Homeschoolers: The Educated Unsocialized. WHAT????

Homeschooling parents can tell you, without hesitation, the very first words they hear from opponents of home education:  "But what about socialization?"  That's so odd to me.  Who sends their kids to school to socialize?

 I do understand that we moved our cherubs from the sun and fun of Cape May County, NJ, to the Middle-of-Nowhere, WV, and that they need to see people other than us.  I am a social person.  But, I also assert that they do not consider each student they have run into in public school a potential friend.  I think people are naturally selective in their relationships.  I told both kids going into this wild and woolly venture that they could invite friends over any time they wanted. They don't do alot of inviting.  They have established friendships with other homeschoolers in the area and spend a fair amount of time with them.  We also take part in Fun Friday (term coined by a hokey, local, homeschooling mom) activities.  We have visited the  Frontier Culture Museum and Marker Miller Orchards.  We are headed to Mount Vernon (George Washington's homeplace) next month.  We also get together sometimes just to--dare I say it?--PLAY.

I created a Facebook page called Homebodies and encourage both parents and children to join conversations going on there.  As a group (and sometimes with others), we ground-picked a truckload of apples, made 24 gallons of applesauce, studied the Constitution and its creation, enjoyed a small, intimate dinner and sharing time with two international workers who currently serve in Indonesia, and made s'mores over a fire built and maintained by two homeschoolers.  So, you see, we are quite a social bunch.

We eat, we pray, we love.  We laugh, we learn, we socialize.  Plus, our kids' teacher loves them better than anyone else on earth and knows them inside and out.  She understands when they are frustrated and never chides them for not catching on to something right away.  She doesn't excuse bad behavior by blaming it on their classmates, and she never EVER has to shed her pajamas because she was called to school for a parent-teacher conference.  She has the time and energy to collect and grade each assignment, not just the first three to pull the week's grade out of a stack of papers.  She believes her students' time is valuable. Who could ask for more?



 

A Whirlwind Of Learning--And Only One Month In!

It has been considerably longer than a few short days since my last post, and for this I humbly apologize.  We have been caught in a month-long tornado, a whirlwind of learning and it's been wonderful!  If I had realized homeschooling could be like this we would have done it this way forever ago.  But, when we last schooled at home, we were clueless.  We knew we didn't want our dearest loves in public school, and private school for four children would have majorly stretched our budget.  So we decided to make a go of it at the kitchen table.

Several factors hindered our success in those days.  First, the curriculum we chose was one being used by friends, it was self-taught and self-corrected, and super tedious.  And second, we didn't realize schooling at home did not have to look like schooling at school--public or private.  We have since wisened up and have untangled ourselves and our children from such constraining thought.  And these youngest two of our six are blossoming!  They are such problem solvers, and so intuitive!  Did any of their public school teachers ever even see this in them?

We have a schedule and all disciplines are represented.  We sit at the kitchen table most days.  So things aren't whimsical (grrr--a parent once accused me of whimsical teaching) or willy-nilly.  They are organized--and backed by sound research--but flexible.  We read and laugh together, have become Facebook friends with a favorite author, have created a loosely organized homeschooling group that (because of the Internet) extends across the country.  We have visited the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA, and will be spending next Friday on a colonial farm.  We have gotten chummy (in the historical sense) with our nation's founding fathers and have created and presented Fourteenth Colony projects within the the constraints of the establishment of the first thirteen.  (That is, we have no space aliens or talking animals.)  We have felt the passion of the men who lived and breathed our country's liberty and, thanks to our local Tea Party (We, The People of Hampshire County), have celebrated Constitution Week with lesson plans and a great video.  Our daughter is raising a chicken in her room and Monday marks our launch into Science experiments you can eat.  We do math from a grade-appropriate textbook every day because we must.  Mommy is not a math girl, but I am learning to enjoy how numbers work.  Before long, we will be picking the brain of a math friend for some cool projects, maybe a few old copies of Middle School Math (a magazine) will be tossed our way!

Even our neighbors are excited by our homeschooling.  One has offered First Aid classes as she is a first responder.  Another, a local (and nationally recognized!) artisan will be be teaching us basketry.  Another will be leading us through a counted cross-stitch mini-project.  We have prepped food, made tie-dye tees and have studied chromatology.  And in mid-April we are headed to DC for a very high-tech science/engineering extravaganza.

I can't wait to see what next month brings!

To School, or Not To School?

For the second or third time since becoming the mother  of a school-aged-child in 1991, we have opted to homeschool.  The very first time, our dear oldest daughter was trying out public school after several years in a private Christian school.  Her third grade year was fine--she knew a lot going in.  Fourth grade brought myriad problems as our daughter's hip, young teacher was very quick to tell her Jesus was a religious figure and ABSOLUTELY NOT a historical figure.  We fixed that.  Then I caught the teacher screaming (literally, and name-calling) at our daughter in the nurse's office--she had no idea the phone on the nurse's desk was off the cradle and I was on the other end of it.  After a very direct meeting the next morning with the teacher and her boss, we fixed that one, too.  But fifth grade was another story.  We were no longer dealing with religious issues--these people were making our daughter dumb.  And it was only the second week of school!

