What did your kids think about being homeschooled after being done?

[EKS]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

Mushroom: "Homeschooling should be banned." But also: "You gave me the best education I could have gotten."

I mean, yeah, it's contradictory in some ways, but he basically thinks non-public education isn't good for the citizenry or government and it's a cause of fragmentation. But also, he recognizes that he got the best education he could have and that he was lucky. He just thinks it's a privilege that shouldn't be afforded to people.

Are our kids clones?

[Scarlett]

2 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

Just to add, complicated feelings about parental education decisions are not restricted to homeschooling. 

I begged to be removed from my high school and my parents just laughed, really.

I am 99% sure that my experience of having zero say about being forced to be in a really brutish environment for six years with my eduction and mental health needs ignored caused way more complications for me than homeschooling did for my kids. 

It's about being in tune with your kids and their needs, not the mode of education. Staying flexible. 

 

 

 

Yes. And much of this is informed by the times. Homeschooling was not a thing in my world…..although it would have served me well. 

[BlsdMama]

2 hours ago, TechWife said:

We both think elementary grades were fine. We both wish he’d gone to a brick and mortar school for high school. We both disliked it for very different reasons, and dislike is  putting it mildly. 

This is fascinating because DD2 and her DH have said they might send them to school K-6 but they want them home for high school. I have a friend who both homeschooled her older kids and chose to put her youngest in private school until 7th grade and brought her home this year. I really wonder if this have been great for us, but we did put our two toner in school for a year and hated it. Great school, great teachers, cute small connected town, but just missed that daily connection. DS enjoyed it but it was half day pre school for a VERY wiggly little boy. I think it would be a different story now because he really thrives on a lot of outdoor physically active time. DD hated it. She cried nearly every day. I went in often, volunteered in the classroom, etc., but her very extroverted self was overwhelmed. We were shocked. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

Depends on the personality of the child.

Some come right out with it. Others hedge. Others are skilled at honesty + clear headed assessment. Some tell you want they think you want to hear. 

In some ways, it doesn't matter.

You do your best at the time to be attuned to the child's needs, you inevitably fall short of perfection, and as an adult, child has a variety of (not always predictable) thoughts about it, and all this is fine. 

But I do understand the curiosity. 

Maybe this is just my luck, but for us, it mattered, because DD10 is very discontented and resentful when unhappy, despite not speaking up 😕. I don’t have easy kids.

[BronzeTurtle]

57 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Maybe this is just my luck, but for us, it mattered, because DD10 is very discontented and resentful when unhappy, despite not speaking up 😕. I don’t have easy kids.

But it really doesn't matter. My kids wanted to be in school until they didn't. They wanted to be homeschooled until they didn't. Kids get discontented for all sorts of reasons. They speak up or don't. THey act out or don't. Kids can be outwardly resentful and then 5 years later say they are so glad you did xyz. They can also go along and seem to love every moment they are doing something and come back 5 years later and tell you that they really wish you hadn't made them do that thing they seemingly loved. 10yo isn't old enough to understand all the implications of decisions you have to make on her behalf. Even 15 or 18, their brains and life experience aren't there to say that anything is definitively good or bad, although at those ages they should probably have more input in what they are doing academically and such. But there's a reason it's not legal to drop out of school until a certain age. Very few really want to be there doing the school stuff, even those who do well at it. The issue would be to deal with the discontentment even if it's not exacly what she wants to be doing. That's life and growing up and doing things you don't want to do and even not being grumpy about those things. That's hard to do even as adults.

Also, no one has easy kids. Easy kids are a myth. Even kids that seeem to go with the flow have their own issues. Kids that go to school happily and get good grades and seem to do everything right on the outside have issues. Happy-go-lucky kids have issues. Your kids and issues with them aren't special or special to homeschooling or having them in a school. I say this because it helps to remember that you're not alone.

[madteaparty]

Fairly negative, esp. for her. Neither of my kids chose to homeschool and I don’t think either was a fan. DS has a more of “all’s well that ends well attitude”, the “ending well” being defined by him as being accepted to numerous selective schools and so far thriving where he landed (so far; it’s early days). Dd was far more vocal and is now in brick and mortar school. I may switch her to private but she’s very happy. she already thinks (at her very wise 11 year old age) that homeschooling was negatively affecting our relationship and has told me so. She may be right, too🤷‍♀️ The only person that’s super positive about homeschooling is the person that had the least to do with it, DH. I’m too busy coping with the very real and documentable career hit to have processed any thoughts re: what just happened. 

Edited October 9, 2022 by madteaparty

[EmilyGF]

1 minute ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Also, no one has easy kids. Easy kids are a myth. Even kids that seem to go with the flow have their own issues. Kids that go to school happily and get good grades and seem to do everything right on the outside have issues. Happy-go-lucky kids have issues. Your kids and issues with them aren't special or special to homeschooling or having them in a school. I say this because it helps to remember that you're not alone.

No kids are totally easy, but some kids are much easier than others. 

I have 5 kids. Four fairly easy, and one is an energy vacuum.

I did not understand the work many of my friends do until my energy vacuum kid. And even he is much easier than many other kids (spectrum, ADHD, depression, etc.)

Emily

[BronzeTurtle]

Just now, EmilyGF said:

No kids are totally easy, but some kids are much easier than others. 

I have 5 kids. Four fairly easy, and one is an energy vacuum.

I did not understand the work many of my friends do until my energy vacuum kid. And even he is much easier than many other kids (spectrum, ADHD, depression, etc.)

Emily

I think its a rare person that is not the energy vacuum at some point in their lives to someone (probably mom most likely) especially as they are being raised. I was a difficult energy suck at points when I was growing up. I know this. When I was 19 I also knew everything my parents did wrong.

