Switching to home schooling

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Hi I know this has been discussed often but I need some input .My 12 and 8 year old don't want to go to public school any more .I am unsure if once they start home schooling it will still be so appealing .Mom can be a witch of a teacher { I would rather hear that about the school teachers}How do I go about finding other home schooling familys in the area ?I am trying to get some info through the school .My children are bored ,they are straight a students and are not being challenged .And last but not least I love them to death but how do I keep from killing them as we get used to being together all day 7 days a week ?

-- Patty (fodfarms@slic.com), December 07, 2000

Answers

Here's a community homeschooling discussion forum. you could post to see if there's any homeschoolers in your area.

http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/hschool/

You could contact the library to see if they know of any homeschool groups. Our local group tries to keep posters up here and there, with info about our group.

How do you keep from killing them? I count the development of good conflict resolution skills as a benefit our family has received from homeschooling, that I didn't expect or even think about when I started out. These will develop as they need to. One good book is _How to Talk So Your Child Will Listen and Listen So Your Child Will Talk_ - I forget the authors' names. They also wrote _Liberated Parents, Liberated Children_. Liberation in this book means being free from old habits of relating to each other. I have also seen questions and advice on this type of issue, on the community discussion board listed above.

We just love being a homeschooling family. Our family ties are so much closer because of it. Have faith in your abilities and love for your children, and in everyone's motivation to make it work. All the best to you.

-- Candy (ecsloma@pronetisp.net), December 07, 2000.


Well Patty the time has come has it! I was waiting to hear this from you!!! Remember do not drink! Ok for real now. Be happy they like you enough to want to be with you,at those ages I think you will hear that they hate mom no matter who you are.Go to the Y if you have one and post a notice looking for HS moms, do the same any place that has a community board,even the local paper.With the holidays coming up use it as a test run, play school. Set a place in your home that is the class room and only the class room, I know sites with printable school papers i will get them for you,and start. Set a time and lesson plan stick to it for the x-mas break see how it goes.I know I look at mine and sometimes think I will kill them{just joking but you get the point}, but know in your heart you are doing the best for them. Remember you donot need to do school everyday,I think the Calvert school breaks it down to 3 -4 hrs. a day and that includes art or crafts.I wing it sometimes we do 2 hrs and some days 1 , she is only 5 and that seems enough,they let you know. One other thing you do not need to follow the school year, we started in July and will finish at the end of this month,1st grade will start in Jan and we will take our break in spring to get the garden done. Give it a try , I think you will love it.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), December 07, 2000.

One of the nice things about homeschooled children is that they no longer display that mob driven behavior that is so common in public school kids.

The hard part of homeschooling for me is disciplining MYSELF to keep the kids moving forward. I also use time-outs. Before I am to the point of regretable behavior, I put MYSELF on time-out. A half-hour in my room does wonders for my attitude and my blood pressure.

After experimenting with canned curriculums that are expensive and don't meet my kids' needs, we ordered the Robinson Curriculum, which is a self-teaching method. I believe the website is www.robinsoncurriculum.com. My kids are really excited about this as there are no busywork workbooks to cut into their learning time.

Patty, when the kids ask to be homeschooled, it is time to drop everything and set up a homeschool. It will be hard at first, but as your confidence grows, your kids will be more fun to be with and you will be learning right along with them.

I think the question is not where do I find resources? but how do I sort through all the available resources? There are online forums, magazines, newsletters. Ask in the churches for homeschool families. You will be surprised how many of us there are. And of course, you have all of us!

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), December 07, 2000.


Patty, you can check out the Homeschool Legal Defense Association site at www.hslda.org Look for "Across the States" and you can find state organizations listed. Also listed are your state's laws on homeschooling. Then the state group could let you know of local groups. But like someone said: if your kids would rather be with you and are asking to homeschool... wow, who's responsible for them? I count it a blessing we are able to survive on one income, my DH supports me, and my kids are wonderful!

-- Cathey (uptain@familyconnect.com), December 07, 2000.

Patty, go for it. Lots and lots of good reasons to HomeSchool. You will love it. Takes some work. E-mail me and I'll get you in touch w/ my wife, Queen Buffness. She's finally getting an interest in the computer and is no longer afraid of breaking it. She's been the driving force at our house. John

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), December 07, 2000.


