[email protected]

Hi Everyone,

My daughter Hannah has decided she would like to enroll in school this fall. She will be entering grade six. Some background...we have been homeschooling for four years. We originally made the decision to homeschool because Hannah's older sister was completely miserable in school - she missed her family every day from grades 1-3, longed for more time and a slower pace to life. Hannah was happy in school. She missed us at times but is highly social and loved her friends. When I told her that her older sister had decided to homeschool, she told us that she didn't want to go to school because now her big sister wouldn't be there anymore. We honoured her desire to also try homeschooling and happily transitioned into a life without school after completing grade one. We had a joyful three years. They have lots of friends who also don't go to school and are happily engaged in lots of homeschooling activities of their choosing. Hannah also maintained a close friend from school.

This year has had it's share of challenges. We had a very difficult fall. Hannah started acting out for a while and to make a long story short, she slowly began to disclose to us that she had been engaging in sex play with a neighbour friend of the same age over the past year...which wouldn't have been a problem except that she had grown quite unhappy with the situation but did not feel able to tell this to the friend at the time and so the play continued for way too long as far as her comfort level was concerned. She had some very difficult emotions to sort through...she felt ashamed, didn't like herself, felt confused about sex, longed to feel "little" again. She is a very resilient child and so was able to feel better after about two months of talking a lot and sorting things through.

At the same time, her older sister had a traumatic situation happen where she was bit by a dog while babysitting and then we had to take her to emerg. because the dog's shots weren't up to date...and while we were there the doctors inadvertently noticed that she could have a possible heart problem which required about two months of testing before everything was cleared and she was declared healthy again. She has struggled all year with anxiety issues and is finally starting to come out of it and begin to feel better. I have had to spend a lot of time helping her to heal while Hannah did not have as much time with me. During Hannah's difficult time however, the tables were turned and it was her older sister who had less Mommy time. I talked to them about how this sometimes happens when a person is going through a hard time and that all people have times when they need special attention. They seemed to understand well.

As they were both struggling this fall, I found the thing that helped the most (through a lot of trial and error) was to have a lot of predictability and structure in our lives. They seemed to benefit from being told "and this is what we are doing next...and then this...and now it is time for bed" etc. Our routines also included a fair bit of "bookwork" which was quite a departure from our happy unschooling life. But it seemed to calm them at the time.

Hannah has also talked a fair bit about being bored this year. Her older sister is an introvert who doesn't like to go too quickly through life or to fill up her schedule too much. Hannah, on the other hand, loves to be with people all the time and to have a busy, fun, very full life. I have done my best to meet both their needs and to talk about how in our family we work to find space for everyone's desires. I admit to feeling that they both feel shortchanged on a regular enough basis because they are so very different. They do love one another and have a good relationship.

I have given a lot of different information in the hopes that this can give a picture of where we are. I don't feel congruent about her going back to school because of the year we have had. If we hadn't had these extra challenges, I would have felt confident that Hannah was freely choosing to check out school. This may still be the case...but overall I feel insecure about why this is happening. Any feedback would be MUCH appreciated! And...I have NEVER sent such a long post! If you have read to the end...thank you!

Kirsten

Joyce Fetteroll

On Jun 4, 2012, at 10:25 PM, sopik@... wrote:

> If we hadn't had these extra challenges, I would have felt
> confident that Hannah was freely choosing to check out school.

From what you've written, she does have the choice between home and school.

I think what you mean is you don't want her to choose school as a response to her current life.

But why can't it be a response? Why can't it be her trying out a solution to see what resonates and doesn't resonate with her? If she's free to go and free to stay home, she's free to try it on to see what the effects are. That's how we learn.

School is made up of many parts. There will be parts she likes and parts she doesn't. There will be parts she doesn't that she's willing to put up with to get the parts she does.

Where you can help the most is by being receptive to what she tells you of her experiences. Let her feel free to tell you the good and bad without feeling pressure from you to finally see school and home the "right" way. Share your own experiences with her. See her experience as a way of getting to know herself better, getting to know a piece of the world that nearly everyone she meets as an adult will have experienced.

What you can do is talk about what she may be looking for through school and also talk about other ways to get those things. *Not* as a way to convince her not to go, but as options so that she doesn't feel she has to stay in school to get it.

Joyce

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

Meredith

"sopik@..." <sopik@...> wrote:
> My daughter Hannah has decided she would like to enroll in school this fall.
**************

Fall is months away - school is at least two months away if you live in the US, maybe longer depending on how your school year runs. You don't have to enroll her today.