Personalities can be hard to gel and with 5 separate people, getting along with all of them seems unlikely. I can't even think of a work place I've worked where a group of 5 would not have some personality conflicts.

My point was more that a kid being unhappy/resentful and not verbalizing isn't atypical or unusually difficult. It seems very typical for a kid. It may be difficult to manage, but it doesn't mean labeling the kid themselves as difficult is helpful and may even be a self fullfilling prophecy. And people with energy suck kids or resentful kids aren't alone. I was trying to tell the poster that the choices she made in good faith for her kids might cause near term resentment and unhappiness but a) that can't be the driver of what we do as parents and b) it isn't unusual or a marker of a "difficult child".

 

[madteaparty]

24 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Also, no one has easy kids. Easy kids are a myth. Even kids that seeem to go with the flow have their own issues. Kids that go to school happily and get good grades and seem to do everything right on the outside have issues. Happy-go-lucky kids have issues. Your kids and issues with them aren't special or special to homeschooling or having them in a school. I say this because it helps to remember that you're not alone.

I disagree—my kids are very easy compared to some of sister’s kids, friend’s kids, etc. also, you can rock on with your decisions, but the OP asked what the kids thought when they were done with homeschooling. 

[Terabith]

I homeschooled each of my kids until they were nine.  We homeschooled because I wanted to give them a great education, and because school would have seriously interfered with the amount of sleep my oldest needed (solid 12 hours up through third grade but was also a night owl), and for family flexibility.  I wanted to spend time with them, and I didn’t think any of the available schools would have remotely served their needs in early elementary. Those are the years that seemed most out of alignment between expectations and child development. I would have been happy homeschooling indefinitely.  But by age nine, I could not find them friends.  The social dynamics just weren’t working, and my relationship with them was suffering because I was always being the one making hard demands.  My kids literally didn’t believe other kids had to learn.  They sorta thought school just poured knowledge and skills into kids.  
 

I also did an emergency year of homeschooling oldest in high school but it was more facilitating things and the focus was definitely on mental health. And I did virtual school during covid in high school for youngest.  
 

My kids were not glad we homeschooled when I first sent them to school, but pretty quickly they were both grateful for the early homeschooling and for going to school later.  The more they learn about what k-3 are like, the more they were glad they did it at home, where they could wiggle.  The odds my youngest would have learned to read in public school are low, and there’s no way it wouldn’t have destroyed her self confidence.  They were glad they went to school too, because school has its own set of skills, and because the social situation was much better.  They remember Story of the World and all the books we read together and the geography games webpage they played on very fondly. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, BronzeTurtle said:

But it really doesn't matter. My kids wanted to be in school until they didn't. They wanted to be homeschooled until they didn't. Kids get discontented for all sorts of reasons. They speak up or don't. THey act out or don't. Kids can be outwardly resentful and then 5 years later say they are so glad you did xyz. They can also go along and seem to love every moment they are doing something and come back 5 years later and tell you that they really wish you hadn't made them do that thing they seemingly loved. 10yo isn't old enough to understand all the implications of decisions you have to make on her behalf. Even 15 or 18, their brains and life experience aren't there to say that anything is definitively good or bad, although at those ages they should probably have more input in what they are doing academically and such. But there's a reason it's not legal to drop out of school until a certain age. Very few really want to be there doing the school stuff, even those who do well at it. The issue would be to deal with the discontentment even if it's not exacly what she wants to be doing. That's life and growing up and doing things you don't want to do and even not being grumpy about those things. That's hard to do even as adults.

I’m not comfortable acting like my child’s unhappiness doesn’t matter. 

 

1 hour ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Also, no one has easy kids. Easy kids are a myth. Even kids that seeem to go with the flow have their own issues. Kids that go to school happily and get good grades and seem to do everything right on the outside have issues. Happy-go-lucky kids have issues. Your kids and issues with them aren't special or special to homeschooling or having them in a school. I say this because it helps to remember that you're not alone.

This doesn’t make me feel not alone. Merely condescended to.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

33 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

I disagree—my kids are very easy compared to some of sister’s kids, friend’s kids, etc. also, you can rock on with your decisions, but the OP asked what the kids thought when they were done with homeschooling. 

Thank you.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I went to a one room schoolhouse (remarkably like the kind of homeschooling that people do at co-ops), public American school, private boarding school. I have taught in public schools, private schools, and a ungraded school for gifted which had shades of “unschooling “ philosophy. I think that some schools might be better for some kids but there is no “one best kind of school “. Plus, teachers, classmates and all kinds of different variables are different in each classroom.

  If my kids were to suddenly change their opinion and decide that our schooling choices were the worst ever, I would just look at them. While obviously the final decision was dh and mine, our schooling was always a collaborative process. 

[BronzeTurtle]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I’m not comfortable acting like my child’s unhappiness doesn’t matter. 

 

This doesn’t make me feel not alone. Merely condescended to.

The point is not that your kid's hapiness doesn't matter. You deal with that however you would deal with unhappiness coming out of any decision a parent would make for a child. A baby is going to cry when they get a shot, but we say the crying and short term pain doesn't matter because we know the shot is a good long term decision. In that sense, the unhappiness doesn't matter, but in the moment we cuddle them and console them and get them through it. It's not like "it doesn't matter so I'm leaving you to cry it out on your own" it's more like, "yes this is hard, how can we get through it even though it makes you feel bad?". Now expand the metaphor into school stuff and older kids. We train them (wherever they go to school) to do the hard work and get them through it even if they find it makes them discontent or unhappy. And then when they are 20 they say, "Why didn't you just do everything differently?"

