Homeschooling for Beginners

As a mom I want nothing more for my children than to be successful and happy in their adult lives. I have no illusions that they will face trying times, have their hearts broken and will fail, more than likely many times. This is part of the journey of life and each setback as well as success is part of the trip. There are so many different factors in raising a happy and healthy child into a well rounded and successful adult; from manners and self discipline to education and real life problem solving skills. I do my best each and every day to help them evolve into these well rounded adults that I often forget that they are simply children and need time to be just that. Enter education.

My decision to home school my oldest child, Curtis, has been a long thought out process. When he was in 2nd grade his teacher asked me if he had ADD. I knew that she was completely wrong in this assumption because I have never met another child who could sit in his room or on the living room floor and build with LEGO'S or a 500+ piece puzzle for hours on end with no regard for what was going on around him. He has always been this way, from the time he learned how to build his first tower of blocks at 6 months to when he put together his first puzzle at 9 months, he has displayed an intense level of focus. No, there was no doubt in my mind that my child did not have ADD but I took him to the doctor to be sure. She confirmed what I already knew but suggested that there may be another aspect to his development that we should explore, Asperger's Syndrome. Having never heard of Asperger's, I began to feverishly explore the shelves of the local library, scour the internet and talk with educators, mothers and physicians. Not long after this I had him tested through the public elementary school he was attending. The plan was simple enough: they would test him at school and I would have a test to do at home, in his more natural environment. The results were confusing and left me with more unanswered questions than I had going into the test. The school found Curtis to be on the very low end of the scale while my scores found him in the middle to high range, meaning that we showed two very conflicting evaluations. Rewind the clock to 2003 when I took Curtis to the Pediatrician inquiring why my then two year old son had very little vocabulary and yet could complete puzzles designed for a preschooler. He suggested that Curtis was simply delayed in his vocabulary and that I could likely chalk it up to the fact that my husband was deployed and he was not involoved in any social groups with other children.

It all comes flashing back to me when I met with the school to discuss Curtis' s education challenges. He was excelling in all areas, especially reading and reading comprehension, with a 4th grade reading level when he was in 2nd grade. Straight A's academically, but socially having many difficulties adjusting. To add to the confusion of all of this, we were still trying to figure out if there was a possibility of Asperger's or if it was just part of who Curtis was. He continued to excel academically throughout they year and was even accepted into the gifted program at his next school, but he also struggled with the social aspect of school as well as at home. The more research I did, the more similarities I found with my son and others with Asperger's. When 3rd grade started I figured that he would start fresh at a new school, more standards, higher learning would challenge him more and the kinks would soon work themselves out. However after only a few months he was in trouble again, the teacher asked if he had ADD again and by the middle of the school year I was fighting for my child to not be removed from the gifted program simply because he wasn't paying attention in the regular classroom. My attempts to work with the principal, teacher and Curtis all failed. He was removed from the gifted program because his regular teacher thought he should pay more attention to the lessons that the other students were being taught and the principal told me that he would be retested for the next school year.

I met with the principal before registering Curtis for 4th grade because I needed to know that my son would be placed in a class free of the constant bulling that he had experienced the year before and to make sure that he would be challenged enough to keep him busy. I told him that Curtis was reading at a 7th grade level, having read the entire Harry Potter series when he was in 1st grade and rereading it four more times since. I told him that I was seriously considering home schooling Curtis cause I did not feel like he was being challenged enough and I had some concerns about the curriculum of the school. I was reassured by the principal that he would monitor the progress and, should I have any further concerns, to come talk with him any time. Against my better judgement, I paid the fees, went school supply shopping and sent him to school with his friends for 4th grade.

It only took two months for me to realize that I had made a huge mistake and I pulled my son out of public school hoping to make a positive difference in his life. I have had many people, friends and family, ask me if I thought this was the best way, if I felt confident, what the schedules and curriculum would be, how I would incorporate socialization or deal with a lack of, all questions that I had already asked myself a million times in the last year. But I realized that I don't have the answers to all of the questions. I am not a teacher in the traditional sense and that I will likely be caught off guard by glitches along the way. I am okay with that. I am okay with not knowing all of the answers, with adapting when necessary, with some amount of discomfort and anxiety because although I don't have all of the answers I know my child better than any other educator. I know what makes him tick, I know how to talk to him in a way that he can get, I have been with him nearly every day of his life and I know that this is a job that I not fail at. My children are my job, my life, my greatest accomplishment. I will never quit them, never tell them they aren't good enough or expect less than they are able to give. I will continue to nurture them as they grow and beam with pride every step of the way.