Unschooling/Homeschooling my children
Patience
Hello, my name is Patience. I have two young children.. Sean who
will be 5 in July and Sara who just turned 2 in January.
My son has ADHD. We tried Focalin, but we didn't like how he acted,
we wanted our old Sean back. We had him in preschool for a few
months, but pulled him out - for two reasons - it was too pricey for
us, and he wasn't doing too well. He learned when he was paying
attention, which didn't happen very often. Teacher said he would get
up and walk away during learning time and had a hard time sitting still.
DH wants to homeschool our children. At first I was against it, but
then prayed about it, and got this feeling like it was the right thing
to do. Granted, he's still young, but we want to start soon, atleast
with reading. I worry about his social skills, but my boy is so
social, I don't think he'll have a problem. I also worry that I won't
do a good enough job... but then again, the best teacher my boy could
ever have is my husband and I.
So, I'm just now starting to look into what homeschooling in Indiana
has to offer.. so far it's one of the best 5 states to homeschool or
so I've read.
So, I hope to get to know all of you, along with what happens with
unchooling/homeschooling.. I'm very thrilled about it all!
Patience
will be 5 in July and Sara who just turned 2 in January.
My son has ADHD. We tried Focalin, but we didn't like how he acted,
we wanted our old Sean back. We had him in preschool for a few
months, but pulled him out - for two reasons - it was too pricey for
us, and he wasn't doing too well. He learned when he was paying
attention, which didn't happen very often. Teacher said he would get
up and walk away during learning time and had a hard time sitting still.
DH wants to homeschool our children. At first I was against it, but
then prayed about it, and got this feeling like it was the right thing
to do. Granted, he's still young, but we want to start soon, atleast
with reading. I worry about his social skills, but my boy is so
social, I don't think he'll have a problem. I also worry that I won't
do a good enough job... but then again, the best teacher my boy could
ever have is my husband and I.
So, I'm just now starting to look into what homeschooling in Indiana
has to offer.. so far it's one of the best 5 states to homeschool or
so I've read.
So, I hope to get to know all of you, along with what happens with
unchooling/homeschooling.. I'm very thrilled about it all!
Patience
Ren Allen
~~Granted, he's still young, but we want to start soon, atleast
with reading. I worry about his social skills, but my boy is so
social, I don't think he'll have a problem. I also worry that I won't
do a good enough job... but then again, the best teacher my boy could
ever have is my husband and I.~~
At this list, we talk a lot about how being a "teacher" of your child
is unecessary. He'll learn to read naturally, without lessons if you
learn to trust the process. Please read some of the recent messages
and archives before posting, just to give you a feel for what we
promote here.
Welcome to the list! I also recommend reading some John Holt books or
at http://sandradodd.com/ and http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/
Ren
learninginfreedom.com
with reading. I worry about his social skills, but my boy is so
social, I don't think he'll have a problem. I also worry that I won't
do a good enough job... but then again, the best teacher my boy could
ever have is my husband and I.~~
At this list, we talk a lot about how being a "teacher" of your child
is unecessary. He'll learn to read naturally, without lessons if you
learn to trust the process. Please read some of the recent messages
and archives before posting, just to give you a feel for what we
promote here.
Welcome to the list! I also recommend reading some John Holt books or
at http://sandradodd.com/ and http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/
Ren
learninginfreedom.com
Ryan
Hi Patience
Indiana is a great state for home learning. We live next door in
Kentucky, which is also a decent do it at home state, but Indiana is
even better. In Ky, we have to send a letter to the board of
education once a year at the beginning of the school year saying that
we're homeschooling. That's it, really. In Indiana, as I understand
it, you don't even have to do that. Sweet!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and toss out a couple of links.
I've long held that there's no such thing as ADHD, that they are in
fact manufactured diseases designed to sell drugs to children, and
that children have a tremendous amount of variation in their ability
to pay attention to adult stuff. I only throw this out because if I
were in the process of tossing out school, I'd also be thinking about
tossing out the ADHD label and just enjoy the son you have.
