Deschooling, Boredom and Anxiety (Long)
Bob Iyall
Greetings,
I saw the post from the family that is fairly new to homeschooling, with a son's boredom issues during that seemingly endless deschooling period. Vivid memories popped up about our retreat from public school over a period of about 2 1/2 years. In the hope that hearing other stories of the process is somewhat helpful, I will share some of our journey.
This year is the first time we filed the intent to homeschool papers at the beginning of the school year. It took us a few years to completely give up on schooling. We'd take half a year or 3/4 of a year off and do loose home schooling, but then go back and try again in some new alternative program. I think I viewed these times as breaks from the pressures of school so DD could relax and find her equilibrium again before returning to the "regular" world. In retrospect I really wish I had just seen that school was creating, and always would create, extreme anxiety for our kiddo and left it in the dust once and for all. With all of this waffling, we wound up having several episodes of deschooling.
The first experience was most unsettling for us. DD (then almost 14) basically retreated to the land of sleep, novels & TV shows that she got hooked on and wanted to keep secret from us. She didn't complain of boredom, but seemed to have no interest in anything but passive (sometimes passive aggressive) activities. I felt panicky and anxious that she didn't want to do anything productive, or see friends. She seemed depressed, probably was feeling shame from her "failure" to succeed at school. She wanted to be quite separate from us. DH & I used to look at each other and say, "we used to have a daughter around here didn't we". She just hung out in her room or the bonus room upstairs watching the old TV. I was in a pretty constant state of anxiety and read lots of books on home schooling and unschooling. I I wanted to do things "right". I read in one book, a suggestion to allow at least a month of decompression time for each year of public schooling. Yikes that sounded impossibly long.
Eventually I decided to see a therapist. DD refused to see anyone. She is frantically opposed to the psychological medication scenario that her pediatrician and the HMO therapists seem so eager to push. The woman I saw thought it was a positive development that DD wanted some separation and that I needed to start doing my own things too; follow my passions. Her analogy was baskets, I had only the "involved Mom" basket going. I used to love volunteering in DD's classes and watching all the kids learn and grow. I missed chatting with the teachers and other Moms on a regular basis. My social and intellectual needs were well served when our child was in these neat alternative school programs. My therapist suggested that I needed to create my own baskets, and one for DH & I too. To have so much of my energy focused on DD was too much pressure for her to deal with. Not only was this helpful for my state of mind, but it got me off the anxious nagging Mom track - In retrospect I see that my activities of such projects in quilting, beading, fabric dying, etc. were great modeling for DD too.
At some point decided she was too stuck and depressed, and she asked to see a therapist. We saw a really good one for about a year. During that time DD became aware of the cycles she experiences. She contracts, is introverted and just wants to read and view the world from a distance, and process all that input privately - then gradually she comes to a place of higher energy, she wants to take classes, join clubs, have sleepovers, make art, and write creatively... This fall she produced tons of stuff (stories, poems, dances, paintings, clothes) and now seems to be in a quiet reflective space again. I still have a hard time not attaching value judgments to the extreme ends of these swings. I sometimes worry that some of this cycling looks like bipolar disorder- that I am an irresponsible parent for just allowing her to follow her own rhythms. Yet I am also clear that managing these cycles herself is an essential life skill for her.
I still have some deschooling of my own to do I suppose. DD's school crises push my buttons about school. I refused to go to school 2 years running in Junior High, and home schooling was not an option in the 60's. Our family was threatened with charges of truancy and the possibility of my being removed from home. The principal showed up at our house one day and threatened to come back with the police if I didn't come to school the next day. I was 13, completely hysterical, had locked myself in the bathroom, clawing paint off the door, and he felt he needed to yell threats at me through the door. I didn't comply, I was so overcome with such severe panic and anxiety that I was pretty much immobilized. I think that during those years I couldn't face school (or that lovely principal) because of my high anxiety levels, low self image from the onset of puberty, and the viciously competitive culture of our area's schools. Intellectually I enjoyed being smart and ahead of the class even when missing weeks of school. But socially I was a frightened rabbit, hypersensitive to that casually mean culture. I, like our DD, wandered through those years by sleeping, watching TV, and reading. I saw a psychiatrist during that time to keep the school district at bay. He kept me on valium, particularly when I returned to school a few years later. So much for the trip down memory lane...
I am so grateful that homeschooling is a respected and available reality for families today. We no longer need to choose to medicate our kids into compliance with teacher's and school administrator's expectations. I recall a small realization I had while pondering all the recommendations from counselors and doctors, for putting our child on tranquilizers and antidepressants. I had a flash of inspiration, "ET is a wonderfully aware, intelligent and creative person." I reminded myself, "We don't need to change who she is, we just need to change her learning environment." With that moment of clarity, dank moldy weight lifted from my belly & shoulders. Phew!
I know this was a long story to share. Hope it was a candle in the dark for someone.
Take Care,
Sheri
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I saw the post from the family that is fairly new to homeschooling, with a son's boredom issues during that seemingly endless deschooling period. Vivid memories popped up about our retreat from public school over a period of about 2 1/2 years. In the hope that hearing other stories of the process is somewhat helpful, I will share some of our journey.
This year is the first time we filed the intent to homeschool papers at the beginning of the school year. It took us a few years to completely give up on schooling. We'd take half a year or 3/4 of a year off and do loose home schooling, but then go back and try again in some new alternative program. I think I viewed these times as breaks from the pressures of school so DD could relax and find her equilibrium again before returning to the "regular" world. In retrospect I really wish I had just seen that school was creating, and always would create, extreme anxiety for our kiddo and left it in the dust once and for all. With all of this waffling, we wound up having several episodes of deschooling.
