New Adventures in Homeschooling

As we reach the end of the first week of homeschooling, I am thinking about what all this means.

Our decision to home school our daughter was really a family decision. My husband and I have been talking about this for some time now. Once this school year started though, this became the topic of discussion nearly every evening.

On the second day of school, my daughter burst through the front door crying. She threw down her book bag and screamed, "I hate school! Please don't make me go back there!" Talk about make a mother cringe.

At first, the biggest part of her problems was the kids. They're so different from the children where we moved from. Here, kids are downright mean and hateful. They're almost like mini piranhas, swimming in circles waiting for the kill.

"All the girls are just so mean, Moma," Emily cried. "All they want to do is fuss and fight all the time. It makes me so nervous!"

At first, I thought that this would probably pass as the days went on. But it didn't.

To make matters worse, the learning part of school was not going well at all either. Without going into great detail, things were horrible.

Emily has always been a bright child who absolutely loved school. I've never seen a child love school as much as she always has. This year that all changed though. I watched her grow more frustrated and angry every day. Her smile didn't seem to light her face as much. Her love for learning started dwindling.

This all happened over the course of several weeks. I made several trips to school and called to speak with the adults involved in this situation. Yet, no matter how many times I called or went in person, nothing changed. It just kept getting worse.

So we knew it was time to make a decision one way or another. We chose home school.

Last weekend I was stressed to the max. I worried whether or not we made the right decision. I've always felt that socialization is such a huge and important part of a child's learning experience. But with the kind of socialization she was getting, it was unhealthy and causing undue tension on her.

Now that we've made it through our first week, I know we made the right decision. The atmosphere in our home has been so much calmer and relaxed this week. It's almost like it's a totally different place. I feel at peace and I know we did the right thing.

Next week we'll start working on our new curriculum. I look forward to learning and growing with Emily. I think home school is going to be fun for the whole family!