As for social skills, I find that my kids, who have never been inside
a school, are extremely social, even though both my wife and I are
fairly introverted. They now drag us to participate more with
people. I also find that unschooled/homeschooled children, when in
social settings like parks, playing together are so much nicer,
friendlier and accepting than traditionally schooled children. I
would suggest that institutional schools de-socialize children and
that social skills are something that will take care of themselves.
It also sounds as if, as someone new to this, you're still leaning
more toward homeschooling than unschooling at this point, which makes
sense. I gathered that from what you said about starting your son on
reading. My wife and I, to give a counter example, didn't do
anything in terms of "teaching" our son to read, he pretty much
taught himself. At 7, he's a fine reader. My daughter, who's 4,
loves to draw, and she's currently teaching herself to write. She'll
sit and write page after page of letters, lovely pictures of letters,
and we've never even suggested that she should learn to write.
My sense of all of this is that its important to throw out the school
in your head, the psychologists, the experts of all sorts, everyone
who draws a paycheck from an institution of any sort, the labels and
the shoulds and should nots, and just relax and focus on living your
life with your family, fully and joyously. At least that's what I try
to do.
Ryan
http://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Fraud-Psychiatry-Patients-
Children/dp/1412064589/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2/105-4332583-1426031
http://www.sntp.net/ritalin/myth_1.htm
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/myth_add_adhd.htm
--- In [email protected], "Patience" <pgray1229@...>
wrote:
Indiana is a great state for home learning. We live next door in
Kentucky, which is also a decent do it at home state, but Indiana is
even better. In Ky, we have to send a letter to the board of
education once a year at the beginning of the school year saying that
we're homeschooling. That's it, really. In Indiana, as I understand
it, you don't even have to do that. Sweet!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and toss out a couple of links.
I've long held that there's no such thing as ADHD, that they are in
fact manufactured diseases designed to sell drugs to children, and
that children have a tremendous amount of variation in their ability
to pay attention to adult stuff. I only throw this out because if I
were in the process of tossing out school, I'd also be thinking about
tossing out the ADHD label and just enjoy the son you have.
As for social skills, I find that my kids, who have never been inside
a school, are extremely social, even though both my wife and I are
fairly introverted. They now drag us to participate more with
people. I also find that unschooled/homeschooled children, when in
social settings like parks, playing together are so much nicer,
friendlier and accepting than traditionally schooled children. I
would suggest that institutional schools de-socialize children and
that social skills are something that will take care of themselves.
It also sounds as if, as someone new to this, you're still leaning
more toward homeschooling than unschooling at this point, which makes
sense. I gathered that from what you said about starting your son on
reading. My wife and I, to give a counter example, didn't do
anything in terms of "teaching" our son to read, he pretty much
taught himself. At 7, he's a fine reader. My daughter, who's 4,
loves to draw, and she's currently teaching herself to write. She'll
sit and write page after page of letters, lovely pictures of letters,
and we've never even suggested that she should learn to write.
My sense of all of this is that its important to throw out the school
in your head, the psychologists, the experts of all sorts, everyone
who draws a paycheck from an institution of any sort, the labels and
the shoulds and should nots, and just relax and focus on living your
life with your family, fully and joyously. At least that's what I try
to do.
Ryan
http://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Fraud-Psychiatry-Patients-
Children/dp/1412064589/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2/105-4332583-1426031
http://www.sntp.net/ritalin/myth_1.htm
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/myth_add_adhd.htm
--- In [email protected], "Patience" <pgray1229@...>
wrote:
>get
> Hello, my name is Patience. I have two young children.. Sean who
> will be 5 in July and Sara who just turned 2 in January.
>
> My son has ADHD. We tried Focalin, but we didn't like how he acted,
> we wanted our old Sean back. We had him in preschool for a few
> months, but pulled him out - for two reasons - it was too pricey for
> us, and he wasn't doing too well. He learned when he was paying
> attention, which didn't happen very often. Teacher said he would
> up and walk away during learning time and had a hard time sittingstill.
>thing
> DH wants to homeschool our children. At first I was against it, but
> then prayed about it, and got this feeling like it was the right
> to do. Granted, he's still young, but we want to start soon,atleast
> with reading. I worry about his social skills, but my boy is sowon't
> social, I don't think he'll have a problem. I also worry that I
> do a good enough job... but then again, the best teacher my boycould
> ever have is my husband and I.