As for being condescended to, I'm not sure how saying discontented kids isn't unusual  is condescending. I guess if you take what I said in the most negative way possible. I would just hate to be labeled difficult or have my own kids carry a label of difficult or not easy or whatever because I or they had a temperament that didn't mesh. Relationships are hard with people that are still growing up.

Edited October 9, 2022 by BronzeTurtle

[BronzeTurtle]

3 hours ago, madteaparty said:

I disagree—my kids are very easy compared to some of sister’s kids, friend’s kids, etc. also, you can rock on with your decisions, but the OP asked what the kids thought when they were done with homeschooling. 

I was replying to a specific comment of her's not the thread topic in general. It really had nothing to do with my decisions or any specific decisions at all.

But I'm glad you found parenting easy. It's actually I think the first time I've had someone tell me that they had very easy kids all the way through. Most everyone I know had a time of it with their kids at some point in raising them. My personality would find that sort of thing condescending, like I have struggles and they come and say "my kids are very easy compared to yours!" lol. To each their own I suppose.

[BronzeTurtle]

3 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I’m not comfortable acting like my child’s unhappiness doesn’t matter. 

 

I will give one more example of this. When I was 12 my mom moved us to a new city. I absolutely was unhappy about it. I cried, I threw fits and I thought that because she still made the decision to move us that she was acting like my unhappiness didn't matter. So I cried more and slammed more doors. I was a real peach lol. I thought if I could just show her how unhappy I was she would do what I wanted. Obviously my unhappiness did matter to her but in terms of the decisions no matter how much I cried it didn't matter. In many ways she had no choice but to move us and it ended up being very good for me specifically. But maybe it wouldn't have. She didn't know she couldn't know if it would end up with me doing poorly in the end.

School decisions are like that. When I say it doesn't matter, it's like that. We think school v homeschool is different because we take on the direct burden of homeschooling mostly so it feels more like we're the root cause of discontent in the homeschool. If a kid is discontent with b&m school, it's not you or your home that's the source so it's easier to take less personally I think. But a kid can be discontent with homeschooling and it can still be the right decision. But either way the unhappiness doesn't matter to whatever extent you still have to do the thing you think is best for everyone and  it may make the kid unhappy. And it's not that you don't care it's that adults make decisions for kids that kids don't like sometimes. That's all I was trying to say.

[Melissa Louise]

5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Maybe this is just my luck, but for us, it mattered, because DD10 is very discontented and resentful when unhappy, despite not speaking up 😕. I don’t have easy kids.

I didn't express myself clearly. 

It absolutely matters as they go through their education that you are responsive to their thoughts and needs.

It matters less what you chose, ultimately, once they are adults, because it's a path in the past, with + and - elements, like all paths. 

Hope that's a little clearer!  

 

[Clarita]

33 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I will give one more example of this. When I was 12 my mom moved us to a new city. I absolutely was unhappy about it. I cried, I threw fits and I thought that because she still made the decision to move us that she was acting like my unhappiness didn't matter.

I immigrated as a kid when I was young and cried and refused to go to school when I arrived. We weren't going to move back for sure, but my parents made sure to check on my unhappiness. Because while that unhappiness can be just that you miss your friends and your old home, it can also be something else. Something else that can be changed, in my case ugly things were happening at school and my parents asked for a school transfer. I'm glad my parents always took my unhappiness seriously and I will always take my kids unhappiness seriously.

1 hour ago, BronzeTurtle said:

As for being condescended to, I'm not sure how saying discontented kids isn't unusual  is condescending. I guess if you take what I said in the most negative way possible. I would just hate to be labeled difficult or have my own kids carry a label of difficult or not easy or whatever because I or they had a temperament that didn't mesh. Relationships are hard with people that are still growing up.

Not speaking for @Not_a_Number, but having two kids one who is difficult (because he is discontent A LOT) and an easy kid. Difficult child has a much more narrow range of able to be content than the easy child. He always feels there is better and is discontent about it, which means he has to deal with disappointment a lot more than my easy child. It's also harder for him to let things go because he is so focused and he wants to make things "the best". This is a part of who he is, it both makes him an amazing person but also difficult child. It's condescending to hear "every child struggles" when you and your child have to deal with 4 hour tantrums happening 5 times per week and sometimes more than once a day, or your child would really rather starve than eat (not my child, but actually me). There are parents who are dealing with who have to deal with kids who take extra effort than the average.

For brevity in conversation, I say difficult, but in my talks with my child we talk about his actual struggles. That is good for him because that us acknowledging how hard he has to work to get to the same socially acceptable place as my daughter.

[Soror]

My older 2 schooled k-7 and went to PS in 8th. 

My son graduates PS highschool this year. He thinks hs'ing was ok but was glad to go to PS.

Dd1 appreciated hs more but is still glad to be in PS for highschool.

There is a very, very limited social scene for hs'ers here, like just a handful of kids, there is not much community. I spent over a decade trying to build something up so we could hs all the way through, so we wouldn't be a hs failure but it wasn't enough.

My ds is not very aware but dd can clearly see the pros and cons of both sides. To her by highschool the pros of ps clearly win out. Now my younger 2 are 7th and 4th. They both really want to go in PS next year. I let my older 2 go in 8th (and entering in 9th is a lot harder here) so dd2 will be going. I'm not letting the youngest go quite yet. I'm not certain if dd2 will find PS to her liking. I think she'd be better off waiting until 9th and just doing a few classes there but our school system doesn't let you do any extra curriculars fully unless you are enrolled so IDK. I guess time will tell.

