A Different Way

I have been trying and failing for about five years to get into a daily routine with the kids. Excuses abound: Patrick's changing school and work schedules, adjustments for new babies' needs, etc. Yes, we normally eat and sleep in a regular pattern, but then there's the other big reason for routine: school.

Around here we call it "doing school." Homeschooled myself until I was twelve, I have always planned on the same, and when I suggested it to Patrick, he was immediately intrigued. His dissatisfaction with his public school experience, and our eagerness to nurture the innate joy of learning we saw in our children and be more involved with them in general have kept us on the homeschool path.

Sometimes I have felt I needed to prove to nonbelievers that our kid are super smart. I wanted to show them that the same thing that seems to take 6 or 7 hours a day can be accomplished in 1 or 3 at home. Inside me swirled the worries: Can I even handle this responsibility? I am thankful that a few weeks back I seemed to receive an impression of my own mother's high opinion of me and even felt what she probably feels: You've got this. And within this week I have realized it's not about proving it to anyone. We aren't doing the same thing a different way; we are doing a different thing. And I am okay with this fact. As I have hopefully grown wiser in the last several years, I have come to respect the varying ways that parents care for their children's needs.

And boy do my kids have varying needs, talents, and interests. Here is where I have to eat my thoughts about proving things to people. I learned to read when I was three and would have loved to report that my daughter was just such an overachiever. But not so in the area of reading. Josie, newly six, prefers to draw or be read to than do anything else. If I announce at breakfast that we will do school right after we eat, she escapes to her room to play and then whines, procrastinates, and even cries about her reading lesson. I could read history to her all day without complaint, but learning to read is just the pits apparently. On the other hand each new school activity I do with Simon is his new favorite way to do school. This contrast displays just one aspect of their varying needs, talents, interests. And that is why we chose homeschooling.

The funny thing is they are both insanely smart. Amazing vocabularies and common sense embodied in innocent children are tricky to work with. I will try a different approach with Josie, and she just may be a little older when she learns to read.

Now if you know me, you know that I don't think everyone has to homeschool. This just makes sense to us for our family. And I hope you know I am not doing it because I am so on top of things and have a fancy preschool lesson planned every day (or every month for that matter.) We spend a lot of time naturally living and talking about what's going on. For instance, if we are making oat scones, we divide the circle into twelve parts and then line the pan in two rows of six, because that's what I use math for these days anyway, right? I am not super deliberate in my methods. I do admire a book called The Well Trained Mind as a curriculum guide, but I know I won't follow it exactly. We would like our kids to have some apprenticeship experiences during the teen years and also go on to college or further study to become excellent at what they love doing.

Hmmm. I have just been thinking about all this stuff and think you might be interested to learn a little of our philosophy.