Category: Schooling at Home

. . . schoolteachers are underpaid.

Goodbye, Expectations! Hello, Reality.

I locked my son out of the house today.  I did.  He’d run outside to make a dramatic point about the horrors of repeating a failed spelling test.  When I saw the door ajar, I closed it, locked it and then made sure the other doors were locked, too.  Ha!  (I, myself, am the model of maturity, to be sure.)

And when he knocked at the front door, I leaned in close to the door jam and said with mean glee, “Enjoy your time outdoors because I don’t allow children who are disrespectful into my house!”  And then I checked to make sure the deadbolt was still turned and stomped upstairs where my daughter was taking her third bath of the day and was vying for my attention.  (“WHAT?!”  “Um, I need a stick to put in his mouth,” she said, indicating a plastic shark.  At which point, I died from a heart attack.  The end.)

I never, ever, not one time in my whole adolescence sassed my parents.  (At least not out loud.)  I never set out to annoy them, to displease them, to make them want to lock me out of the house.  Never.  I was a pleaser, a good girl who wanted only to get perfect grades.  I volunteered my time at a hospital, at a 4-H group, at church and more.  If you needed help, I was your girl.

And how has all my goodness been repaid?  With stinky boys who feel free to complain and whine and slide off their chairs onto the floor in protest when I expect them to take a spelling test.  With sons who don’t hesitate to tell me in no uncertain terms what they will not do.  (“I will NOT take that assessment!”)  With kids who break pencils to protest the injustice of my expectations.

Karma-schmarma!  Phooey on karma, I say!  I deserve a child who yearns to read the captions and the footnotes, in addition to the regular text.  I deserve a child who is utterly grateful for the sacrifice that schooling-at-home is for me.  I deserve a child who displays some maturity and some respect.  I deserve a child who loves to read more than play Nintendo.

And I get mouthiness and stubbornness and kids who are like giant anchors needing to be dragged up from the sea bottom.  And they are tangled up in seaweed, just to make matters worse.

But they are my anchors.  And so I unbolted the door, accepted his apology, gave the spelling test again.  For whatever reason, God thought these were the kids for me, so away with you, Expectations! Hello, Reality!  I’m not quite ready to hug you yet, Reality, but I guess you can sit over there in the comfortable chair for now while I say farewell to my fond Expectations.

(“Buh-bye!” she says, weeping.)

Really Random Notes

I noticed surefire, telltale signs that my children are ill.

My boys: Uncharacteristic silence, stillness, lack of noise. They don’t even fight.

My daughter: Remained in one outfit (her pajamas) all day. For two days, actually.

Also, if a drug company could figure out a way to mass produce a mother’s lap, they’d be rich. My daughter refuses ibuprofen and acetaminophen, but sitting in my lap seemed to soothe her pain. I am Human Pain Reliever, no danger of overdosing.

Finally, during this mornings’ three hour ordeal math semester assessment, I had to fight the powerful urge to hurl a grapefruit at my Reluctant Student’s head. He is lucky I possess so much self-control. And that I’m terrified by the thought of a women’s correctional facility.

School-At-Home: Fun, Fun, Fun!

Setting: My desk
Time: 10:45 a.m.
Characters:
Middle-aged mother–(cocker-spaniel hairstyle, old blue Eddie Bauer sweatshirt, well-worn Eddie Bauer jeans, Minnetonka suede slippers, no make-up)
Pre-teen son–(reluctant student, hand-me-down Army long-sleeved t-shirt, gray sweatpants, bare feet, bed-head hairstyle)

Mother: Okay, let’s review. Who was the founder of Maryland?

Son: I can’t do this! It’s too hard! (Wail, shout, stomp.)

Mother: Cecil Calvert. Remember this: Mmmmmmm-Maryland, Cee-cee. Get it? Cee-cee, mmmmm, Cecil Calvert, Cee-cee, Mmmmm-Maryland. Okay? Now, write this down.

Son: I hate writing! I hate this! Okay, whatever! Are we almost done?

Mother: No. Now, who was the founder of Georgia?

Son, shrieking: I don’t know! Mom, I feel weird, so weird. (Begin rocking back and forth. Clutch stomach.) I can’t do this. I’m sick, my head hurts!

Mother: Remember, James Oglethorpe, see the “O” and the “G”? Oh-glethorpe? Oh and Gee. Okay? Oglethorpe. James Oglethorpe. And why did he found Georgia? Do you remember? Georgia has an “o” and a “g”, just like Oglethorpe. Get it?

Son: No! No! I can’t do this! It’s too hard!

