September 3, 2008

Follow Up to Our Homeschooling / Public Schooling Anguish

I wanted to post a follow-up to my post from earlier today about Jack wanting to go back to the public school.

Well, actually, first I want to thank everyone for the kind words and for praying for us. Also — thanks to Kris for the email. (I totally think you should write up an article based on what you wrote to me!)

I really stewed about it all. I just didn’t know what to do, and while different kids need different things (I totally agree on that), I also couldn’t really wrap my mind around the thought of having one of them home and one of them gone.

Apparently after I left to do therapy, Eric had a discussion with the kids about it all. (This was after we had a long discussion at home before I left and then via phone on both my way to and from therapy.) Eric said that Jack continued to say he wanted to go to school, and Noah continued that he wanted to stay home. Being the agreeable child that he is, he finally said that he would do whatever we decided, but that he still wanted to be home.

When I got home from therapy (after all of those talks with Eric, as well as a brief discussion of it with my Mom), Eric and I had basically come to the decision that Jack needed to stick with homeschooling (which he had been professing his love for) at least through the fall. He needed to stay with it long enough for us to start up all the activities that we were planning outside the home (our homeschool co-op, a six week pottery class for homeschoolers, religious education classes, gymnastics, etc).

Eric and I had discussed that maybe part of the issue is that we just got started too soon. Here we are just into September, and we’re almost done with our first quarter (not quite, but in just a couple of weeks). So, we ended up doing a lot of school before all of our socialization opportunities really opened up. (Well — except that our very first week was a week long art course, which they all liked.)

Plus, I have a confession to make, and it’s not pretty. Jack was really making me crazy this weekend. And, so I fear that some things I said to him (maybe even hinting that he might be happier at school) may have fed into all of this. I think it was part crazy, part insecurity (for me). So, I am at fault for what has happened, I suspect.

Anyway…

Before I could really even have a discussion with Jack about it, I had mentioned to the boys that the pottery class would start soon. They were both thrilled, and Jack began talking a mile a minute about this class and meeting people. I then gently mentioned that he could go to the class, but if he were to go back to school, he might not be able to finish the course (it’s six weeks) unless he waited until it was done to go back to school.

That’s when Jack, ever our mind changing boy, tilted his head to one side and gave me a little smile.

“Oh no, I want to do homeschool, Mom. I do miss some of my friends from school, but I really, really like doing school at home. I will see some of my friends when we go to school for therapy, but I know I’ll make new friends at some of the other things we do.”

And, that was it.

There was no need to ask him to hold out for through the fall. Apparently all I needed to do was to not second guess myself, and especially not do it outloud for the highly impressionable Jack to hear.

The funniest part about it all?

After it all, I said to Jack, “I think we just started our school year too early, maybe. I should have waited until all of our extracurriculars started up.”

Without missing a beat, Jack asked, “So, we’ll start later next year, Mom?” (pause) “We can do homeschool next year again, Mom, right? I want to do it forever.”

I had to answer honestly. “I don’t know, Jack. But, I hope so.”