/TWEM. Thank goodness I chose THAT method. The little (compared to the whole book) of it that we managed to get through had spectacular results. But about homeschooling in general - I had so little idea of what it was going to be like that I couldn't possibly be disappointed. We all know that there are disadvantages to homeschooloing, and have felt and had to live with those disadvantages, but overall, we all, father, mother, and children (all over 18 now) are happy with the results. My children wouldn't be who they are without the homeschooling. Large bits of them were shaped by TWTM and by the things they could do because of homeschooling's flexibility.

 

Nan

 

Forgot to say that I think things would have been different if I had had more children homeschooling at one time, less support from my husband and parents, less access to community college in high school, less money to do the extra things (like travel or buy little electical parts or tons of books), had had unwilling children, had chosen something other than TWTM, or - and this is huge - struggled with ill health, either mine or my children's, or had some other family commitment (like elderly parents) that took my time and made me feel guilty for neglecting both the chldren and the other family commitment. I struggled with this a little, but not as much as I might have had to.

[RootAnn]

The more kids I am homeschooling (& this goes along with 'the more kids I have'), the specific age (stage) they are at the time, and what else is going on in our lives (stress with extended family, sickness, job concerns, etc.) all can create YOWZA weeks (months), dissatisfaction, and lots of complaining.

 

I have found that some years (kid ages) are easier than others, some kids are easier than others, adding in a new kid to the full-time homeschooling mix is almost always hard, and that no matter how great X of my kids are doing on any particular day, X is always < (less than) 5. Invariably, one kid will have special needs on any particular day. (And that's part of my job -- to be there to help that child address those needs & work through them.)

[swellmomma]

Before I started homeschooling I spent years thinking about, attending homeschool functions, was in a hs support group etc. I had these visions of what our days would be like. And then I began homeschooling when oldest was going into 3rd with severe depression and suicidal plans. I never accounted for homeschooling mentally ill kids, special needs etc Here we are 7 years later and it is dang hard. Oldest while improving is a constant choas creator. We suspect bipolar on top of his already long list of issues. I never know if he will be jekyll or hyde each day so lesson planning is rather hard. ds9 has a long list of learning issues. All 3 olders have been DX with ADHD, and youngest likely has it too. We do not get those idyllic days I daydreamed about, we get a lot of yelling, fighting, stubborness, attitude etc. Having all those issues, the mood stuff, teenaged hormones etc just makes it generally unpleasant for everyone. BUT I am committed to homeschooling, and the kids do not want to stop, they may fight me tooth and nail but they have no intentions of ever willingly walking back into a ps. There are many days I am ready to throw in the towel, and count down how much longer I will be doing this. Once oldest graduates I suspect things will go much smoother. It is like he must have chaos around him at all times. So yeah it's not fun, it's very stressful, it's still the right thing for us to be doing.