Patty, I have just started myself, with our 12 yr old son who is very active, distracted easily. He's begged me for years and I have to admit during the summer breaks, he drove me crazy and I wondered how in the world could I do it. In May I was ready to homeschool but by August I was ready for him to go back, so I sent him back, but his self-esteem was so low, he was in tears 3 nights out of the week, so I just bit the bullet and DID IT and you know what it's different he's not driving me crazy. The first week or two I gave him break, it took me this long to get all his books and stuff, and he clung to my dh and I needing reassurance he was o.k. and we were there for him, since he'd had such a time in ps, we just gave him the love and attention he needed and he is a lot better now, not clinging to us as much but still gives hugs. We're using Alpha Omega, and Saxon math, using Alpha Omega's CD-Rom curriculum for Science, it's really neat. We do Bible, L.A., and Math every day, but Science and History only on Tues, and Thur, I felt he needed to concentrate on L.A. and Math because I thought he was behind in Math and needed a lot of review in Grammar but I'm finding he's not as far behind in Math as I once thought, so we're moving on to the next book. All in all I'm glad we did this, I'm seeing such a difference in him everyday, now he's a little hard to get started in the a.m. and tends to have an attitude, so there has to be discipline, I don't think he thought I'd be so strict but he still is preferring me over ps. We're usually finished by noon, and that's about all I can do anyway, I'm tired as I get up at 4:30 a.m- 5:00 a.m. I'm a morning person so we start between 8-9 after a few morning chores. REad the earlier thread about homeschooling and ADD there are so many good post on there. Ck the local health food store for homeschoolers, look on their bulletin board if there's no one there, put one on there yourself. Good luck. email me with any questions if you need to.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), December 07, 2000.

Patty, Some background about my experience, my oldest daughter, is 15 and a freshman in high school, when she was in kindergarden she learned basically nothing, she did not even know her ABC's! I pulled her out of school the next year and homeschooled her for two years. I put her back in school in the second grade (so I basically repeated kindergarden since she was so young to begin with) this was the best thing I could have done for her. Our school was not teaching phonics and she was having a terrible time learning to reach even with my one on one help I know she would have never learned if I let the school do it. Now she is an honor student. My next daughter is 11 and in the sixth grade she begged me for a few years to be homeschooled and last year at the semester I finally agreed. It too has been the best thing for her she can work at her own pace, she was also an honors student but she hated the clicky girl thing happening. She is her own person, she is very artistic and public school doesn't always encourage that. I am a rather lax homeschool mom prefering to use real life learning experiences as lessons. We do written work and now that we have this new computer (one week) she has a whole program to use with it. But I still believe that real life and it's situations will teach you the most. I do tons of homestead stuff plus a lot of other stuff so she is pretty well rounded. I have two younger kids 2 1/2 and 4 and she plays school with them all the time so they will know so much even before their ready for school! I may keep them home for their first few years of school, but I try to take it one kid at a time for however long homeschooling works for. Good luck, as far as being with your kids 24/7 I find once they are away from the school and kid attitudes they are much better, I love summer vacation because then I get my teen-ager back to normal. Otherwise we always have to deal with the "school attitude"

Toni

-- Toni Carey (fourseasonsfarm@sandpoint.net), December 07, 2000.


Thanks everyone .I have talked with some people at school and other places .I am giving the kids a couple of weeks to think about it .We have been doing a lot of talking .I am also looking at all the great sites you gave me .Thanks again the support is great .

-- Patty (fodfarms@slic.com), December 08, 2000.

Toni is so right about the "school attitide". Let's see, where to start? I have to wear a certain pair of jeans, sneakers, jacket, etc... Why can't we have a birthday party at the skating place, Chuck E Cheese, etc... Public (government) schools are really a group of kids being judged by each other by such things. This is not what school should be about. It should be about teaching values and morality and history lessons and phonics and everything else that will ultimately define what will shape young minds into hopefully a fine man or woman. Our children have become so competitive. They have to deal with issues we parents never imagined as students ourselves. Yes, we sometimes had drugs and cliques and bullies. But children today have so much more violence thrown at them with guns and bomb threats. And the teachers are required to teach sex education and about aids and "alternative lifestyles". I believe it's best to teach our own values to our own children, instead of letting the "government" school teachers do this. Feel free to contact me.

