Why We Homeschool
I think I've gotten this question about 100 times, each time my answer varies. There really isn't just one answer, but an entire culmination of about a year of small things that added up to our final decision.
Lets take it back to last Spring (2019) when Dexter was in Kindergarten. We had known he was falling behind by the schools standards in phonetics and reading. He was going to speech therapy once a week, receiving extra help from his amazing teacher, and still fighting us almost daily about going to school. I went to an end of the year parent teacher conference and to my surprise his teacher told me "he's so incredibly smart but would do so much better one on one, have you ever thought of homeschooling?" At first I was like wait what, is she really telling me he doesn't belong in school.. But then I realized she was really saying that he could flourish if he had someone who could help him one on one, so he wouldn't get lost a class of over 20 students. After this meeting I went home and talked it through with Aj, he wasn't ready to pull the trigger on homeschooling just yet.
Fast forward to August 2019, Sophia started 3rd grade and Dexter started 1st grade at the same school they have always attended. It was within only two weeks that both kids started having major issues in school. Dexter's IEP was a fight to get renewed, plus a new diagnosis of ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorder on top of is Apraxia of Speech was a major hit to our family. Sophia started coming home very anxious and upset nearly every day. If she fell ill she would cry that she was going to miss school and have so much work to make up, even if it was just a day. So much so that she would beg to go to school sick. Then she started being bullied by fellow girls in class. It started off small but even after addressing it with the teacher and principal it escalated quickly. She was being made fun of for liking to read, liking Pokemon, for preferring to play with the boys in class rather than the girls. Aj and I do not stand for bullying what so ever, and after not being able to resolve it quickly I started to really research our options.
Both my children were struggling in school, for two very different reasons and I knew I needed to act, and act quickly. After about three weeks of late night talks, research, pro con lists, reading studies.. the answer was clear BRING THEM HOME.
We sat the kids down and explained to them homeschooling, our expectations, and if they feel like they would want to do it. It was an immediate burst of excitement from both of them and a huge YES!
Within another week I had given their school registrar our withdraw notice, their teachers both told me they thought I was making an amazing decision (if that doesn't say something, I don't know what does), and filled out the paper work for our school board. Then we started our homeschool journey. We eased our way into it and haven't looked back. Even on the hard days I realize that homeschooling is the best decision we have ever made as parents!
Lets take it back to last Spring (2019) when Dexter was in Kindergarten. We had known he was falling behind by the schools standards in phonetics and reading. He was going to speech therapy once a week, receiving extra help from his amazing teacher, and still fighting us almost daily about going to school. I went to an end of the year parent teacher conference and to my surprise his teacher told me "he's so incredibly smart but would do so much better one on one, have you ever thought of homeschooling?" At first I was like wait what, is she really telling me he doesn't belong in school.. But then I realized she was really saying that he could flourish if he had someone who could help him one on one, so he wouldn't get lost a class of over 20 students. After this meeting I went home and talked it through with Aj, he wasn't ready to pull the trigger on homeschooling just yet.
Fast forward to August 2019, Sophia started 3rd grade and Dexter started 1st grade at the same school they have always attended. It was within only two weeks that both kids started having major issues in school. Dexter's IEP was a fight to get renewed, plus a new diagnosis of ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorder on top of is Apraxia of Speech was a major hit to our family. Sophia started coming home very anxious and upset nearly every day. If she fell ill she would cry that she was going to miss school and have so much work to make up, even if it was just a day. So much so that she would beg to go to school sick. Then she started being bullied by fellow girls in class. It started off small but even after addressing it with the teacher and principal it escalated quickly. She was being made fun of for liking to read, liking Pokemon, for preferring to play with the boys in class rather than the girls. Aj and I do not stand for bullying what so ever, and after not being able to resolve it quickly I started to really research our options.
Both my children were struggling in school, for two very different reasons and I knew I needed to act, and act quickly. After about three weeks of late night talks, research, pro con lists, reading studies.. the answer was clear BRING THEM HOME.
We sat the kids down and explained to them homeschooling, our expectations, and if they feel like they would want to do it. It was an immediate burst of excitement from both of them and a huge YES!
Within another week I had given their school registrar our withdraw notice, their teachers both told me they thought I was making an amazing decision (if that doesn't say something, I don't know what does), and filled out the paper work for our school board. Then we started our homeschool journey. We eased our way into it and haven't looked back. Even on the hard days I realize that homeschooling is the best decision we have ever made as parents!
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