Little Miss Sunshine

I was reading over my latest blog entry (you know, to check for typos and the like), and I realized that my posting was a bit on the cheery side. In fact, I found it a bit disconcerting. The text sounds like I'm doing an ad for "Homeschool USA," in which bright-eyed, happy people sing and weave baskets made of daisies grown organically in their yard. Don't get me wrong; I'm so grateful that homeschooling has worked out for me and the boys and not all homeschooling organizations promote the singing and weaving discussed above, but I think I need to dial back the rhetoric just a bit or at least paint a picture of some of the other realities of my day so my musings on the greatness of K12 don't come off as false or misleading. I love the curriculum; there are other things about the experience that are tough.

Last week's post made the homeschooling experience sound like a breeze. As if every day I wake up and there are bluebirds chirping at the window waiting to come in and land on my shoulder. I'll tell you right now, when I sing, even in my most awesomest voice, woodland creatures do not come to find me. They just don't. When I wake up, I know that there is a long day ahead with both fun lessons and surly attitudes (mostly from the teenager when I try to wake her up). There will be cajoling and pleading and threats -- usually from me towards any number of appliances, pieces of technology and, of course, children. And despite the fact that I'm generally more relaxed these days because I know the boys are with me during the day, I still have difficulties getting them to focus and perform on certain days.

Top Five Things That Are Tough About Homeschooling:

1. The boys are sleepers. They would prefer school start at noon, with a hefty dose of recess around 1:30. I cannot get them up before 9:00 a.m. even by giving them every incentive/punishment I can think of. Their bodies are just not ready for school until then, so we start at 10:00 and end around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. And even though they like their subjects and love some of the projects and assignments, it is still school, and the boys would much rather focus on video games or the latest Pokemon t.v. show than get motivated for lessons. Once I have them focused, then they are golden. I can get great work out of them. It's the focus part that is hard.

2. Which leads me to the most challenging part of my day. We suspect that the boys are dealing with focus issues along the lines of ADD. There is no hyperactivity, but they have difficulty transitioning from one thing to another. This could be due to something beyond their immediate control, which would explain some of the behaviors that we've found most frustrating over the years: not letting go of a particular subject of discussion, needing to finish something and do it right before quitting, and the like. Add to this a bit of OCD, high intellect and a healthy dose of perfectionism and you have two very complicated children. Some of the ADD characteristics were probably masked by the fact that they do enjoy and thrive on learning new things, so sometimes they are so focused on what they are learning that you just see overexcited, eager learners who are enthusiastic about the subject. My day will consist of lots of counting, as in, "Gavin, Sean! 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . " By then, the boys know I'm serious, and we can get back to the subject at hand.

3. Bathroom breaks. INEVITABLY when I'm in the middle of something super exciting -- "Look, Arthur is about to receive the Round Table from Guenivere's father!" or "If you look, you can see the three layers of the earth in this cool video," or "When you have a sentence that has a "to be" verb, then the pronoun at the end must be in the subjective form." (Okay, I am not kidding on that last one. K12 actually had a lesson about the following sentences: Who was on the phone? It was SHE. Proper grammatical form. Love it!) -- as I was saying, inevitably, one of the boys has to go to the bathroom. For a long, long time. This provides very tricky maneuvering on my part as to whether we go ahead (me and the non-potty boy) or we wait for brother. So, sometimes we have multiple recesses or sometimes the one boy goes ahead and the other has to catch up later in the day or will do that work when the other guy is using the facilities. So frustrating! Especially when you are knee-deep in art.

4. Having to run errands or attend to appointments. These really cut into the day, and while homeschooling is awesome for the flexibility, we sometimes are doing catch-up throughout the day and evening when we have appointments. I love the days when I don't have anywhere to go and we can just get through as many things as possible without disruptions. We'll have normal breaks, which cut down on the random bathroom trips, and the routine is soothing. But life is life, and there will always be interruptions and days that are smoother than others. I just know that I like and work well with a consistent schedule, and I think they do too.

5. Burrowing. For many months now, I've been happy to stay inside and keep them safe. Safe from judgment and mean people. Now I'm slowly coming around to the idea that they need to see other people and so do I. I miss being out in the world and socializing and feeding my need for human connections. The boys also need practice interacting with others and knowing what topics are okay for conversation and which ones are not. I need to find a better balance between safety and society. It's as if I'm stuck somewhere on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and I can't figure out which rung to stand on. For the first time, I'm realizing that true burrowing may not be the right answer. We need to poke our heads out more often and see others.

There are, of course, many other crazy things that belong to the day, but these are the biggest and the ones that show up the most. I still think we're doing the right thing -- we just need to be open to shifting the paradigm and finding the right balance between protection and growth.