Mother: Okay. Write it down. He founded Georgia so debtors from England had a place to go. Remember? Debtors. Write it. James O-G-L-E-T-H-O-R-P-E. Okay.

Son: I want to hurt myself! (Slaps his own face.) I’m going to stab myself with the pencil. Arrrrrrrrrg!

Mother: What about Roger Williams? Remember him? Rhode Island? Roger Williams? Both starting with “r”. Okay? Roger Williams, founded Rhode Island.

Son: (Sways side to side.) Are we almost done? I’m hungry. Hungry! I hate writing. Okay. Rhode Island.

[Continue for forty-five minutes or until the Mother blows a vein in her head and collapses on the keyboard.]
—————————————

He finished the review. I insisted he immediately take the assessment. He dictated the answers to me.

Sigh. Why was that so hard? He passed easily.

Away from Home–Alone

I spent a glorious seven hours away from my home–alone–frittering away time. I drove, I shopped, I ate, I saw a movie, I mentally scolded the parent who ushered her small child into a movie rated PG-13, then I shopped some more. I only brought home pants for my 7-year old and a pair of white canvas Bass sneakers for myself ($15 on sale from $49.99).

Now, I am procrastinating. I can choose from the following options:

1) Wash dishes in kitchen sink;
2) Straight up family room, including moving dishes to kitchen sink and straightening up couch cushions and putting markers away;
3) Prepare my preschool Sunday School lesson;
4) Check children’s progress in stack of student books perched precariously on my desk.

I don’t want to wash dishes. I am ignoring the family room. I really need to figure out some alternative plans for Sunday School because I loathe the curriculum I am forced to use (David C. Cook). (One activity reads: “Give each child a paper heart. Encourage the children to use the crayons and straws to make their family members on the hearts.” Huh? Straws?) The children’s school books can wait until tomorrow.

So, I thought I’d respond to a friend’s blog in which she ponders the reasons mothers choose to send their little ones to preschool. Or not.

She says this of her twin 3-year old boys: “They seem to be strong, outgoing, independent kids, all three of them. That has to be one of the things I am most proud of, that they are not and have never been, clingy children. So, I wonder still, do mothers who refuse to leave their kids with anyone else, ever, do so because they need to feel like they are the be-all, end-all for those kids? Are they so over-protective because it gives them a purpose in life? Or what? What’s the deal? Or perhaps I am just a reckless, irresponsible mother because I do not hover over the children and I do not dote on them constantly. Maybe that’s it?”

I have never sent any of my children to preschool. Why not? When my twins were three, I began a home daycare, so our days were structured like a preschool, including craft-time, snacks, playing outside, and other activities. Plus, I lived in an very rural area. I am not sure there were preschool programs available. But mostly, I couldn’t figure out a reason I’d want to send my kids to preschool. What would they get from preschool that they didn’t get from being home with me? They were already interacting with other children their age because of the daycare children in our home.

When my next son was two, I began to fantasize about sending him to preschool. Mostly, these dreams were born out of my frustration. He was an active boy who quit napping early. He’d throw the most amazing tantrums in his overtired state. Yet, when he turned three and was eligible for preschool, I couldn’t imagine sending him away. He was great company, a cheerful, extroverted, smart little kid. We spent our days going to the YMCA, running errands, picking up his brothers from school and playing. I started a little playgroup and a group of moms came over every other week to visit us.

I couldn’t imagine any reason to send him to preschool. He’s now in second grade and consistently earns high grades and praise from his teachers for his cooperative, cheerful attitude.

My daughter is a clingy child, the opposite of Smoov’s “strong, outgoing, independent” kids. When my little girl was only three months old, she began to display her personality. I took her to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and soon after we arrived, my baby started to scream. She cried hysterically and I was unable to calm her down. Finally, I excused myself and brought her home, where she immediately quieted and went to sleep.

She’s a child who is slow to warm up to new situations. She’s shy. When she was a baby in my arms at church, people would always crowd us, eager to say hello to her. Without fail, she’d cry at the approach of people. I never was able to pass her to anyone else as I had done with my boys. My 7-year old was so friendly as a baby that once I handed him over to an admiring stranger in Walgreens. Once, when he was about two, he insisted on sitting with a young couple we didn’t know at Burger King. He has always been the kind of confident, strong, independent kid Smoov admires.

But that’s not because of preschool.