Somewhere along the way, our local elementary school convinced our daughter that quantity was better than quality.  The teacher reported happily that our girl was smart as a whip and completed all her work, and then some.  One day, while sifting through her Friday folder, a social studies test caught my eye.  I was thinking it was one for the refrigerator since it had a great big 100% at the top.  And then I looked closely:  Our daughter believed Pennsylvania was the capital of Philadelphia and so did her teacher.  (The converse isn't even true--it's Harrisburg!)  There were several other--five in all--equally ridiculous answers marked correct.  I ordered a fifth-grade curriculum over the weekend and she never went back to that school.  At some point, she went back to her former private school.

The next time we attempted homeschooling--about a year later--was a disaster and some of the children are still in therapy.  The baby was in the playpen; the preschooler was learning her letters; the first grader DESPISED reading; the fourth grader kept feeding his pencils to the dog; and the sixth grader (dear oldest daughter) was just trying to do the right thing.  And then I turned up pregnant.  The poor kids didn't know which way was up!  Half the time I was Mary Poppins and the other half I was Cruella de Ville.  Then, one day, my precious husband walked in early from work and after looking at his children's tragic expressions, said the most beautiful words:  "Call Cape Christian and see if they'll take all of them on Monday."  They did.

I am no longer Mary Poppins or Cruella de Ville, 11 years have flown by since then, and there's no way on earth I'm turning up pregnant again.  This brings us to our current homeschool experience, a story that will come in just a short day or so.

Harder Than I Thought...

This is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.  I don't mean having the grandboy with us; I mean, packing him to go home.  I will allow that it has been very busy at our house for the past three weeks.  His mother has been gone, and we have had to add the wants, needs and habits of a potty-training, nap-forsaking two-year-old to an already almost impossible schedule.  (Did I mention we have also agreed to adopt our daughter's six-month-old lab?)

Our grandboy spent the first week of his adventure adjusting.  He, like a tiny preschool liquid filling the spaces in an existing container, poured himself into our home and hearts.  He was compliant and pretty flexible.  He became less picky about his food, hung out with his older aunts and uncles, didn't assert himself very much and was generally well-behaved.  In short, he went with the flow. 

Then, the slippery slope, the point at which he began to create the flow.  We think he spent his first week observing our behavior and storing data.  His tendrils sought out the chinks in our armor, the weak spots in our hearts.  He is absolutely the youngest unschooled--but very accomplished--psychoanalyst we have ever met.  Bumpie and I were completely unprepared for this savvy new generation of toddler.  He became enamored of his beautiful aunts, and ran to them at even the suggestion of discipline from us.  He decided to use his little blue potty only when he wanted candy, forced the girls to stay awake with him when he couldn't sleep (once until 5:20 a.m.) and trapped Bumpie in his web of sticky fingers and cute baby words.  None of us tired of him, though; not once has he been a pain.

I thought I would be okay about packing his things.  But as I folded his tiny clothes and sorted his little wee toys, I began to long for the child who was still here.  I lingered over his sippy cups, smelled his no-tears baby soap.  Like his mother and Uncle Raymond, he hid a most odd assortment of objects in secret places.  I couldn't help smiling at their discovery.  In a compartment in his riding toy I found the dog's baby, a flat-head screwdriver, a soda bottle wrapper, purple Mardi Gras beads and a hairbrush.  In a cabinet, we found some crackers, the Wii remote, a shoe, some batteries, a comb and a fork.  I am sure there are undiscovered treasures yet to be found.

Yesterday, a few chicks hatched here.  He promptly named them after his brother, his grandfather and his aunt.  The chicks are named:  Baby Miam (Liam), Baby Bumpie and Baby Aunt Mawie (Molly). 

The Importance of Being Scheduled

Having little ones on schedules is really important.  We live in a scheduled society, and unless we are fortunate enough to design our days without input from life's demands, they are good for us.  Rigidity is not good, but as our children grow, the notion that things just happen when they happen, doesn't serve them.  It hinders them.  (Refer to the beginning of sentence #2:  We live in a scheduled society.)  They become people who arrive places--like work--when they feel like it and lose entire days without accomplishing anything.  I am not opposed to losing a day here and there as a mental health fix, but if some type of order isn't followed, a day becomes several, becomes a week, a month, a year, a lifetime.

I have found that having the grandboy here helps me keep a schedule.  I don't think his mother will be very happy to know that he goes to bed much later than he's used to and, thus, sleeps much later.  You see, I am a morning person and she is a night owl.  I need the wee hours to make things happen in the house, and in my work.  That way, I belong to my family when they wake up.  We do keep regular mealtimes for both the kids and the animals here at Open Hand Farm (that's us) but most activities tend to start later and wind down later here.