In the end it is very individual. I still love hs'ing and wish I could hs even just one of mine all the way through. But hs'ing is not without its cons. It isn't perfect, nothing is. It isn't always the best choice for every family, or kid. There are plenty of close families in PS. Sometimes hs'ing is worse for the relationship. In the younger years I'm more inclined to making the decision of schooling as the parent but as they get older I am against forcing them to hs. I'd wished they wanted to on their own but I'm not going to force a teenager to stay home.

[madteaparty]

6 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I was replying to a specific comment of her's not the thread topic in general. It really had nothing to do with my decisions or any specific decisions at all.

But I'm glad you found parenting easy. It's actually I think the first time I've had someone tell me that they had very easy kids all the way through. Most everyone I know had a time of it with their kids at some point in raising them. My personality would find that sort of thing condescending, like I have struggles and they come and say "my kids are very easy compared to yours!" lol. To each their own I suppose.

You said there are no easy kids. I’m here to tell you there are. Sorry if it’s news. 🤷‍♀️

Edited October 9, 2022 by madteaparty

[Farrar]

Yeah, I'm another who had easy kids. This is not to say that parenting them was easy all the time (even now, as new adults) or that they didn't have their own struggles at points. I've never met a parent who didn't have a bad day with parenting or a kid who never cried once growing up or never made a single bad decision that everyone had to grapple with. I don't think that's what anyone is saying. But some kids are challenging more often than not. Some kids have mental or physical health struggles that are downright hard, some kids have learning disabilities that are ongoing challenges that eat their time and the family's time, some kids have personalities that make everything a challenge. My kids had some mildly difficult periods, but in retrospect and on the whole, they were pretty easy and I got pretty lucky. 

I think it's super tone deaf to assert to someone who is telling you that their kids are specifically not easy to assume that you understand their experience when you don't express a sense that some people genuinely deal with more than others as parents.

[Farrar]

5 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I will give one more example of this. When I was 12 my mom moved us to a new city. I absolutely was unhappy about it. I cried, I threw fits and I thought that because she still made the decision to move us that she was acting like my unhappiness didn't matter. So I cried more and slammed more doors. I was a real peach lol. I thought if I could just show her how unhappy I was she would do what I wanted. Obviously my unhappiness did matter to her but in terms of the decisions no matter how much I cried it didn't matter. In many ways she had no choice but to move us and it ended up being very good for me specifically. But maybe it wouldn't have. She didn't know she couldn't know if it would end up with me doing poorly in the end.

I think there's some talking past each other here. I find this whole paragraph incredibly contradictory. Your mother acted like your unhappiness didn't matter but also obviously your unhappiness mattered to her? Look, I think we actually agree about this, but these two things don't sit well together for me. If someone performs not caring for your emotions, then there's nothing obvious about the idea that actually they do care. 

There are two pieces here. One, showing a child that their emotional response to something is important and that as their caretaker, we're aware of that and trying to help them manage it and being responsive to it. Two, doing what actually needs to be done because it's best for the child or the family, even if it's not what a child wants.

I think it's really important that our children feel HEARD in their needs. Your answer seems to devalue the importance of that listening and affirming in a child's experience. I think it's actually pretty crucial. We could make only right decisions for a child but if the child never feels listened to, affirmed, heard, and loved then the outcome of those decisions is likely to be negative. This piece of the puzzle is incredibly crucial.

[maize]

Some kids are definitely harder to raise than others.

Re: the OP's original question --I don't know how most of my kids will feel about it when they are grown up, and I suspect that will significantly depend on how their life is going and their frame of mind when they express an opinion on the matter! Our emotional state at a given moment has a profound effect on how we perceive our life circumstances past and present.

For now, most of my kids are happy to be homeschooled. Most of them have been enrolled in school at one point or another and much prefer being home. My family trends neurodivergent, high anxiety, and rather introverted--not a combination that makes school requirements and sociality easy or pleasant. I only have one graduate, and it was her choice to return to homeschooling after trying out a public school in 9th grade. She is,  so far, happy with her choice. I do think that by the time a child is high school age they should have significant input into decision making regarding school and other aspects of their life. Doesn't mean they get full control over all decisions (immature brains with little life experience still benefit from adult guidance and restrictions) but their opinions should absolutely be taken into account.

With regards to kids at any point being upset by decisions their parents make, I would just also be aware that Grass is Greener Syndrome is very real. When one is unhappy, it is very easy to look over the fence at different circumstances and decisions and presume one would be happier over there--but that is a presumption with zero actual evidence behind it.

[BronzeTurtle]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

I think there's some talking past each other here. I find this whole paragraph incredibly contradictory. Your mother acted like your unhappiness didn't matter but also obviously your unhappiness mattered to her? Look, I think we actually agree about this, but these two things don't sit well together for me. If someone performs not caring for your emotions, then there's nothing obvious about the idea that actually they do care. 

There are two pieces here. One, showing a child that their emotional response to something is important and that as their caretaker, we're aware of that and trying to help them manage it and being responsive to it. Two, doing what actually needs to be done because it's best for the child or the family, even if it's not what a child wants.

I think it's really important that our children feel HEARD in their needs. Your answer seems to devalue the importance of that listening and affirming in a child's experience. I think it's actually pretty crucial. We could make only right decisions for a child but if the child never feels listened to, affirmed, heard, and loved then the outcome of those decisions is likely to be negative. This piece of the puzzle is incredibly crucial.

That's the point. You can care about your kids unhappiness and it can feel to the kids like you don't because at the end of everything you make a decision that makes them unhappy. Your second paragraph is exactly the point I was making. Making a decision that makes your child unhappy doesn't mean you don't care about their unhappiness. It doesn't mean you don't do all the things you're saying in the 3rd paragraph. 