The first experience was most unsettling for us. DD (then almost 14) basically retreated to the land of sleep, novels & TV shows that she got hooked on and wanted to keep secret from us. She didn't complain of boredom, but seemed to have no interest in anything but passive (sometimes passive aggressive) activities. I felt panicky and anxious that she didn't want to do anything productive, or see friends. She seemed depressed, probably was feeling shame from her "failure" to succeed at school. She wanted to be quite separate from us. DH & I used to look at each other and say, "we used to have a daughter around here didn't we". She just hung out in her room or the bonus room upstairs watching the old TV. I was in a pretty constant state of anxiety and read lots of books on home schooling and unschooling. I I wanted to do things "right". I read in one book, a suggestion to allow at least a month of decompression time for each year of public schooling. Yikes that sounded impossibly long.
Eventually I decided to see a therapist. DD refused to see anyone. She is frantically opposed to the psychological medication scenario that her pediatrician and the HMO therapists seem so eager to push. The woman I saw thought it was a positive development that DD wanted some separation and that I needed to start doing my own things too; follow my passions. Her analogy was baskets, I had only the "involved Mom" basket going. I used to love volunteering in DD's classes and watching all the kids learn and grow. I missed chatting with the teachers and other Moms on a regular basis. My social and intellectual needs were well served when our child was in these neat alternative school programs. My therapist suggested that I needed to create my own baskets, and one for DH & I too. To have so much of my energy focused on DD was too much pressure for her to deal with. Not only was this helpful for my state of mind, but it got me off the anxious nagging Mom track - In retrospect I see that my activities of such projects in quilting, beading, fabric dying, etc. were great modeling for DD too.
At some point decided she was too stuck and depressed, and she asked to see a therapist. We saw a really good one for about a year. During that time DD became aware of the cycles she experiences. She contracts, is introverted and just wants to read and view the world from a distance, and process all that input privately - then gradually she comes to a place of higher energy, she wants to take classes, join clubs, have sleepovers, make art, and write creatively... This fall she produced tons of stuff (stories, poems, dances, paintings, clothes) and now seems to be in a quiet reflective space again. I still have a hard time not attaching value judgments to the extreme ends of these swings. I sometimes worry that some of this cycling looks like bipolar disorder- that I am an irresponsible parent for just allowing her to follow her own rhythms. Yet I am also clear that managing these cycles herself is an essential life skill for her.
I still have some deschooling of my own to do I suppose. DD's school crises push my buttons about school. I refused to go to school 2 years running in Junior High, and home schooling was not an option in the 60's. Our family was threatened with charges of truancy and the possibility of my being removed from home. The principal showed up at our house one day and threatened to come back with the police if I didn't come to school the next day. I was 13, completely hysterical, had locked myself in the bathroom, clawing paint off the door, and he felt he needed to yell threats at me through the door. I didn't comply, I was so overcome with such severe panic and anxiety that I was pretty much immobilized. I think that during those years I couldn't face school (or that lovely principal) because of my high anxiety levels, low self image from the onset of puberty, and the viciously competitive culture of our area's schools. Intellectually I enjoyed being smart and ahead of the class even when missing weeks of school. But socially I was a frightened rabbit, hypersensitive to that casually mean culture. I, like our DD, wandered through those years by sleeping, watching TV, and reading. I saw a psychiatrist during that time to keep the school district at bay. He kept me on valium, particularly when I returned to school a few years later. So much for the trip down memory lane...
I am so grateful that homeschooling is a respected and available reality for families today. We no longer need to choose to medicate our kids into compliance with teacher's and school administrator's expectations. I recall a small realization I had while pondering all the recommendations from counselors and doctors, for putting our child on tranquilizers and antidepressants. I had a flash of inspiration, "ET is a wonderfully aware, intelligent and creative person." I reminded myself, "We don't need to change who she is, we just need to change her learning environment." With that moment of clarity, dank moldy weight lifted from my belly & shoulders. Phew!
I know this was a long story to share. Hope it was a candle in the dark for someone.
Take Care,
Sheri
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Sheri,
Your daughter sounds like a wonderfully creative girl. Maybe she
needs the quiet periods to create and think about her next round of projects.
Sometimes being creative is not about doing, it is about thinking things through
and then the doing.
I agree with you that it is great to be able to get our kids off
medication. My only regret is that I did not know that I could do this sooner. My
ds was on medication from the time he was 3 until he was 12. It is so nice
to know what he is really like. I think the way things are going in the
schools all of the kids are going to be on medication. Some is valid, but I don't
think to the extent that it is now.
Good luck and have fun with all your projects that you have now
started for yourself. That is important.
Laura M.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Your daughter sounds like a wonderfully creative girl. Maybe she
needs the quiet periods to create and think about her next round of projects.
Sometimes being creative is not about doing, it is about thinking things through
and then the doing.
I agree with you that it is great to be able to get our kids off
medication. My only regret is that I did not know that I could do this sooner. My
ds was on medication from the time he was 3 until he was 12. It is so nice
to know what he is really like. I think the way things are going in the
schools all of the kids are going to be on medication. Some is valid, but I don't
think to the extent that it is now.
Good luck and have fun with all your projects that you have now
started for yourself. That is important.
Laura M.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]