tyralyn14

I am currently homeschooling 2 of my 4 kids... 1 would be in "5th" and 1 would be in "2nd" grade...i am currently going thru a divorce and i have been getting a lot of "talk" about sending the kids to school from dh and my mother...my mother homeschools my kids in a more "traditional" way than i do which is fine and i want to listen to her advice but i need to educate myself first on my options. I will need to work more hours but i have a really hard time with the thought of sending them to school. I am looking for guidance on what other people have done when presented with this situation.. any info would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

Sandra Dodd

-=- am currently going thru a divorce and i have been getting a lot of
"talk" about sending the kids to school from dh and my mother...-=-

Don't put "talk" in quotation marks.
In the case of a divorce, the chances of unschooling become very slim,

If there's any chance to save the marriage, that could be much more
valuable to the children than any questions about school/homeschool/
unschool.

When parents agree on unschooling it can be wonderful. If they don't
agree, it can be impossible.

http://sandradodd.com/divorce

If the marriage has any viable live in it at all, please reconsider.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

phoenix_whiteowl

Hmm, Well my personal opinion is that divorce should never be an option unless there is abuses of some kind. This is because when I was a child my parents got a divorce and I would never put my two through that. The grass in never greener on the other side.

Secondly what about compromise? Marriages usually fail because the adults do not "really talk" and because they do not know how to compromise. If unschooling is a hot topic in your home, I would suggest having an adult conversation about it(no yelling). You and your husband should each make a list of all that you want and then sit down and start to compromise. You might be willing to meet halfway on some issues and not at all on others. He will be the same. Make it fair.

I am telling you this from personal experience. My husband and I could not be any more different. He would rather have both children in public school and I would rather unschool(being homeschooled myself). I have found (though talking) that his greatest fear is children who can't read, write and do basic math. Another fear is that this lack of "proper education" will hinder them as adults. So we compromise! I unschool the children and every spring we do a test called The Canadian Test of Basic Skills, this tells us that my seventh grade son can read at a seventh grade level(plus it tells us his math, spelling, ect). This completely calms all my husbands fears. We meet halfway. Also if one of the children has fallen `behind' on a subject the compromise was that I must become more involved and bring that grade up. Simple as that, we both win.

Phoenix


--- In [email protected], "tyralyn14" <tyralyn14@...> wrote:
>
> I am currently homeschooling 2 of my 4 kids... 1 would be in "5th" and 1 would be in "2nd" grade...i am currently going thru a divorce and i have been getting a lot of "talk" about sending the kids to school from dh and my mother...my mother homeschools my kids in a more "traditional" way than i do which is fine and i want to listen to her advice but i need to educate myself first on my options. I will need to work more hours but i have a really hard time with the thought of sending them to school. I am looking for guidance on what other people have done when presented with this situation.. any info would be greatly appreciated.
> thanks
>

aldq75

At the end of Sandra's divorce page (http://sandradodd.com/divorce), it mentions that the mother isn't always the one to get custody. I have seen cases where the courts forbid unschooling (or even structured homeschooling) as part of the custody arrangement. It depends on the evidence presented (and how the lawyers present it), but some judges just aren't comfortable with anything other than conventional school situations.

I agree with what Phoenix said about meeting your spouse halfway. I live in a state that requires annual testing or evaluation of a portfolio by a certified teacher. This year, we chose the standardized test option, in part because my husband didn't like the idea of a subjective evaluation. He really liked the idea of testing and the results helped him be more comfortable with unschooling.

Andrea Q

> --- In [email protected], "tyralyn14" <tyralyn14@> wrote:
> >
> > I am currently homeschooling 2 of my 4 kids... 1 would be in "5th" and 1 would be in "2nd" grade...i am currently going thru a divorce and i have been getting a lot of "talk" about sending the kids to school from dh and my mother...my mother homeschools my kids in a more "traditional" way than i do which is fine and i want to listen to her advice but i need to educate myself first on my options. I will need to work more hours but i have a really hard time with the thought of sending them to school. I am looking for guidance on what other people have done when presented with this situation.. any info would be greatly appreciated.
> > thanks
> >
>

plaidpanties666

"tyralyn14" <tyralyn14@...> wrote:
>my mother homeschools my kids

Is your dh okay with what and how she's teaching? What are his values and concerns? That's what's important, either to smooth things over in the marriage or in the divorce, to keep it from becoming a bone of contention.

This seems more like a general home-ed question than an unschooling question per se, if your dh isn't thrilled with homeschooling, and your mother has been homeschooling your kids, unschooling isn't likely to be any kind of option for you. Look for home-ed options that your dh can be comfortable with, regardless of the outcome of your marriage. Courts tend to look more favorably on a parent saying "I'm going to put these kids in school" than one saying "oh, but home-ed is fine, really".

---Meredith