And my daughter is not clingy and shy because of a lack of preschool. She was simply born with this personality and my response to her is not overprotectiveness, though I suppose it might appear that way to Smoov. I attempt to ensure that she feels safe and secure in her home. Gradually, she’s become less worried about people approaching her. She talks to people at church sometimes. She chats quite a bit with adults she knows, like the mom of the baby was watch every day. She adores babies and displays an instinct for nurturing them. But she is a quiet, anxious soul.

But she is good with scissors and recites the alphabet. She dances and sings along with her CDs and cassettes. She recognizes about half of her ABCs and can tell me what they say. She talks, talks, talks all day long in the safety of our home. She has a sharp memory and shows a great deal of empathy towards other people and their emotions. She loves to help me do chores.

I can’t figure out why I would want to send her to preschool. What would she get at preschool that she is not getting at home?

Smoov wonders about mothers like me. “So, I wonder still, do mothers who refuse to leave their kids with anyone else, ever, do so because they need to feel like they are the be-all, end-all for those kids?”

I don’t leave my daughter with anyone else (other than my husband and occasionally, my mother) because of my daughter’s personality. It really has nothing at all to do with my needs or wants. Sure, I’d adore twelve hours a week without children (mine and everyone else’s!). But sending my girl to preschool so that I can be alone would be terribly difficult for her. Sure, if she had to go, she’d adjust eventually. But I can’t imagine that she’d gain anything at all by going to preschool.

I don’t think preschool is a bad thing. I think of it as a fun place, a safe haven for children, sometimes a safer haven for children than their own homes. Kids learn to play with other children, have opportunities to create and explore, experience the structure of a routine and all that good stuff. It’s a great break for mothers, too, and really, who are we kidding? That’s why most kids go to preschool.

And that’s not a bad thing, either.

But lack of preschool does not necessarily make a kid clingy.

Preschool is not the only path to strong, independent, outgoing kids.

Mothers (like me) who do not send their kids away to preschool don’t do so for one particular reason. Each of my kids has missed out on preschool for different reasons. Each of them have different personalities, which were not caused or formed by preschool or the lack thereof.

Most children go to preschool these days for various reasons. Some moms seem desperate to ensure that their children will not lag behind other children. Some moms are eager to reclaim a portion of their day for themselves. Working moms graduate their little ones from plain old daycare to preschool. I have no quibble with any of those reasons.

But I would rather keep my kids close to home during the short years before kindergarten. I see no compelling reason to send my kids to preschool.

Even though I would like to be home alone sometimes. I admit that.

(By the way, I think Smoov is one of the most amazing mothers I’ve ever known. She’s energetic, involved, passionate, patient, creative and brilliant. If you aren’t regularly reading her blog, you might want to ask yourself “why?”)

Second Day of School-at-Home: A Memoir

I had to resist the urge to stab myself in the temple with my red pen this morning. No, really. I wanted to jab my pen into that soft part that pulses in and out during chewing. The cause of my anguish? Introducing my children to the art of writing a memoir.

They each declared that they couldn’t think of anything to write about. They can’t remember a single, solitary event from the past. I strung together half a dozen ideas out of thin area. None of those suggestions would work for them. Our three-week trip to Houston and Orlando? The night their baby sister was born at home while they swam at the pool? Having fun at the fair the other day with their dad? First day of school? Getting a new pet? Christmas?

No. Nothing would do. But the first step in their instructional book said to come up with three to five topics. Then they were to pick one. The final step for today was to brainstorm ideas. I was to limit their time to ten minutes, allowing more time if necessary.

I did appreciate that little joke. “Limit” their time. As if.

I looked at the clock. The 10-month old would be awake any second. My daughter stood at my elbow demanding sticky tape and scissors. The blue-eyed twin dropped his pencil and banged his head onto the table. The brown-eyed twin wiggled his legs until the floor shook and I shouted, “STOP SHAKING YOUR LEG!” He wailed that he couldn’t think because he was starving.

At those times, I do not get sweet and sympathetic. My voice grows in fury. I begin to beg. I cajole. I threaten. I say unhelpful things like, “Hurry up! Just pick an idea! This is not rocket science! Do not make this harder than it is! Come on! Come on! Come on! Pick one!”

My teeth start to hurt because I had to clench them together to keep bad words from slipping out.

Finally, my blue-eyed twin retreated to a couch where he sat huddled under a blanket, pouting. His brother sat at the table with all ten of his scrawled ideas crossed out. He finally decided to write about the train trip to Texas he took with his dad and his brother seven years ago. But once he started brainstorming, he scribbled down two sentences and then declared, “That’s all I could think of. I’m done.”

I pointed out that perhaps he could write about something he could actually remember, like OUR TRIP LAST SUMMER. I fumed internally. Not only can my children not write, they can’t even think. This is the more disturbing fact.

