Homeschool YouTube Video

This is so what I’m talking about!!!! I can not believe I found this on a homeschooling parent’s website as a good “day in the life of”. I’m so not ok with this….maybe to others this looks like more than a child (teen) sitting around the house watching TV and reading all day but not to me. How does this show the “5.6” average activities outside of the house homeschoolers do (or so is the claim)?

This movie is a bit long but you can watch just the first few minutes and see pretty much all there really is to see.

Yes, I’m a homeschooling parent but this is NUTS!!! This is why I started homeschool against my better judgment; granted this video is not even close to what a day in my house is like but from what I have heard it seems to be a standard day in the homeschool community. I hope I’m seriously mistaken! Granted a lot of homeschooling families would condemn me for “schooling at home” and using a virtual public school but I’m in this for what is best for my child not the joy of homeschooling.

Sorry this just kills me. It is just like the “unschooled” article I read about a year ago where the family thought it was a great success story that their now 20yr old couldn’t hold a job for more than a month and didn’t learn to read till he was 16 (so, not ok with me). At least he is happy and free, I believe is how they ended that whole thing. I find it sad that he will continue to jump from job to job getting upset at the world for his lack of progress and in the end be an unhappy adult. Why do I say this???? I have seen it play out too many times.

How things work out sometimes...

I can’t believe how things work sometimes. I had offered to host a video gaming club once a month but given our new schedule the only day we can do it is on the 2^nd Wednesday of the month. We finally got people interested but of course they can’t do it on the only day we really can. Then to top it off I can’t really host anything at our house anymore anyways since we are no longer “kid friendly”. We have gotten a few new things and they are not “kid friendly” really; our kids are great with them but others would be different. Oh well, I guess it is all for the best.

Do I just not understand or not fit in???

I just don’t understand most people and the homeschooling group is an odd group of people. Maybe I find it odd because I don’t fit in. It didn’t set out to homeschool, we didn’t even really choose homeschooling…it just happened. When we first had J we didn’t think anything of how we would school our kid for we were sure we would send him to school like everyone does. I had visions of PTA, school projects, dances and things of that sort. Boy, what a pipe dream that was.

When J started reading on his own just after he turned 3 years old, a friend of mine that has been a public school teacher for years (with little to no time for the gifted child), told me “he is going to have a very hard time in public school or school in general…what you are going to do with him?” That was really the first time I had thought about it. Here I had been doing things with him for years just to keep myself busy but now I had a very smart little one on my hands. We still didn’t think to homeschool until the day came to register him for Kindergarten then we realized he would not like it for it was at least a year or two below him academy.

We still kept the thought there was a good school out there for him but while we looked I continued to do things with him as I always had. Then D was born and I started to have less and less time to find and create thing for J to do. This led me to searching for schools for gifted children. I found a few groups in the area that dealt with older gifted kids and was referred to Calvert for homeschool materials. I was all ready to order the material, even with the high cost, to help J and to save my sanity when a lady I know told me about a public school that would cover the costs of the materials. I couldn’t believe it so I looked harder and asked my homeschool network what they thought. I got a lot of responses about how it was bad to let the government interfere in homeschooling and that we as homeschoolers should be worried about the “handouts” that the public schools are giving.

That is when I really started to realize I don’t really fit in the homeschool world. Here I am worried about the quality of my son’s education and they are worried about how much control the government might have in the schooling of their children. It takes a lot of money to school children and give them what we would like to give them so if the public school, to which I pay taxes, is willing to help me get homeschool materials to school my child I’m all for it. I don’t see anything wrong with: having to review a child monthly, having the child contact another person weekly to talk about what they are learn, or submit active hours learning.

Maybe it is just me. I also find there are not a lot of homeschooling parents that are willing to be gone more days than not while following a curriculum but I figure that is what they would do if they went to a school building so that is what I should be providing here. Maybe that is just wrong of me to see it that way but that is how I see it. We have recently found a school for gifted children and will be looking into it a bit more for the boys but we will see. Now that we have started this homeschool thing it isn’t too bad but we want to make sure that we give our children the best we can offer.

YMCA

I find it amazing how vastly different each YMCA is; from the facilities themselves to the programs offered. We actually go to the YMCA in University Place since it offers the most things my children want to do. The one in our own city (just down the street from us) offers little to nothing for children and the only ones going toward Seattle that offer things the kids would want are a bit too far for me to want to go 2 or more times a week (we looked towards Seattle since my hubby works downtown but the YMCAs we were interested in aren't even close to him).

I understand we cater to our own areas wants or needs but do we really? I know so many people that are willing (and do) to travel 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to get services they want. This happens mostly because thier local area doesn't offer the service. I have to think these people aren't alone in their area wanting these services but we as a community are not offering it. Why is that? How have we lost touch with ourselves so much that we can't even speak up and ask for a service many of us want?