Friday - February 19th
It is official! We made up our minds. We are homeschooling again. Parker's teacher was willing to meet with us and said she'd be open to discussing things with us and trying to make things better for Parker. But I just couldn't do it. We've been down this path before. I'm just tired of dealing with this kind of stuff with the schools. I've had enough. I really didn't want to go through this whole process again..... and I really doubt it would have made a difference.
Brinley wants to be homeschooled also. I know after the last time, I said I really didn't want to do this ever again. I really didn't want to homeschool, because I kept doubting myself so much and causing myself so much stress. But..... I realize that it is necessary. I want Parker to be successful. He is put down too much at school and has to deal with a lot of unnecessary conflict. He is a good kid who does not set out to make trouble. He just struggles. It think a lot of it is anxiety. He's had teachers who have recognized when he is getting too worked up and overwhelmed, and they let him calm down before moving on to the next subject or trying to get him working on his assignment again. The years with those teachers were the good times. Unfortunately, not all teachers are like that. He keeps getting the teacher who have no patience and when they see him getting upset or struggling, they yell at him to get things done. When that happens, he shuts down, he won't talk to anyone and he tries to hide his face if he can. Then the teacher keeps pushing. Tells him not to be a baby, makes him look up at her, and gets in his face about how he has to do his work. That usually the point where he loses his temper and yells or throws something. When he was 5 years old, he started crying for his mom. She got in his face and told him that he couldn't see his mom until he finished his work. I am just done trying to work with the schools. I want to help Parker to want to learn and to think positively about learning. He has not had good experiences that would make him love learning. He's had so much bad, he has no desire to do any kind of schooling. That's what makes things so hard.
I'm feeling more hopeful this time around. I've been reading the Thomas Jefferson Education book. I'm going to base most of our schooling off of that. I think it will be a stress free way for Parker to learn. Another thing that will be different about this year is that Brinley will is being homeschooled also. Brinley loves to learn. She is really smart. The kids in her class will tell you she is the smartest girl in her class. At Parent teacher conferences, the teacher said that Brinley always goes above and beyond on all of her schoolwork. She has the best penmanship in the class and when they give assignments, telling the students to only do the even or odd problems, Brinley always asks if it's okay if she does all of the problems. She gets straight As and 100% on every spelling test.
When Parker, Brinley, and I were discussing how we will be doing our homeschooling and what kind of things we were going to be doing, Brinley had lots of ideas about things she wants to learn. In math, she was wanted to go ahead of her class and learn how to multiply double and triple digits, so that is the first thing she wants to focus on in math. I think it is fun that she knows exactly what she wants to learn all ready. Homeschooling her will be lots of fun and I'm sure she'll keep me busy. I think having her here showing Parker how much fun learning can be, will help Parker a lot. I really want him to see it as a good thing.
During our homeschooling hours we are keeping the TV off, so when I went to make lunch, this is what Parker and Brinley did. They pulled out and played with some of their old toys. They had fun.
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