Where is everyone? It's gone too quiet in here.

[atomic sagebrush]

I hear you skillet,

Getting jr high boys to do school work is frustrating for me too!

My son avoids English & science like the plague....too much reading he says....i struggle to motivate him....all he likes to do is sports & video games (if he could get a job doing this problem solved, right?)

They go thru a phase from about 11ish thru 14ish where it's like pulling teeth. (this is true of public school boys too, though!!) it's not anything you're doing wrong, just the way it seems to go. I found the carrot-stick approach worked best, where I controlled the access to the "good stuff" and then doled it out only after the work was done. People were often annoyed with me LOL but we did get through it eventually.

[atomic sagebrush]

Fascinating conversation guys...I have always thought that homeschooling would be superior; it's just the money and time that's the issue. A lot of the newer private schools around here, such as Khan Lab School and AltSchool are trending in the direction of what homeschooling is like (more individual and self-paced). I'm planning on sending my kid(s) to a bilingual school. A second language is something I can't provide by myself. We plan to supplement the school math curriculum as neither of us are impressed by the math at schools around here (and we grew up here!).

It's not better or worse, it's just different. We have bad days sometimes and things we could do better on. But that's true of any person's education really. I sometimes think people compare an ideal public school experience vs. homeschooling and ignore the reality that most public school kids are not making good grades, not taking advanced placement classes, and so on. So anything homeschoolers aren't completely outpacing the public schools on is seen as a failure of homeschooling. But I think it's too much pressure on the kids to expect them to be brainiacs when they wouldn't have been at public school, either, if that makes sense. I personally think the homeschoolers who turn their kids into geography bee winners and spelling bee winners are way worse and more dangerous to the children (downright abusive in some cases IMO) than any perception that homeschoolers aren't learning enough. Not sure that makes any sense LOL but it does in my mind.

[MrsGoodies]

Thanks Atomic.

Good to know this is just a phase as my oldest starts high school soon and I am worried he won't even graduate if he continues being this lazy!

I block the good access also (someomes I feel so mean) but it seems to be the only thing that works. I've even disconnected the playstation and taken it with me when I run errands so he doesnt play games all afternoon when I'm gone.

[atomic sagebrush]

Haha yes, I completely remember those days!! But, they did what they did, even when it wasn't as MUCH as I wanted them to do and thought they were capable of, and even tho I hated that they didn't live up to their potential in those years and wasted time, they both turned out perfectly fine and are both motivated and hard working responsible guys. Even though I wanted to rip my hair out at times.

[1moregirl]

It's been really interesting reading all these comments but I still don't know what to do. I don't really want to be making the decision to keep them at home and homeschool them if I am doing it for my own selfish reasons of wanting to keep them with me because I miss them when they are at school. Does that make sense? My 8 yr old has been saying he would love to stay at home and be homeschooled because he is not that keen on school. Yet my little girl loved her first year in prep last year and says she is looking forward to going back this year (but I think that is mainly because she misses her friends and wants to see them again). Plus my little 4 yr old is literally 'chomping at the bit' to go to kindergarten and I just can't refuse him after my older two went to kinder. There is soooo much about the schooling system that I don't like....some of these things might seem quite trivial to some people, like a class of 20 odd kids sharing pencils, textas, etc and hence germs as well. Plus my son says that at school they only have cold water to wash their hands and most of the time the soap has run out. How in hell does this help to prevent the spread of germs. Last year my son missed the last 2 weeks of school because he got sick and the poo samples we had sent off by my doctor showed D. fragilis (a parasite infection) so he got put on 2 different types of medication to clear it up, one of which (Flagyl) made him feel even worse so I had to take him off it and I don't even know if we got rid of the parasite. He just told me he is not excited about going back to school because he often feels sick at school. He is a sensitive kid, always has to have his water bottle with him and just doesn't seem to enjoy school. I guess if they were at home you could get them in out-of-school activities more as well. My little girl is desperate to get back into ballet. I have had extreme anxiety issues again since just before Christmas and had to increase my medication (I don't know if it could be part of perimenopausal symptoms, but I have had to totally dismiss my thoughts of ttc again because it just increases this anxiety). I am used to being at home with at least one child for the last 8 years and I hate the thought of not having any of them at home with me. I don't relish the thought of going back to work either. I dread the thought of teaching other people's kids when I would rather be with my own. What if I choose homeschooling and it just makes the kids and I more dependent on each other? I think most of my reason for wanting one last baby was just so I had another one to stay at home with. So would I be doing it for the right reasons? Please advice me.

[cosmosis]

So what if YOU want to be with them more? How is that selfish? You carried and gave birth to them, they are part of you and even if you had not given birth to them, people have children to RAISE them, to ENJOY them and to have company!

