Help
With Your Rule
A Difficult Transition
Dear Holly,
My husband and I have 6 children, ages 10 down thru to 3 months. We began homeschooling our oldest four this year at the end of their 1st quarter in a Catholic School. Up until this time our kids had attended the Catholic school, which is 30 miles from our home. We live in a small town amidst a farming community. We are all making adjustments and feeling our way through this. I have lots of concerns and doubts, but I also have days I am very assured this is the right choice for our family. However, our kids are having a rather difficult time making the adjustment. When it comes right down to it, I think they mostly miss their friendships. Their Catholic school was a small school with a very family-like environment. The classes were small, and the friendships formed were close. I have now become "the person who has taken them away" from their friends and I feel like they resent me. I have tried to keep the connections between those friends but the distance and family circumstances (new baby, illnesses, etc.) have made it somewhat difficult. Because we live in such a small, rural community those activities that might be available in larger communities just aren't here for an outlet or change of pace. To keep from going on any longer, do you have any advice for making the transistion easier on them? I only know of two other families who homeschool in our area and they have always homeschooled so this isn't a situation they are familiar with. Are there other women who have made a change similar to ours and could share what worked for them?
Labels: Homeschooling
posted by Holly at 2:42 PM
2 Comments:
There are many things about your post I personally relate to, as I live in a very small village, 30 minutes from the nearest city and most of our Catholic friends, and only a couple of families here homeschool as well. The feelings of isolation are often very difficult, for mom & kids.
First off, let me confirm to you that living 30 minutes from the Catholic school is very much a solid reason for considering homeschooling, and it may help to clarify, in your mind and in the children's minds, that it is this circumstance, not your whims, which have brought about this change. You can commiserate with them about the distance, and the rising costs of fuel, and whatever other issues which led you to homeschool. Share with them openly all the reasons you made this decision. The reasonableness of your decision will help relieve blame.
I would also say that it may be a very good thing that you have chosen this, for, while they miss their friends and that is valid and natural, an over-dependence on peers is just what you don't need them to have developed. So, in one way, it is better to break this early than try later. I would encourage you to continue to foster their friendships on weekends or whatever, when possible- as they are important - but the children must also learn to live life for other reasons than peer association.
This is a delicate process and for your children, an additional culture shock. Culture shocks need plenty of time and special methodologies to heal, cope and change. I would strongly suggest to you a basic curriculum of English, reading and math as their school work. Then, as a family, a year's worth of religious education as a family, perhaps even craft or activity or story based (to remove the drugery of institutionalized school methods of faith study, and to foster faith & family warm-fuzzies). And then, the remaining subjects thru hands on field trips or videos or informal library books - and these, not in a stressful way, but in an interest-led way. These other subjects come last this year, if at all.
The culture shock of leaving friends and an institutionalized lifestyle is very real, and you want the children to remember how to live life before you concern yourself with 'serious' studies. Besides , your kids are all young and you have much time.
Take this year and let them be. Let them experience the benefits of homeschooling. Work on the warm fuzzies - hot chocolate after sledding -"Boy, you sure can't do THIS when you go to school!" A trip to the swimming pool - "Aren't we lucky to be able to do this in the middle of the day in the middle of the week?""
That type of thing! Focus on loving them, affirming them, listening to them, commiserating with them, and finding ways to foster your family's intimacy.
If their friends are taken away, even because of circumstances, you have to have those intimate relationships replaced. And kids need play and fun. Your family is the place. Work on relationships as opposed to the academics this year. That's my two cents.
I would also like to chime in on comforting words in the middle of a difficult time. I have 5 children, 17 mos to 10 years, and have recently found a new method of homeschooling (or a very old one) called the Charolotte Mason method. It is very much a family-style approach to teaching and much of the literature-based education is useful to many children at one time. It is worth a look - check out amblesideonline.com for more information. God bless!
Heidi
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