>
> So, I'm just now starting to look into what homeschooling in Indiana
> has to offer.. so far it's one of the best 5 states to homeschool or
> so I've read.
>
> So, I hope to get to know all of you, along with what happens with
> unchooling/homeschooling.. I'm very thrilled about it all!
>
> Patience
>
Debra Rossing
Patience, I had an ER nurse (who was treating my DS for a broken arm
when he was 4, he's now almost 10) tell me when she found out we planned
to homeschool him, that she had homeschooled her 3 boys until high
school and in her opinion a classroom was the exact WRONG place for
young boys because that's not how they're designed. Small boys are
developing big muscles, big motor control, hand-eye coordination (like
throwing and jumping and such), balance, stuff that requires lots of
movin' and shakin' goin' on. Classrooms require slow, quiet, sit, fine
motor control. Poor fit.
FWIW my DS has never been 'schooled' - we've never been his "teacher"
except insofar as all people learn from other people in one way or
another just by interacting. No lessons, no 'teachable moments', no
workbooks, no textbooks, no 'school time', etc. Yet "somehow" he can
read, handle basic number skills, find China (and Hungary, and St.
Croix, and Antarctica, and...) on a world map or globe, and so on. He
loves sushi and sashimi and MASH and Star Wars and campfires and
videogames and lots of stuff and it's ALL connected. Life is a big web
of connection, it's not a whole bunch of separate little
end-in-themselves boxes. The written word, numbers, finding places/using
maps, etc are all tools that have meaning in *his* life so he absorbed
them, uses them, asks about them, and so on.
While unschooling is legally a "form" of homeschooling, the paradigm is
very different in practice - it's more about taking 'school' out of
living life in this big wide world. It's more akin to what parents do
naturally with a toddler - providing a helping hand, resources, etc but
you don't do walking lessons or talking lessons (barring some sort of
physiological issues). You provide a safe space and a helping hand as
needed. As many of us can attest, there's no reason to change what you
do simply because of a birthdate on a calendar - the resources change,
interests change, abilities and developmental stages change, but the
bottom line "philosophy" or attitude is the same. People learn.period.
When what where how why and from whom need to be internal to the
learner.
Deb
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when he was 4, he's now almost 10) tell me when she found out we planned
to homeschool him, that she had homeschooled her 3 boys until high
school and in her opinion a classroom was the exact WRONG place for
young boys because that's not how they're designed. Small boys are
developing big muscles, big motor control, hand-eye coordination (like
throwing and jumping and such), balance, stuff that requires lots of
movin' and shakin' goin' on. Classrooms require slow, quiet, sit, fine
motor control. Poor fit.
FWIW my DS has never been 'schooled' - we've never been his "teacher"
except insofar as all people learn from other people in one way or
another just by interacting. No lessons, no 'teachable moments', no
workbooks, no textbooks, no 'school time', etc. Yet "somehow" he can
read, handle basic number skills, find China (and Hungary, and St.
Croix, and Antarctica, and...) on a world map or globe, and so on. He
loves sushi and sashimi and MASH and Star Wars and campfires and
videogames and lots of stuff and it's ALL connected. Life is a big web
of connection, it's not a whole bunch of separate little
end-in-themselves boxes. The written word, numbers, finding places/using
maps, etc are all tools that have meaning in *his* life so he absorbed
them, uses them, asks about them, and so on.
While unschooling is legally a "form" of homeschooling, the paradigm is
very different in practice - it's more about taking 'school' out of
living life in this big wide world. It's more akin to what parents do
naturally with a toddler - providing a helping hand, resources, etc but
you don't do walking lessons or talking lessons (barring some sort of
physiological issues). You provide a safe space and a helping hand as
needed. As many of us can attest, there's no reason to change what you
do simply because of a birthdate on a calendar - the resources change,
interests change, abilities and developmental stages change, but the
bottom line "philosophy" or attitude is the same. People learn.period.
When what where how why and from whom need to be internal to the
learner.
Deb
**********************************************************************
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they
are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify
the system manager.
This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by
MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.
CNC Software, Inc.
www.mastercam.com
**********************************************************************
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]