Pam Hartley

> SO when we go home, and my mother realizes that Sarah's "missing nearly a
month of school" by the time we go back home, and that I won't have a single
book or assignment for her to "stay caught up" with...it's going to get
rough. Worse when I explain that we don't use a curriculum at all, just
life.
>
> I'd avoid visiting my mother if I could, but she's asked for us to come up
(we'll be staying with my inlaws who are 100% supportive of us) and visit.
She's never met the two youngest, only seen Logan once and Sarah three times
in their lives.
>


Call her up and tell her that you are homeschooling, you know this a hot
issue for her, and that you don't want to talk about it during the visit.

If you feel so inclined, you can give her a list of reading materials and
suggest that she educate herself on the subject, and if she still has
questions or concerns once she knows something about homeschooling, you'll
be happy to talk it over with her. Print out a bunch of stuff from the net
and send it to her.

Tell her you want her and the children to enjoy visiting with each other,
not watch their mother argue with their grandmother.

If she can't or won't agree to it, she doesn't want to see her grandkids
that bad, and you can cancel the visit.

Sometimes, no contact IS better, hard as that is to think about. :(

Pam

The Scanlons

> > SO when we go home, and my mother realizes that Sarah's "missing nearly
a
> month of school" by the time we go back home, and that I won't have a
single
> book or assignment for her to "stay caught up" with...it's going to get
> rough. Worse when I explain that we don't use a curriculum at all, just
> life.

I had a friend who sat in on a 1st grade classroom for a day with a
stopwatch. She had the watch running whenever there was "real instruction
and schoolwork" going on. When the teacher had to stop and say, "Johnny,
keep your fingers out of your nose", or "Yes, Suzie? Yes, you may go to the
bathroom, but make it quick" or "Put your reading books away and take out
your math books" or "Settle down, class, settle down" or any other "non
teaching" stuff, the clock was not running. At the end of the day, the
stopwatch had ticked off one hour and six minutes.

You could relay this story to your mother and explain that since you are one
on one (or one on 5 or however many kids you have), you don't have all this
administrative wasted time. That story gets people's eyes to pop. "No
waaaayy....you must be kidding." Then I tell them to think back and they
say, "Ewww...you're right!"

Frankly, what are kids learning in school from 15 December until 15 January?
NOTHING. Before Christmas is the excitement and concerts and the parties
and then there is the 2 week holiday and then when they get back, they have
to get back into the swing of things, reviewing all that they forgot over
Christmas.

Some people refuse to use "school speak" on principle. Sometimes you have
to speak another language to get your point across. You just hafta decide
who deserves your efforts and who might benefit from them and then speak the
appropriate language.

Sandy