At 12 I felt like my unhappiness didn't matter to my mom because she moved us to a new town regardless. That doesn't mean she wasn't there for me in a lot of ways I didn't recognize at the time (because I was 12) in order to get me through the move. 

[BronzeTurtle]

1 hour ago, madteaparty said:

You said there are no easy kids. I’m here to tell you there are. Sorry if it’s news. 🤷‍♀️

Well I guess I would just hate to be a 10, 11, 12yo (or any age really) in a family thinking my parents thought I was an easy kid or a difficult one. That seems like it puts a lot of pressure on a kid either way. Do you think they don't know their parents think of them that way?

[kirstenhill]

For us homeschooling through middle school followed by brick-and-mortar school for high school has always been our basic "game plan" since before we even started homeschooling, so I have two that are done with homeschool.  DD and I always had a bit of a rough time of it, and ages 10-12 was particularly rough (though I think she and I would have had issues whether we were homeschooling or not).  Our relationship improved immensely when she was in school.  But, on the other hand, DD likes the fact that she had oodles of time to spend with best friends in our neighborhood who were also homeschooled and to pursue hobbies.  She developed so many skills in sewing, crafts, baking, art, etc that she wouldn't have had nearly as much time for had she not been homeschooled.  I think it was probably a slight net positive for her based on what she has said - but like I said, some of the things she blames on homeschooling might have been present even if she had been in school, just slightly lessened.   (ETA: We have a great relationship now and have for a couple years - I think some of the "relationship improved after starting school bit was partly due to her maturing and getting through puberty, not just because of me not being her teacher any longer).

DS15 is really glad he had time to pursue his interests while being homeschooled - he did a lot of interest led learning for science and chose to double up on math in 8th grade (having already been accelerated) in order to prepare for a math program he wanted to enter this year (starting in 10th).  Many times he has told me how easy 9th grade was because of his great preparation in homeschool.  After he got through the required 9th grade classes, he was able to select harder classes for this year, and is happy to be in school while still looking back fondly on his homeschool experience. 

Edited October 9, 2022 by kirstenhill
clarification

[pinball]

10 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Well I guess I would just hate to be a 10, 11, 12yo (or any age really) in a family thinking my parents thought I was an easy kid or a difficult one. That seems like it puts a lot of pressure on a kid either way. Do you think they don't know their parents think of them that way?

While I wish that using “easy” and “difficult” to describe children is just some shorthand used among adults out of kids’ hearing and it didn’t impact them, I know it isn’t always the way. 
 

Kids know. Of course they know.

[KSera]

1 hour ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Well I guess I would just hate to be a 10, 11, 12yo (or any age really) in a family thinking my parents thought I was an easy kid or a difficult one. That seems like it puts a lot of pressure on a kid either way. Do you think they don't know their parents think of them that way?

I expect many more challenging kids are aware they are more challenging. That probably doesn’t make them feel great, but how would one fix that if it just is the reality of the situation? You might be thinking of a more narrow range of easy to difficult than some people are talking about—a range where all the kids are pretty “normal” and in that case there’s no reason any of them should know they are more or less difficult than another. But a kid with severe mental health challenges and/or behavior problems or other things that necessitate intense intervention often on an ongoing basis is clearly not as easy to parent as one without any of those things. That’s just reality. For someone who hasn’t dealt with anything like that to tell parents who are living it day in and day out that actually kids are all equally easy or difficult is …. I can’t think of a word, but it’s not good. 

[TexasProud]

2 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Well I guess I would just hate to be a 10, 11, 12yo (or any age really) in a family thinking my parents thought I was an easy kid or a difficult one. That seems like it puts a lot of pressure on a kid either way. Do you think they don't know their parents think of them that way?

Probably they do, but how in the heck do you keep them from feeling it. It feels like as parents we can never win.

4 hours ago, Farrar said:

 

I think it's really important that our children feel HEARD in their needs. Your answer seems to devalue the importance of that listening and affirming in a child's experience. I think it's actually pretty crucial. We could make only right decisions for a child but if the child never feels listened to, affirmed, heard, and loved then the outcome of those decisions is likely to be negative. This piece of the puzzle is incredibly crucial.

Yeah, that piece was probably missing in my early parenting.  That is what is so, so , so incredibly frustrating to me. I READ constantly and tried to do everything right, but then more info comes to light...  So basically, we parents always screw our kids up.  So frustrating when you really try to be the best parent. You try to say and do all the right things, but you always fail.

[wendyroo]

6 hours ago, Farrar said:

I think it's really important that our children feel HEARD in their needs. Your answer seems to devalue the importance of that listening and affirming in a child's experience. I think it's actually pretty crucial. We could make only right decisions for a child but if the child never feels listened to, affirmed, heard, and loved then the outcome of those decisions is likely to be negative. This piece of the puzzle is incredibly crucial.

I have to say that I think there are limits even on this.

Even my most neurotypical kiddo goes through extended periods where she just wants to whine incessantly about things that either can't be fixed or things that are totally fixable but she is choosing not to. There is a very limited number of times that I will listen, affirm and value her complaining to me about it raining outside or her pencil not being sharp enough. For my own mental health, I can't take it personally or let it drag me down that at any given moment at least one, and sometimes all four of my kids are discontent about something...sometimes something big (remembering that three of them have to deal with Elliot as a sibling which is an inescapable, ongoing, tumultuous trauma in their lives). 

My therapist has spent a lot of time coaching me on how keeping my kids happy is not my job. Happiness is not on Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. As their parent, I'm in charge of their physiological needs and their safety needs. And I should offer as much love and belonging as I can...though it is not on me if they reject them. But the next level up is esteem - self-worth, accomplishement and respect - not happiness. It is my job to help them develop a growth mindset, to avoid learned helplessness, to teach healthy coping strategies, to help them develop skills they can authentically be proud of, etc., not to keep them happy.

