Finding Our Rhythm

I wrote in my last post that we have recently started homeschooling. We started after the school year had already begun, so we were in a bit of a rush to put things together. I went back and forth between buying a pre-packaged curriculumn and creating my own since J is sort of between grades.  If we had started planning over the summer, I definitely would have put together my own. To get things started, and since I felt a little overwhelmed, I purchased a curriculum.

I purchased the Bigger Hearts for His Glory curriculum from Heart of Dakota because it covered all subjects and had some hands on activities. I liked the way they tied all of the subjects together but as I read the history books they used, I was not a fan of the way they read & neither was J, but we did like the science. We also discovered that there were so many subjects each day, it required a lot of time at home to do them all and J and I both wanted more freedom to be able to go out for social events and field trips. I also have the additional time requirement of taking care of the barn and horses.

Since I already had a curriculum, I did not feel the need to rush into purchasing something else. It allowed me time to look around and see what I thought might work better. I have discovered that J does better to focus in on a few subjects in more detail than doing a bunch of changing gears in one day. So, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of different stuff each day, we pick a couple of main projects or subjects to focus on and add some math and reading.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is being able to change course and customize until you find what works for your child. I had already been teaching math using workbooks I had purchased over the summer and games I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. My real concern was reading and writing. I liked the idea of introducing history but I didn't want that to be the focus. I wanted what history we did learn to be more fun and I wanted to give J more opportunities for real writing, not copy work. 

I looked around online and found several sources for LEGO and seasonal story starters, which J is loving! I also discovered Tapestry of Grace which is more focused on history than I want to be but had a great list of interesting, age-appropriate stories based on both real and fictional people living in the time period being studied. J actually wanted me to keep going when we were reading their books! It was through their book list that I found author Laurie Carlson. She has written a series of books which focus on a specific time frame and contains factual/informational text but also has recipes, games and projects that children in that time period would have eaten, played or made! So awesome!

Since we like to be out doing things, we do a lot of reading and math on the road. I teach the ideas at home and then, once he has the concept, we do the practice on the way to activities.

Speaking of activities: one thing that has been very important for both of us, since we are both extroverts, is finding a group of friends! Luckily for us, we already knew some homeschoolers without even realizing it.  One of the families at our church told me about a local "support group" which does not host classes but puts together social events and field trips as well as acting as a network for sharing information about available opportunities for homeschoolers. I also discovered that two of his friends from soccer were in a co-op which met weekly for classes. We quickly joined both groups. This was by far one of the best decisions I have made in this whole process. Even in the short time we have been a part of these groups, we have both found some precious life long friends.

We ended up deciding not to do the classes with the co-op for now and just joining them for social events and field trips. Several of J's new friends have been going to a program at a YMCA near us that offers art, sports and swimming. The only problem was that it was three hours long and the day before co-op classes. Having the two back to back was a little too exciting for someone who gets overwhelmed/excited easily. We decided that he needed the activity and social time more than he needed the classes. The "Gym & Swim" is on Mondays, so I'm looking for another regular activity later in the week. I also plan on leaving on day open for field trips. If we can spend the days in between working at home, he will be ready to go for our active days. As he learns to handle more stuff at one time, we'll add classes back in.

A brief explanation on scheduling with anxiety:
Every kid is different. Even kids with the same issues will respond to them differently.
One of the things we have learned with J is that he gets what I call "ramped up" good and bad.  If there is too much going on, whether it's visual stimulation, too much on the schedule, being tired or stress in relationships, he gets stressed out and will become overly excited (good or bad) or avoid the thing making him uncomfortable by hyper focusing on something else.

We are learning that he can handle things up to a certain point, but when he starts showing one of the above signs, he needs some space and time to calm himself back down before he's ready to take on more, even from things he likes.  Too much of a good thing can be very bad for his stress level.

As you can see, we are still working on finding our rhythm, but we are getting closer!

The Root of the Poblem

Well, my dear reader, we have had some Major life changes in the past few months.

I had posted before about some of our frustrations with school. Our son J has had issues two years in a row.  We discovered over the summer that the root cause was anxiety.

We Never would have pegged J as having anxiety.  He is exuberant, extroverted and strong-willed.  Interestingly, these all made him more difficult to diagnose.  Once we did get the diagnosis, some of the things we have had issues with suddenly made sense. I won't go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that it was affecting pretty much every area of our lives.

We are still learning how to work with this new information. We have a lot to learn. The good news is, now that we know the cause of the problems, we can address them in a more appropriate manner.  The results have been a much happier kid, a happier sibling and very relieved parents!

One of the biggest changes that has come of this is that we are now homeschooling. We explained what was going on with J to his teacher at the beginning of the school year, what the "symptoms" looked like and some possible solutions.
Long story short, since he does not come across as the anxiety-filled stereotype, she did not believe the diagnosis and tried to discipline the undesirable behavior. If she had asked, we could have told her that didn't work. We had tried that for Years.
By the third week of school, his stress level (and ours) was unbearable, so we made the decision to pull him out.

The funny thing in all this was that we had talked about homeschooling before we had kids.  I was a kinesthetic (hands on) learner and thought that, if our kids were that way, we could do more hands on learning. I also liked the idea of being able to explore an area of interest more deeply and go on field trips instead of just reading about things.
We tried private school, we tried public school, and now we have come back to what we originally discussed.  Why are we so reluctant to do something different?

For the record: I am not anti-public school. My mom is a retired public school teacher. My grandmother was a principle. And three of my dearest friends are public school teachers and one private. I KNOW how overworked, under paid and under appreciated they are. I know how many spend hours and hours trying to figure out how to help students that are struggling. Unfortunately for J, he needs someone who can watch him closely enough to see when he is starting to get stressed out, figure out the cause and try to help him get past it. No teacher with 22 other students to attend to is going to be able to give him that kind of attention (even if she agrees with the diagnosis).

I do wish we would have made the decision over the summer so I would have had time to look at curriculum, etc. before we started. I was fortunate to know a few homeschoolers who quickly compiled lists of helpful websites, curriculums and local groups. We ended up joining a "support group" that is mostly social & does field trips and a co-op that meets weekly for classes and play time.

As I researched, I discovered that there are as many ways to do homeschool as there are families who do it! Some people do classes and memorization just like a regular school, some are very "literature-driven", some teach other subjects by studying history, some relate all subjects to a topic of the week or unit, some follow a packaged curriculum, many put together their own combination. And many of the books used by various curriculums are available at the library or free on Kindle. The possibilities are endless!!

Another thing I discovered is that there are WAY more learning opportunities and classes offered by museums, zoos, even amusement parks like Legoland and Disney World than I had ever imagined!
I think I can handle this ;)

The bottom line is, know your kids.  What is their basic personality? That's not going to change. Learn to work with it. Having problems? Maybe you need help finding the root cause. That is the key to being able to improve them. Figure out what works for Your kids. Don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Everybody else doesn't have Your kids.