Monday, August 24, 2015

Homeschool

Several of my awesome friends out there in the world homeschool their kids.

I think this is awesome. I think it’s a great choice and I’m so glad it’s an option for those who want to and choose to do it.

It is not really an option for us.

First of all, I work fulltime, so I wouldn’t be able to actually be AT HOME to school my children. I don’t think Tom wants to take on that kind of responsibility and I’m not sure either of my kids are self-motivated enough to do it online on their own. Okay, so maybe….a big maybe, Alyssa could do it, but Olivia? Yeah, not so much.

The real reason homeschooling is not an option for Alyssa is that she needs to social time she gets at school. She’s introverted by nature and if she hadn’t been plunged into a public school setting at the ripe old age of five years old I could see her becoming quite the hermit.

And she loves school these days for the very same reason…the social aspect. She gets to spend time with her friends and then come home and decompress with some time in her corner, away from everyone, including pesky little sisters.

The other day, my mom mentioned that another of our friends had decided to homeschool her kids. They were planning to use an on-line guide/site to do this. Mom went on to mention that at some point, we might have to consider homeschooling Olivia. I nodded but then said it would be hard, you know what with me working and all. My mom said she’d be willing to help if it came to that.

Olivia overheard this and later asked, “What is homeschool?”

I told her it was when kids stayed home with their mom or their dad and did school work at home.

Her eyes lit up. I believe she thought she hit the jackpot. Stay home! Work on school work at home?! Why had no one ever told her this was an option?

Well, right now, it’s not really an option, which is why she hadn’t been told it was an option. Poor kid’s face dropped when I told her she was going to second grade AT school.

And honestly, three days in, she’s fine. She’s actually eating her lunch at school. Sure, she’s sitting a good five tables away from her rambunctious classmates, but she’s in the cafeteria (okay, they call it the auditoria at their school but I’m sorry, that’s kind of a stupid word.)

One of Olivia’s biggest challenges at school is the social game. She can’t/won’t speak to her peers. One on one, she’s doing so, so much better but at school, she just gets overwhelmed. But see, my biggest fear is that if we pull her out of that environment, she’ll become that much more shy, she’ll be that much less likely to speak to her peers in any setting.

So we’re working on it and so is the school and right now, at this time, it’s the best place for her to be. We’ll keep an eye on it and re-evaluate as necessary but as long as she’s learning and growing and maturing in this setting, we’ll keep on keeping on. If things change, if she stops learning or things get overwhelming for her, we’ll figure something else out. We’ll look into every option, up to and including homeschooling to be sure we’re giving Miss Liv the best chance of succeeding at this thing called life.

2 comments:

Julie said...

There is always the homeschool co-op option as well to give her some socialization while taken away some of the overwhelming emotions that come by a large school setting.

Tommie said...

Thank you for this. It's definitely something else to think about as we continue to evaluate O's schooling options.