-- Cheri Asprion (t.asprion@att.net), December 09, 2000.

Homeschooling is definitely the way to go! You can tailor the curriculum to what interests your children - field trips can definitely be a part of their curriculum, too. We put our 16 year old son in the local community college because he was more than ready academically. He never went to high school so he didn't have to deal with the nonsense that goes with that age group. In college, he is pulling an A in Freshman English (his first class) and will be accumulating two years worth of transferrable credits to a four-year university. If you want to end up with well-educated, NICE kids, then homeschooling is definitely a must!

-- Liz Rhein (merhein@shentel.net), December 10, 2000.


I do think that home-schooling is the best thing you can ever do for your children. But I want to add something here, though it may offend some. A decision as important as your child's education needs to be made by the parents, NOT the child. They are only children still and don't have the knowledge, experience, or maturity to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. That is why eighteen (most places) is the "legal age" for so many things. Children might be able to decide what they want to wear today, but if we don't let them choose what they eat for supper (if they want to eat nothing but ice cream do you allow that?!?) or what time they go to bed (midnight? 2 am?) or what movies they watch (Deep Throat, anyone?!?) we shouldn't be letting them choose their education either. Yes, let them have some things they are interested in -- I'm not saying they can't have any input -- but overall it is a decision for Mom and Dad to make. We have had a lot of parents over the years either not put their children in the school at our church, or pull them out later, only because the children didn't want to be there. Almost without exception those children have made messes of their subsequent lives, in large part because their parents continued allowing the children to do whatever they wanted, without considering whether it was really good for them. Sometimes they need to be made to do what's best for them whether they want to or not!!! (Eat your spinach now. Go to bed by 7:00 -- or 9:00, depending on age. You may watch The Princess Bride but not ******** And, your father and I have decided that from now on you are going to have school at home, or at ******* Christian School, or wherever. No complaining!!!) Have the courage of your convictions, stick to them, and make the schooling process fun for you and the children! This takes a lot of work on your part, but is worth it!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), December 11, 2000.

Patty, As Kathleen said, you decided what is best for your children and don't take any flak from any friends or family about it. Some one once asked me "what if they grow up and say Mom, why didn't you let us go to school?" I answered with "what if I did and they grew up and said, Mom, why didn't you homeschool us?" Bottom line: the decision is yours and so is the responsibility. Yours and your husband's that is.

There are lots of ways to find homeschoolers in your area. The library is a good place to start. Go there in the middle of the day...see school age kids not in school...look for the Mom and just start a conversation. Most hs moms love to talk about it...just look at the answers to your post! :-) Ask the librarians about organizations that are registered on a community list of some sort. Get on the 'net and search your state. For instance, I would do a search for "Maryland Homeschool Organizations" or "Maryland Home School Organizations". Sometimes the spelling is different.

Good books to read: The Right Choice Home Schooling, by Christopher Klicka; For the Children's Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay (Francis Schaeffer's daughter); The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum, by Rousas John Rushdoony (Ross House Books, see: chalcedon.edu )

Those are some of my favorites. Especially the Macaulay book. That one really helped me get away from the public school mentality that I had as a product of the same. It helped me to see education as something that happened 24/7 and not just when you sat down with a notebook, textbook, and pencil. Homeschooling is a way of life.

Our creedo is taken from Deuteronomy Chapter 6:7, "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." The verse is specifically refering to the comandments of God but is applicable to all we teach to our children for the "fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom". Your worldview, whether it is Christian or not, comes through what you teach. (Same goes for what is taught in any school and that is what is so scary about public school for us.)

We use: Greenleaf for history (they have a website, a search should turn it up), Saxon for math (they have a site too and even have placement tests online so you can get an idea of what level book to get), right now we're using Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis material for Creation Science.

If you want to do Shakespeare....look up Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare on the 'net. It is a good introduction to it for the ages you have and there are free downloadable files available. My 13 yo, when she was 12, decided to read the Merchant of Venice on her own after read the Lamb's Tale of it and watching a video of it. She loved it and even memorized the last lines of it on her own.

Yikes, you can't tell how much you've typed on here unless you scroll back up to see! I better quit....May God Bless your endeavors.

-- Heather (heathergorden@hotmail.com), December 12, 2000.


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