So that's time. Time to support her decision and look for ways to make her life better right now. Can you go somewhere on a family vacation? Lavish her with love and care and support. She may very well need More care and support - and certainly more attention - than the other daughter, so be sure you're not trying to divvy up your time and energy 50/50. She's already discovered that a good way to get your undivided attention is to have a big scary issue for you to deal with, so don't set her up so that option looks quite so attractive in the future.

>>Our routines also included a fair bit of "bookwork"

While that might have seemed like an easy way to add routine and familiarity to your daughter's lives, it's a good set up for More boredom and frustration with home life. Kids can do dull "bookwork" at school And have more than two other people in the room. Woops. Stay away from that mistake again. If one or more of your kids needs a bit of a routine, actively look for more interesting and creative ways to make that happen.

If your daughter decides to go to school in a couple months, support her in that, but also actively look for ways to give her lots of time and attention when she's home. Make home and family attractive - not something she's going to school to escape from. Some kids find school to be a fascinating social experiment!

>>If we hadn't had these extra challenges, I would have felt confident that Hannah was freely choosing to check out school.
************

But when she was in school before, she enjoyed it, right? It could help to see school as a resource, something that helps your daughter.

---Meredith

Sandra Dodd

-=-But when she was in school before, she enjoyed it, right? It could help to see school as a resource, something that helps your daughter. -=-

And if both girls are then less needy, being separated, each having her own desire fulfilled (mom and home for one, school for another) it might not last long before they want a different change.

I agree that going to schoolish behaviors probably wasn't a good way to create more predictability in their lives. There are lots of ways to have a routine that don't involve anything like school.

Please also consider that all things can't be true at the same time, and so if a mother is saying they get along well, but aren't getting along, and that there can't have been a happy unschooling life AND stress that was relieved by adding schoolishness. Clarity makes things more clear (and we don't need explanations on the list here, but it will help anyone who's considering anything to be calm about the possibility that things aren't working out well, and realistic that it can't be everything at once.

Sandra

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

[email protected]

Thank you Joyce. You are right...the part I am feeling insecure about is her choosing school as a response to her current life (which I think may be missing some things that are important to her). I would like for her to feel she has other ways to receive what she is thinking she will receive in school. Then, if she still wanted to check out school, I wouldn't worry that she is doing it because it is her only option.

Also, although it may sound elementary, I asked Hannah how she would feel if we made sure that she had time with friends every single day for the next week. Her eyes lit up and so we did just that. And it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to arrange it (yes, I thought it would be hard to arrange that many visits). About 5 days into our week, she looked at me and said, "This might sound funny, but I feel a little unsure about trying school in the fall. It's just that I have had such a great few days of homeschooling!" Sigh. Sometimes things are so obvious and simple and I have this habit of complicating them!

And finally, when I listen to how you explain the possibility of my daughter trying on school, I notice that my way of thinking about this has undertones of fear in comparision. I think I need to sort this out...my daughter is not feeling this way and I don't want this to change by her picking up on my stuff.

Thanks so much for your input...
Kirsten
--- In [email protected], Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Jun 4, 2012, at 10:25 PM, sopik@... wrote:
>
> > If we hadn't had these extra challenges, I would have felt
> > confident that Hannah was freely choosing to check out school.
>
> From what you've written, she does have the choice between home and school.
>
> I think what you mean is you don't want her to choose school as a response to her current life.
>
> But why can't it be a response? Why can't it be her trying out a solution to see what resonates and doesn't resonate with her? If she's free to go and free to stay home, she's free to try it on to see what the effects are. That's how we learn.
>
> School is made up of many parts. There will be parts she likes and parts she doesn't. There will be parts she doesn't that she's willing to put up with to get the parts she does.
>
> Where you can help the most is by being receptive to what she tells you of her experiences. Let her feel free to tell you the good and bad without feeling pressure from you to finally see school and home the "right" way. Share your own experiences with her. See her experience as a way of getting to know herself better, getting to know a piece of the world that nearly everyone she meets as an adult will have experienced.
>
> What you can do is talk about what she may be looking for through school and also talk about other ways to get those things. *Not* as a way to convince her not to go, but as options so that she doesn't feel she has to stay in school to get it.
>
> Joyce
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[email protected]

You are so right. "Bookwork" was a mistake. I think that at the time, it was a last-ditch attempt to calm my kids when it felt like all else had failed. I still think that predictability was the right thing...but there were so many other ways I could have made that happen! I could have sat down and asked the girls what their favourite things to do that week were...then we could have decided together when to do those things. I could have asked the girls if they wanted to repeat any of their favourite things each day, or each week...without going down the road I did.

Also, I loved school growing up...school was also a haven for me, a predictable and orderly place that was a welcome alternative to the chaos of my home life. I see now that maybe I returned to this idea during a stressful year because of what it represented for me when I was a kid?