If I can look myself in the mirror and say that I am addressing my kids' physiological, safety, belonging and esteem needs, and they are still unhappy, then I don't think the healthiest thing is just to hear, love and affirm those negative thoughts. I think that is the time to help them start recognizing and changing their damaging, self-sabotaging thought patterns. That is the point we seek out psychiatric care, because to me it is a red flag that their brains are processing the world in an unhealthy way, and that therapy as a child could 1) improve how they experience and engage with the world in the short term, 2) influence their perceptions of the world that will inform their future behaviors, and 3) give them time to learn vital mental health skills that will pay dividends as adults.

Edited to add, that this philosophy applies to our homeschooling as well. In general, day to day happiness is not incredibly high on my priority list. My kids all think they would be happier with less work or different work...but experience shows that isn't really true. So, to some extent I will offer choices and be flexible with expectations, but after that the kids are expected to do their work without too much grumbling. They are welcome to go to public school, which will also not be all sunshine and roses and deference to their every whim, or they can choose to stay home and find a way to be content with the imperfectness here.

Edited October 9, 2022 by wendyroo

[Alice]

As background, we have always given our kids the option to homeschool or not. Pretty much every year we talk about what they want to do the next year. So the ones who have homeschooled had it be their choice, at least in part. 

My oldest graduated two years ago and started college this year after a gap year. I think he was always happy to homeschool. He’s kind of an ideal homeschooler. He’s very self-directed as far as learning. He learns well from reading. He is very much an introvert and was happy with a small number of friends from his activities but didn’t need to see kids every day. He is now really enjoying college (and kind of surprisingly social). He is finding school easy this semester for the most part so that’s also helping with the enjoyment. His brother started public school this year and everytime they talk the oldest’s response is that he’s really glad he homeschooled. 

His brother is in 10th grade and homeschooled up until this year. He probably should have gone to school earlier. He was really really resistant to the idea when he was younger and although I thought it would be better for him I knew he would have seen it somehow as a punishment or as me rejecting him since his siblings would have been at home. So we didn’t push it. I wish I had pushed harder for him to go to high school but we didn’t. He really struggled last year with mental health issues, I think in large part because of being lonely. The silver lining was that he was able to travel a lot with his older brother on his gap year. They had some experiences that I think really solidified their relationship and made lifelong memories. He has ADHD and I think he had always worried about whether or not he could handle school. (To be clear, not my worry and I had tried hard to make it clear that I thought he would do great.) I think he also knows he gets bored easily and wasn’t sure he’d want to be in a school setting all day. But this year at the beginning of August I thought about the summer and how he had just thrived socially with his friends all summer. So I asked again if he wanted to try school and he did and it has been great. A funny-ish consequence is he now feels better about his homeschooling years because apparently he had always felt bad about himself for the amount of work he did. He’d hear people his age talk about all their homework and he knew they were in school all day so he felt like everyone else was doing so much work and he just did "nothing" all day. Now that he’s in school he realizes this is not at all true. And he’s doing really well academically so he can see he can do it and he has friends. 

My youngest is an 8th grader and trying to decide what she will do for high school. She likes homeschooling and is happy that she has done it. 

 

[regentrude]

Mine thanked me, especially for making them do AOPS. Both said they had an edge over their college classmates by having learned to *think* and wrestle with problems.

They both had more agency and more free time and at the same time learned a lot more than they would have at ps. And ds specifically said that he learned more than his homeschooled peers (most of whom didn't get a decent math education).

It's one parenting decision our entire family agrees was absolutely the right one.

Edited October 9, 2022 by regentrude

[Melissa Louise]

4 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Probably they do, but how in the heck do you keep them from feeling it. It feels like as parents we can never win.

Yeah, that piece was probably missing in my early parenting.  That is what is so, so , so incredibly frustrating to me. I READ constantly and tried to do everything right, but then more info comes to light...  So basically, we parents always screw our kids up.  So frustrating when you really try to be the best parent. You try to say and do all the right things, but you always fail.

If you go into it knowing that you are gonna fail somewhere along the line, you can laugh at the expectation it would be anything but.

I did not go into it knowing this - I was an idiot, lol.

It is frustrating, but it is also just human life.

I have never yet come across a parent-child relationship where mom did everything 'right' 100% of the time.

Yes, you will always fail (at times, and to some - hopefully but not always minor - extent).

 

[Terabith]

7 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Probably they do, but how in the heck do you keep them from feeling it. It feels like as parents we can never win.

Yeah, that piece was probably missing in my early parenting.  That is what is so, so , so incredibly frustrating to me. I READ constantly and tried to do everything right, but then more info comes to light...  So basically, we parents always screw our kids up.  So frustrating when you really try to be the best parent. You try to say and do all the right things, but you always fail.

Of course you're going to screw up your kids.  I mean, do your best, but we absolutely went into parenting knowing we'd screw up.  We joked about having a therapy fund, not a college fund.  

[Rosie_0801]

I reckon the ultimate in parenting is when your kids have different hang ups to you. 

[KSera]

3 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

If you go into it knowing that you are gonna fail somewhere along the line, you can laugh at the expectation it would be anything but.

I did not go into it knowing this - I was an idiot, lol.

I did not know this either, and it would have been so much better if I did. I thought I could do my very best and do everything “right” by sheer force of effort, desire and willingness, but it turned out there’s no such thing. We can think we’re doing everything “right” and working our hardest at it and things can still go wrong and some of our kids may come out the other side upset at us no matter what we do. 