Half an hour later, my blue-eyed twin said, “Mom, I’m sorry. I just needed some time to recollect.” He had completed his assignment and filled his brainstorming page. His brother stole his idea and decided that he, too, would write about the fair. Although the handwriting was messy, they seemed to have put some thought into their work.

So, I abandoned the whole red-pen-stabbing idea. But just to be safe, hide the stapler.

School-at-home versus Homeschool

Way back when I was a new bride, I read Mary Pride’s The Way Home. Her ideas prompted me to consider homeschooling my children, even though my children didn’t exist yet.

My husband I turned out to be infertile and by the time we adopted twins, I had a head jammed full of ideas. I listened to Dr. Dobson (before he got all political) and really knew that I knew The Right Way to parent. I would homeschool them and they would be eager students and obedient children and I would manage to look cute throughout their childhoods. Oh, and I’d have lots of girlfriends to call who would meet us for playdates and educational field trips. My children would study museum paintings, sketchbooks in hand.

My kids were supposed to learn to read early and spend hours coloring with unbroken crayons. They were supposed to be naturally tidy and easy-going. They were supposed to always wear double-knotted shoes when they went outside.

But my boys surprised me. They wore socks outside while they dug holes in the dirt. They threw sand at each other. They didn’t want to listen to books and they never met a crayon they didn’t want to break and then throw. My blue-eyed twin challenged my leadership every day, every hour, nearly every minute. My brown-eyed twin whined and threw his apple-juice cup every single time he finished. Every time. Sometimes it would hit me and I would cry.

We lived in a very rural, poor area of Michigan with terrible schools and I decided that I would homeschool them. Before that arrived though, several events occurred which jumbled up our plans. First, I became pregnant (not an easy task for an infertile woman), and then we moved.

We moved the September the twins were old enough to go to kindergarten. My baby was seven months old and I’d been babysitting for two years. I was eager to spend time alone with my baby. The school district in our new home enjoyed an excellent reputation. So, off they went, much to my joy.

I admit it. By then, I really needed a break from them. These boys that God gave me were nothing like the embroidering-stitching girls I’d expected. I wasn’t so sure of my ability to teach them and to juggle a baby and schooling.

Besides that, my husband is a pastor. That makes my kids Pastor’s Kids (PKs). PKs have a decidely different life than your average child. They face higher expectations from their church community, for starters. Their peers can ostracize them based on their dad’s job alone. We did not want our kids to be seen as the weird pastor’s kids who wore pants too short and eyeglasses too thick, the kids who were isolated from life. Is that a stereotype? Sure, it is. But there’s a bit of truth to it and we were seeking a balance.

Their first years at school were okay. My brown-eyed twin struggled with writing and reading. The teachers sort of shrugged their shoulders. His second-grade teacher said, “Well, it’s only second grade. It’s not college,” when I raised my concerns. He struggled more than his twin brother and I suspected more than most children. He constantly lagged behind in math and writing and reading.

My blue-eyed twin excelled in everything but handwriting. But he’d come home so crabby, so irritable. As the years progressed, his foul moods increased. I didn’t know until much later that starting in fourth grade, the other kids had begun to target him for teasing and bullying. He has a strong personality (remember how he challenged me constantly as a toddler and preschooler?) and odd mannerisms. He wanted nothing more than to be a cool kid and yet, coolness eluded him. He tried too hard.

During fifth grade, my brown-eyed twin struggled for passing grades. His teacher noted that if a leaf fell from a tree outside the window, my son would lose his focus. He never caused trouble, though. He just sat quietly and didn’t do his work. Homework every night was torture–and he didn’t like it much, either.

We decided then that we needed to intervene, to save our boy. Sixth grade would involve a confusing change of classes and less supervision by teachers. More homework, more responsibility, more demands. I did not want him to end up being the kid smoking illicit cigarettes in the parking lot while skipping class, so we brought him home for school. Our blue-eyed twin asked to school at home, too.

Initially, I planned to homeschool in the traditional sense. That is, I intended to piece together curriculum and teach them myself. I dreaded this because my daughter was two years old then and extremely clingy. At the same time, our school district decided to offer an at-home program using an online curriculum. The program falls under the category of “alternative education,” and the curriculum was provided at no cost to us because our children are still enrolled in the public school district. Therefore, the public school district gets tax dollars for our children. We get curriculum at no cost. We do have to follow school requirements. I log attendance and we meet with a teacher weekly who is “mentoring” the boys. (This year, I think we’ll be able to do the meetings by email and phone, which is a relief to me.)