In the bigger and extended-out sense, kids who don't value compartments of time, will become adults who don't value compartments of time.  I declare this entire discussion null and void as it relates to the people predisposed to completing tasks--I think they will naturally create the schedule that works for them.  I also know that if you give a baby the opportunity, he will create his own schedule and, initially, it will revolve around the basics--sleeping and eating.  (Could you see a little baby's TO DO list?  Wake up, eat, drift back off to sleep, wake up, play, poop, eat lunch, sleep, wake up, eat, play with sibs, cry while the rest of the family tries to eat supper, play with Daddy, bath, late night snack, sleep.)  My mom came from the school that told mommies to wake their babies up EVERY FOUR HOURS on the button or they would grow up to be delinquents.  Guess what?  I still grew up to be a delinquent.  (I'm much better now.  LOL)  I don't actually think the schedule had anything to do with it.  

All this to say:
1.  Schedules are good.
2.  The schedule that suits your family is the best one.
3.  Like it or not, we live in a world ordered by time and, thus, schedules.

Back To Our Senses

Phew!  I was starting not to recognize us.  We were beginning to do all the poor parenting things we used to criticize other people for.  We slipped into grandparental overindulgence and began to create a monster--but no more!  We realized our error both in our grandboy's behavior and in his lack of pooping.  He began to turn into the the yittle boss, which is funny because that's what his mother insisted she was at three years of age.  She and I were going roundy-round about one thing or another and I said to her, "YOU are NOT the boss."  (I was very emphatic.)

She puffed out her little chest and put her adorable little hands on her hips.  She furrowed her beautiful little brow and narrowed her amazing blue eyes and corrected me.  "I the YITTLE BOSS!" she said.  Her son was beginning to assert himself in similar fashion.  He was also deciding what he would and would not eat.  Bumpie and I were giving in because we wanted to be popular.  We figured out how stupid we were being when we realized our grandboy hadn't pooped in two days.  His mother did have a similar tendency, naturally, but it was an epiphany moment for us and we knew we had to be more responsible.  So...we began feeding him bananas and peaches and watermelon and eggs and LOTS of water and limited milk products and no junk cereal.  We say "no" sometimes and have even had to use the time-out chair.  It should be noted that even though the grandboy is strong-willed (like his mommy), he is also smart and has only had to sit on the time-out chair twice.  It's good when we can learn from our own mistakes, isn't it?

And guess what?  We, too, have learned from our mistakes.  We are still popular because we hug him and hold him; we tell him he is wonderful and beautiful; we take him fishing (bishin') and swimming (simmin'); we kiss his boo-boos and sing "Jesus Loves Me" with him.  We feed him chocolate chips when he uses the little potty and don't scorn him when he prefers not to.  I think too many parents and grandparents allow bad--and destructive--behavior because they want to be popular.  Don't they realize kids love to be loved and paid attention to?  Kids need parameters, and really do respond well to limits.

Grandparenting: My New Frontier

Oooo!  This is fun!  Dear hubby and I became grandparents a couple years ago, but our daughter lives in NC, so we saw the baby twice when he was really wee, but then not again for two years.  Last summer he acquired a little brother.  Two weeks ago, when our daughter and her little guys invaded, we officially became Nanny and Bumpie--the most fun, junk-food-offering grandparents in the world!  We feed the grandboys cheese puffs and allow them to slurp coffee (no sugar, of course).  Our older grandboy chooses his own attire--even if it's none--and doesn't have to eat balanced meals if he doesn't want to.  We don't want to cramp his style.

We have NEVER behaved thusly with small children.  We were fun parents (I think) but we never served up snacks instead of meals and allowed people to run naked.  We followed rules, kept our young 'uns squeaky clean, and did not allow them to eat sugary cereal or drink syrupy drinks.  We did homework with them and observed an early-evening bedtime.  Teeth were brushed twice a day--scrubbed might be a better word--and they held their silverware properly by eighteen months.

Our daughter has been looking at us, like, "Whuttt?  Who are you people and what have you done with my parents?"  And this is the really funny part--guess who the tough guy is now?  Our dear daughter, that's who!  She is disciplined with the two-year-old and consistent.  She doesn't make excuses for bad behavior, and she doesn't ignore it.  She insists that he holds his fork correctly and is diligent about teeth brushing.  We just stand back--we haven't crossed the line of overt grandparental interference yet--and feel sad for the poor little guy.  He didn't mean to kick the dog.  He didn't try to spit his food on the table.  He might have screamed something that sounded like "NO!" but we aren't really sure that's what it was.

The boys' mommy has graciously allowed us to keep the two-year-old for two weeks while she travels a bit.  We are having so much fun!  But...both Bumpie and I have purposed in our hearts to try really, really hard each day to be more strict grandparents.  It's just so hard when they're so cute, when they snuggle into your arms and say, "I loves you, Nanny."  It's just so hard.