A few questions answered
During my hiatus from blogging I did catch a meme type game over on This Adventure Life.
While I am not officially playing I did find her questions intriguing and wanted to answer them.
Here are the lovely ~h’s questions
What did you do to prepare for homeschooling?
I did not prepare at all. We were forced into homeschooling due to Tav’s medical issues and I saw that anything would be better than what they were getting in our local school district.
Where do you find your best support for homeschooling?
I find my best support from my lovely friends who can offer solutions and examples when asked. They will also tell you when you could be doing something better and then let you take their advice or not with no hurt feelings.
Where do you encounter the most difficulty in homeschooling?
I find the amount of choices overwhelming. From the style to the curriculum even to which forums and blogs to read, ideas and information are limitless and it is all so good hat I find myself always looking for the best thing instead of just picking one and teaching the children.
How do you challenge yourself to be a better teacher?
I strive to constantly learn something new so that I can relate to the children as a fellow student and better understand what they need from me as a teacher.
What is your schedule like?
We are not schedule people. I hate schedules and being anywhere at a certain time drives me crazy. Of coarse life does not cater to that but my home can. I also started with them as babes nursing on demand then teaching them as toddlers to always follow their bodies hunger and sleep cues. It became natural to continue on this way. It was one of our great struggles with public school, this arbitrary schedule that did not fit any of our bodies natural cues. However we are a great family of routines. We naturally follow a certain routine in response to certain things such as park days or my husbands work shift.
What has been your best accomplishment as a homeschooling parent?
Bringing my family closer together and my children closer to harmony with themselves instead of the chaos that was being created before due to the stresses of PS.
What item has made the most significant impact to your homeschooling?
A physical object? I would have to say my computer being wired to our TV. Being able to research things together, watch videos or play games makes our style of learning so much easier.
What is the most important thing that you want your children to come away with as a homeschooling graduate?
Curiosity. I want them to love learning and I hope that they always want to know what else they do not know and pursue the things that interest them and know how to go about that.
Those were all very good questions and I enjoyed the opportunity to think more about how we do things and why.
Mothering is Teaching
Every moment of every day you are teaching your child(ren) something. A Mother by definition is a creator. It does not stop after you have given birth since your child is not whole. Their minds have yet to be developed and who better to take on that role than the person who knows them and loves them?
Face it a teacher knows their name and may like your child but to genuinely care it just isn’t what they do. They have your child somewhere around 9 months(interesting huh) and then poof never to see them again. After pulling the girls from school I am amazed at the differences in both them and me. When they were infants I actively watched over them, talked to them and read to them so they understood language. I took them places to see and touch and hear things. I brought them to meet people, family, friends, the people at the stores so they could learn about people and places. So many things that were just a part of our day. I realized over the past few weeks that just wasn’t the case after LittleMiss went to school. Like most parents we let the school take care of her learning. After all it makes sense that since they are there the majority of the day the teacher is the one molding and influencing not the parent who is forcing dinner yelling about homework or just asking the child to take on the responsibility to do it without the parent even knowing. Then there is the whole bedtime battle. So in all of that there were a few teaching moments but all in all you just pretty much checked out of your childs entire learning for the day. A very scary thought!
As the days have passed I have been amazed by the change in all of us. More than just a change in behavior it is a change in feeling and the energy around us. I have noticed the biggest change in myself and I like it. I realized I accidentally did that checking out and with checking back in I returned to the way I used to feel about my family and children. Back to that showing teaching spending time learning with them place. The bond that gets stretched thin as you let other people tend your children has snapped back into place for us and our relationships are closer and feel much better than they have been. I find myself instead of wanting to hide from grouchy whiny children wanting to spend time doing interesting things or just merely hanging out with them just watching them learn and grow as we do when they are toddlers. Gone is the thought “I wish she hadn’t come home yet” or “how soon can I send you back to school.” Now they are engaged in some activity on their own or we are doing things together and everyone’s stressed out whiny moods seem to be few and far between. Something I am very thankful for. We never realized the stress we were under just because they went to school until we no longer had that in our lives. Now I do believe the school that they attended was a particularly bad one and that had a lot to do with the stress. Much like a good job u enjoy or one you dread going to it makes a huge difference. I am so glad that we have made this decision and that I am the one Mothering my children not a Teacher who in the end could care less what happens to them.
Catch Up
So much has been going on that I haven’t really been online much except to check my messages and destress with a few minutes of Farmville on Facebook. We finally got an appointment with Texas Children’s Hospital for Tav. That went about as well as can be expected. The Dr. wants to do another scope to see what he can see and check for a few things and then we will know a few more things. I have a feeling there isn’t much that can be done for her if he doesn’t find anything. He did give me a couple of prescriptions for things that might help the pain though. Best of all he took her and us seriously and actually showed some compassion. It is amazing how much better Tav is emotionally just having adults in her life that believe her and try to help her.
Then the girls went off to their greatgrands for a long weekend of fun and relaxation. They had a blast which was much-needed after the drama before Tav’s appointment. The principal called to harass me about Tav homeschooling and not being on the school campus. After Hubby had it out with her over harassing us I realized that she was not going to give up and would only escalate if LittleMiss was still in public school. On Monday we withdrew her from the school. We were not prepared for pulling her out but we are excited to be together and the freedom we have to both learn and just to be a family. I never realized exactly how much a slave we were to the school. We weren’t able to do anything in the afternoons because bedtime routine of dinner shower and bedtime started at 6 pm. During school hours I had to be nearby because it seemed I was forever having to go to the school for something. Needless to say the freedom to do whatever, whenever, is fantastic.