[TexasProud]

18 minutes ago, KSera said:

I did not know this either, and it would have been so much better if I did. I thought I could do my very best and do everything “right” by sheer force of effort, desire and willingness, but it turned out there’s no such thing. We can think we’re doing everything “right” and working our hardest at it and things can still go wrong and some of our kids may come out the other side upset at us no matter what we do. 

Yeah, I don't know how to live with that.

[Drama Llama]

To me, parenting is like Tetris or Bullriding. You have to go into it knowing that you're going to fall sometimes, and it's going to hurt sometimes, and success will be measured on how long you held on, and how gracefully you got back in the game. 

Or something like that, it's too close to my bedtime for me to be coherently philosophical.  

[freesia]

27 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Yeah, I don't know how to live with that.

By realizing that nothing ever on this earth is perfect. We aren’t in control of everything. There is freedom in realizing that it’s not about us being perfect all the time. It’s about us learning to live and support each other in spite of the imperfections. Then we can own and apologize when the blame is justified. We can help them see that you aren’t perfect, they aren’t perfect, life throws curveballs, but we can keep working and growing together. I don’t think our kids are/were ever suppose to be a project like a school project that we were graded on, but a lot of us approached it that way. 
 

I wish so much for you that you could stop holding yourself to such impossibly high standards of perfection. It seems like you feel there is a right way to do everything and you beat yourself up when somehow you can’t find it or do it or life messes with it. I wish you peace, sister. 

[Meriwether]

Both of my oldest two are happy to have been homeschooled, but I recently had an interesting set of exchanges with them. The younger three studied King Arthur for a couple of weeks this fall. Right around that time, Dd19 recounted a conversation she had with a brilliant college friend who knew nothing about King Arthur. Dd19 found that shocking. Lol Within a day or two of that conversation, Ds18 mentioned in a bit of a complaining way that he knew lots about King Arthur but lacked skills. He was reading his syllabus for his online sleech class. I assured him he would be able to figure out Zoom and uploading to YouTube. I, apparently, couldn't win with teaching King Arthur. Lol

 

Dd19 went through a phase where she wanted to try public school. It wasn't an option for us to split our schooling options, so we had a lot of conversations about how there were things she would love about public school and things she would dislike. Those conversations helped a little, but what really helped was volunteering in a ps one morning per week from the time she was 13. By the 2nd or 3rd week, she had decided she was never putting her kids in school. Ds18 has never wanted to go to public school, even if I did fail to teach him Zoom skills.

The younger three are all happy to be homeschooling, but my 16 year old does make more comments like, "PS'ers don't have to finish the book," now that his school work is harder.

[Not_a_Number]

14 hours ago, Farrar said:

I think it's super tone deaf to assert to someone who is telling you that their kids are specifically not easy to assume that you understand their experience when you don't express a sense that some people genuinely deal with more than others as parents.

Thanks, @Farrar. 

@BronzeTurtle -- I'm having trouble engaging with some of the things you're saying, because I have a really complicated swirl of feelings about them. They're making me feel like my reality is being doubted, and then I feel hurt and really defensive and like I have to explain why it is that my reality is, in fact, my reality. 

As some of you know, I've had an emotionally difficult year, and one thing I've recently been grappling with is that I can't MAKE someone see my reality and that giving in to this kind of defensiveness isn't useful. So... I don't think there's any point in me explaining why to ME it felt like my kid's resentment mattered and why to ME it feels like my kids are hard (even though I think they are great kids and don't love them any less for that!) But I did want to explain how I was feeling about the discussion. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

More on the topic of "easy vs. hard": we're all hard in this family, lol. We were recently talking about the book "Frog and Toad," and how Frog is always chipper and cheerful and positive, whereas Toad is always worried and anxious and neurotic (even though he's still a great friend to Frog!) 

Anyway, we decided that we're all toads 😂. And for a while, we all held hands walking down the street, chanting "Circle of Toads!" 😂. I'm trying to work on all of us being OK with who we are, because to me, it always feels like knowing who you are is the first step on the way to doing your best with the hand you're dealt. 

[Not_a_Number]

My kids also do have a choice about whether they are homeschooled or not, but I still worry: DD10 doesn't really remember what school is like, and DD6 has never gone to school, so it's hard to feel like it's a totally informed choice. And I've realized recently that my kids are very anxious, and will sometimes stick with what they know even if it's not actually making them happy. 

We had a hard time with homeschooling for some time during the pandemic, and DD10 recently had a pretty unschooled year. We're now trying to be more active about it again, so I've just been thinking about the end of the journey, I guess 🙂 . I really appreciate everyone's reports about how their kids felt about homeschooling!

[Not_a_Number]

10 hours ago, wendyroo said:

My therapist has spent a lot of time coaching me on how keeping my kids happy is not my job. Happiness is not on Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. As their parent, I'm in charge of their physiological needs and their safety needs. And I should offer as much love and belonging as I can...though it is not on me if they reject them. But the next level up is esteem - self-worth, accomplishement and respect - not happiness. It is my job to help them develop a growth mindset, to avoid learned helplessness, to teach healthy coping strategies, to help them develop skills they can authentically be proud of, etc., not to keep them happy.

Yes... perhaps happiness is a misnomer. When I talk about my kid being unhappy, I don't mean day to day grumpiness. I do mean things like long-term resentment and learned helplessness. And a big priority for us has been to figure out with her how she can cope with the world given how she naturally reacts to it. 

I know some people on here (@lewelma is one person I remember doing so) recommend The Explosive Child, and although it took me a while, I've taken it to heart -- I'm finding it much more effective to cooperate with my kids about how they deal with the world than I did trying to impose it from up high.  