I do not mind the school district having a hand in educating my children. My 7-year old is a very successful and happy public school student. He’s confident and smart and doing great. I am the product of a public school system and so is my husband. We have many friends who are teachers. But I found that these particular children, my boys, did not fare well in the public schools. They need more attention and protection.

Some homeschoolers hate the idea of a public school system offering school-at-home. Some of them believe it’s a scheme to eventually erode the rights of homeschoolers or a way to trick people back into the public school system. They do not want anyone to tell them how and when to educate their children. They are called “independent homeschoolers.” Some independent homeschoolers are quite antagonistic towards school-at-homers and believe that we are not “real” homeschoolers.

And while I completely respect their position, that’s not me. I have no qualms about accepting free curriculum, even though there are strings attached. What I do is pretty much the same as what they do. I just do it with the oversight of professional educators (though not much oversight, truthfully).

We attempt to find the middle ground as we parent our children. Not too strict and not too lenient. We shield them from inappropriate material, yet they play video games and watch television (they are currently hooked on the old episodes of “Full House”).

What I’ve discovered the longer I am a mother is that my children never read those books I did about their behavior and how I would be able to curb and control it. They are individuals. Does the fact that they share no genetic material with me make a difference? Is it that they are boys? Or the simple fact of being adopted and the pre-verbal losses they suffered? Are their personalities just foreign to me?

I don’t know, but I know this. I am doing the best I can. At this moment, at this stage in my own “full house,” I gratefully accept curriculum and the ties to the public school. The minute it stops working, we’ll reassess. Meanwhile, we impatiently await our curriculum and they are busy reading upstairs, safe and sound.

And my blue-eyed twin is no longer irritable and my brown-eyed twin isn’t lost in the shuffle.

Staring at Myself

My daughter is almost three years old and prefers to keep me within arm’s length. I told my husband today that if she were my boyfriend, I would break up. I need more space. I am totally not kidding.

She stands on the bathroom counter while I dry my hair and put on my make-up. Mostly, she peers at herself in the mirror, scrunching up her nose, pursing her lips, baring her teeth, flirting with herself. Today she was posing, a la Paris Hilton.

Then she noticed I was looking at her and she stopped her self-examination and grinned an embarrassed grin at me.

Sometimes, that’s how blogging feels to me. I started my first blog as an experiment with a few friends. “We’ll share our journals,” we said, “And see how the others live.”

The first time a stranger commented, I freaked out, a quiet, private little freak-out. Another time, I emailed a commenter to demand, “Who are you? And why are you commenting on my blog?”

Most of the time, though, I write with abandon, pretending I’m alone. I feel a little self-conscious when it’s all about me, me, me–but only when I picture the whole Internet watch me as I stare at myself.

And when I catch you looking at me, sure, I feel bashful for a moment. But I’m going to pretend that it’s just me here, and fifty of my closest friends who understand and won’t laugh at me behind my back.

And now I will commence the navel gazing.

All I have to say today is that I feel deflated and bummed out that my twin 12-year old boys are so often the target of bullies. Why are some kids such cruel brats? At the pool today, my husband noticed several boys mocking my twins during a game of water-basketball. He intervened, but was incensed afterward. A little later during “Adult Swim,” I walked to the grassy area to see what was going on–a cluster of kids had gathered out there–and just then, I heard a bony girl with bucked teeth say to my son with a sneer, “I don’t even know your name.” Then her cross-eyed brother said, “He’s stupid.” I strode up to that kid (the same boy who last year slapped and pinched my youngest son–but I’m too tired to find that post and link it) and said, “EXCUSE ME? DID I JUST HEAR YOU SAY SOMETHING UNKIND?”

He shrunk back and denied it. Then I said, “Good. Because we would not want to say unkind things here, would we?” That group of kids broke up and I told my son he should move away. And as we walked away, I told that skeleton of a girl my son’s name, not that she even realizes what a snot she is.

My boys just don’t seem to read social cues with any savvy. It’s disheartening, but at the same time, a week ago at Vacation Bible School, they did a great job of interacting with younger kids and adults, too. They were volunteers with excellent attitudes, so I have to hope that they will ultimately be fine, despite the bullies who dot the landscape like dog doo left behind by inconsiderate dog owners. Sometimes you have to scrape your shoe off and watch your step so it doesn’t happen again. I hope I can teach my boys that lesson eventually.

In the meantime, we’ll continue schooling them at home, away from the stench of people who have nothing better to do than pick on other kids.