How can that even happen when a child is gone for 8 hours out of the day, not including commute and after school activities? The parent is also gone for 8+ hours of the day, they get home, do homework, have a quick dinner and off to bed. Where's the bonding time? Everyone is always rushing around.

I personally got tired of missing out on my daughters development, she was also starting to get grumpy and her focus was going from learning to what her friends were wearing, buying and saying. I hated the fact that lunch was only 30 minutes and she'd come home with most of it every day so she rushed her breakfast to get to class on time and rushed lunch and often didn't eat until the end of the day. Those are terrible habits to instill in a child and they become worse once they are adults. This go-go-go, 24-7, high stress and poor eating is killing us and I didn't want to be a part of that when my life's work is about UNDOING that kind of damage to our generation.

She didn't have any time to do things she loves. She really developed as an artist in the last year, its amazing. Initially she was sad that she was leaving her friends, but being at home with her parents is much more valuable to her. She socializes when we go do community activities etc, and quite frankly she would much rather stay home and read. She reads at least 1-2 books per week and she'd read more if I let her lol.

I missed my daughter dearly and she missed me. I felt a big sense of guilt sending her away to school and now, even though she annoys me sometimes (and I annoy her LOL) we both have a big sense of comfort and contentment. She will be 10 soon and already can make a few recipes, makes her own breakfast, learned gardening, sewing and how to clean properly. She makes all of her dollhouse furniture out of cardboard and other materials and paints them herself. There's no way she'd have time to learn all this while in school.

If your kids are open to it, give them a chance to try it out

[1moregirl]

Thanks Cosmosis. That is fantastic advice! I totally understand and agree with all yuo say about rushing about to get them to school and poor eating habits. I think at our kids school they have about 10 minutes to eat their lunch and then they have to go outside and not get to finish eating it. And the fact that they don't get to wash their hands properly before eating. My 8 yr old son even told me his teacher would not let them go and wash their hands properly prior to eating. i was thinking that I would at least like to just try it out with them and see how we go. I will have to let them start this year off at school (because I have paid a deposit on a poodle puppy who we are getting around 17th Feb and my Mum is loaning me some money to buy it because it is expensive and I am not working just yet. If I was to tell my parents that I am homeschooling our 2 older children she may well not agree to give me that loan). I am going to let our 4 yr old go to kindergarten 3 days a week because he is really excited about going and our two older ones went and I don't want to deprive our 4 yr old of that opportunity. What do you guys think of this plan? It's also just until I can work out a plan for paid work I can do as well and fit into a homeschooling schedule. I guess since I am a qualified primary school teacher I could do some tutoring from our home in late afternoons or evenings. It's just a dream I've had for a while now. A huose with some land, animals, big veggie garden, and educating our kids myself at home. I feel the same as you Cosmosis....the kids can learn soooo much more from us at home that they couldn't and don't at school. Learning about animals and pets firsthand, learning about plants and growing vegetables, sewing, knitting, cooking, as well as curriculum stuff they learn at school. And they get to work at their own pace. Please keep giving me yuor advice because every little bit helps.

[atomic sagebrush]

I think it would be a very hard thing to do to take children who are enjoying school, out of the school, and also hard to keep one child home whilst sending the others. That would be a tough thing, I think for the whole family unless you and your husband were completely on the same page. I do know some people who have taken their children out but it's usually been over some personality or religious conflict with the school and both parents were on board with it. I think it would be a difficult road to make that decision unless you two were fully on the same page.

[atomic sagebrush]

something that occurs to me is that you may actually want to set yourself a goal of doing school at home a couple days a week where you do try to teach your little fellow something particular (like, set yourself a goal something that a 4 year old could learn but may be slightly hard, such as telling time, or whatever) and see if you even like it. It's a different dynamic than a classroom setting and sometimes it can be harder than a person might think. The classroom is different because it's a bunch of kids doing roughly the same thing, but when it's at home and it's Mommy and toys are everywhere, kids play up a bit more and it does get rather frustrating from time to time. I often have to clean the entire room before school because I do not have a dedicated classroom, and so I have to make sure all toys and distractions are out of sight!!

[MrsGoodies]

I've always sent all of my kids to Kindergarten because it was only a half day, the class size was small (12-15), and I could never be bothered to teach them Alphabets, shapes, seasons, calendar, how to hold a pencil and write each letters & numbers.

I found the year of K got them into 'school mode' where they could sit quietly in a chair for 20-30 min.

Another plus.....after spending a year 'getting up for school' and dealing with rude/misbehaving classmates, i found they were begging me to stay home by Grade 1.