[Shoeless]

I'm another person with an "easy" kid. Sorry? He's always had an easy going personality that gels with mine. He and I have a blow-out maybe once or twice a year. Otherwise, there's no shouting, yelling, door slamming, sulking, etc at my house.     

The majority of issues in parenting him are my fault, born of my own anxieties and insecurities.  

We're not at the end of the homeschool journey, but I can see the end from here. DS14 doesn't remember what school was like, so I also worried about whether he was able to make an informed decision. I've tried to be as honest as possible about what he could expect at school, good and bad, if he decided to go. I described what a typical high school is like, what his day would be like, how the classes are structured, clubs, exams, sports, gym class, etc. He listened to all of it and said "That seems like an awfully inefficient way of going about learning. No thanks". 😆

[Hannah]

11 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

I reckon the ultimate in parenting is when your kids have different hang ups to you. 

Very well put Rosie!

My girls understand and appreciate that we really did do the best that we could under the circumstances, with the skills and knowledge that we had at the time.  If I knew then what I know now I'd do things differently, but we can't beat ourselves up about that.   

I hope that our whole family learned from our experiences and efforts - in my case I needed to actively work on acquiring an emotional vocabulary and literacy.  My girls are way more self-aware and have more confidence than I had at their ages and have more coping skills and tools.   I hope that some generational trauma and hang-ups have been resolved and I'd be really sad if they have the same ones I do!

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Hannah

[maize]

The thing is, we come to parenting as inexperienced parents. There's no other option! And parenting--interacting day-to-day with these young humans with their immature brains and, in many cases, intense and irrational (as emotions usually are!) emotions--is a massively challenging undertaking. And yes, more so with kids who are more emotional, kids who are prone to anxiety, kids who are particularly lacking in executive function, kids who are neurodivergent, etc.

It was never in the cards for any parent to give their kids a perfect childhood or a perfect education. We muddle through, do the best we can, learn and adapt as we grow--and our kids do the same. When kids grow up to resent decisions their parents made, they sometimes have genuine and reasonable complaints but, at least as often, they lack perspective of how difficult the parental job is and think they were owed perfection where perfection was never an option.

My approach has been, as much as possible, to prioritize relationships and prioritize mental health. That involves some trade-offs; no-one can prioritize everything! Maybe some of my kids will someday resent the relative lack of rigor in my homeschool. Maybe they'll resent other things that have been simply beyond my abilities, like living in a house that is clean and orderly enough to regularly have people over. 

I just hope that time and maturity will teach them as well that perfection was never an option and life is about choosing what good we can and accepting that we cannot have or be all that is good.

[Clemsondana]

My kids aren't grown, but they are old enough that I have some idea of what they are likely to think.  My older, a high school junior, thinks that being homeschooled is great.  He knows that the only way that he can do so many things- high school and summer baseball, Science Olympiad, quiz bowl, scouts, and some youth group at church - is by being homeschooled.  He also knows that he's getting a better education, since he talks to the kids on his ball teams and knows what they are doing in school.  He likes the schedule and academic flexibility.  He doesn't need to hang with a best buddy all the time, so having ball friends and nerd friends is plenty.  He likes effeciency, so knowing that school has minimal time wastage is important.  

My younger...who knows.  Kid has friends at several extracurriculars and co-op, so there is lots of social time although not always with the same person.  But, there are some long-term friends that kid texts with and sees sometimes for outings and sleepovers.  The only way that kid can manage the ever-increasing list of activities is to homeschool, but there is a lot of conflict.  But...if kid went to school, would they use up all of their mental reserves getting through the day and then we'd have no good time together?  There is no way to know, but experiments with having kid go to day camps show that being away doesn't necessarily decrease conflict in the house, it just moves it to all being in the evening.  It's a challenge, but watching friends who have kids in other environments, there's always going to be a challenge.  Every time I offer the chance to go to school, kid is adamantly opposed.  Is it anxiety, and could kid be happier there?  Maybe.  Or it could be horrible.  Or it could just be 'Everywhere you go, there you are' and kid would be how kid is going to be, regardless of the situation.  No matter what we do, kid's perceptions in the future are likely to be dependent on how they are doing at the moment.  

As for easy and hard kids, I seem to have one of each.  But, my easy kid was an incredibly difficult young kid.  My challenging kid was a super easy baby and a fairly mellow toddler, as toddlers go.  I've seen easy children become very difficult teens.  Environment, temperament, hormones, and life stressors play out unpredictably.  I never would have imagined some of the meltdowns over nothing, but I've also seen the kids handle adversity with aplomb.  Some temperaments are easier and harder, but it's not always permanent and can be situational.  

[Hannah]

1 hour ago, maize said:

where perfection was never an option

This is such an important parenting lesson.  We will never be perfect parents, and our children will not be perfect either!

 

[skimomma]

I have a 2nd year college student that was homeschooled all the way through.  She had a say in her schooling paths from about 6th grade and on.  There were two years in which there was a serious discussion about going into PS.....6th grade for middle school and 9th grade for high school.  In both cases she decided to stay home.  While I am positive she could point to things about homeschooling she did not like, her current story is that she is glad she was homeschooled.  She had interests that took up a great deal of time and homeschooling allowed far more immersion in those things than would have been possible in PS.  She also had the best of both worlds as she was very much a part of a social group in the local PS.  She had no homeschooled friends.  Aside from not actually attending the PS, you would almost never know as she attended dances and athletic games, dated several different people, and did pretty much anything a regular PS student would have done except attend classes.  Her friends even smuggled her into the athletic awards ceremony *during the school day* so that she could appear with her teammates (the sport was not affiliated with the school but is treated as such since most of the athletes attend that school).  I half expected a call as this was very much breaking school rules but somehow nothing happened.