Thanks Meredith,
Kirsten
--- In [email protected], "Meredith" <plaidpanties666@...> wrote:
>
> "sopik@" <sopik@> wrote:
> > My daughter Hannah has decided she would like to enroll in school this fall.
> **************
>
> Fall is months away - school is at least two months away if you live in the US, maybe longer depending on how your school year runs. You don't have to enroll her today.
>
> So that's time. Time to support her decision and look for ways to make her life better right now. Can you go somewhere on a family vacation? Lavish her with love and care and support. She may very well need More care and support - and certainly more attention - than the other daughter, so be sure you're not trying to divvy up your time and energy 50/50. She's already discovered that a good way to get your undivided attention is to have a big scary issue for you to deal with, so don't set her up so that option looks quite so attractive in the future.
>
> >>Our routines also included a fair bit of "bookwork"
>
> While that might have seemed like an easy way to add routine and familiarity to your daughter's lives, it's a good set up for More boredom and frustration with home life. Kids can do dull "bookwork" at school And have more than two other people in the room. Woops. Stay away from that mistake again. If one or more of your kids needs a bit of a routine, actively look for more interesting and creative ways to make that happen.
>
> If your daughter decides to go to school in a couple months, support her in that, but also actively look for ways to give her lots of time and attention when she's home. Make home and family attractive - not something she's going to school to escape from. Some kids find school to be a fascinating social experiment!
>
> >>If we hadn't had these extra challenges, I would have felt confident that Hannah was freely choosing to check out school.
> ************
>
> But when she was in school before, she enjoyed it, right? It could help to see school as a resource, something that helps your daughter.
>
> ---Meredith
>

[email protected]

This is the second time that you have responded to a message of mine by speaking about clarity and about the idea that "all things can't be true at the same time". Thank you (again) for the reminder. I still don't consistently see when I am doing that. Any thoughts on how I can develop more awareness here?

Thanks,
Kirsten



--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> -=-But when she was in school before, she enjoyed it, right? It could help to see school as a resource, something that helps your daughter. -=-
>
> And if both girls are then less needy, being separated, each having her own desire fulfilled (mom and home for one, school for another) it might not last long before they want a different change.
>
> I agree that going to schoolish behaviors probably wasn't a good way to create more predictability in their lives. There are lots of ways to have a routine that don't involve anything like school.
>
> Please also consider that all things can't be true at the same time, and so if a mother is saying they get along well, but aren't getting along, and that there can't have been a happy unschooling life AND stress that was relieved by adding schoolishness. Clarity makes things more clear (and we don't need explanations on the list here, but it will help anyone who's considering anything to be calm about the possibility that things aren't working out well, and realistic that it can't be everything at once.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Sandra Dodd

-=- I would like for her to feel she has other ways to receive what she is thinking she will receive in school. -=-

What would make her feel she had other options?
You can't wish it to happen. You would need to provide, create, present other options.

-=-About 5 days into our week, she looked at me and said, "This might sound funny, but I feel a little unsure about trying school in the fall. It's just that I have had such a great few days of homeschooling!" Sigh. Sometimes things are so obvious and simple and I have this habit of complicating them! -=-

Are you prepared to arrange visits for her four or five days a week indefinitely?
If so, good!

If she gives up her school plan based on your one-week push, it will be misleading if you don't intend to try to keep that up. And when other kids go back to school, you might not have the power to provide that much companionship.

Sandra



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

Sandra Dodd

-=-I could have sat down and asked the girls what their favourite things to do that week were...then we could have decided together when to do those things. I could have asked the girls if they wanted to repeat any of their favourite things each day, or each week...without going down the road I did. -=-

Or you could have found some really nice things to do without asking them so many questions.

Very many unschoolers do too much talk and not enough presentation.

If you're putting on a play, the audience doesn't want to hear everything that goes on back stage, and they don't want to have to write and decide on costumes and coach the actors. Just do it, and surprise them.

Life isn't like presenting a play, but doing something interesting is. If you talk through it in advance, and during, and after, it's all talk and no magic.

-=- I could have asked the girls if they wanted to repeat any of their favourite things each day, or each week-=-

That really doesn't sound good to me.

If something is fun once, offer it again. Why ask someone to commit to every day, or each week? It doesn't make sense.

Sandra




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

Sandra Dodd

-=-This is the second time that you have responded to a message of mine by speaking about clarity and about the idea that "all things can't be true at the same time". Thank you (again) for the reminder. I still don't consistently see when I am doing that. -=-

Stop looking so hard. You're creating a storm of words. More words aren't likely to clear the air.


-=-Any thoughts on how I can develop more awareness here?-=-

Gradually.

"Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch."

Sandra