We share more about our homeschooling period and why we do it for the remaining month or so of the school year.
Hello friends!
I hope you have a great week. I’m so excited that I hope many of you have signed up for our Spring Forward Wellness Challenge. Sign up here – it’s totally free and will be a lot of fun. If we are looking for an explosion of motivation when heading into spring, this is the perfect way to do it!
In today’s post I wanted to share a little more about my homeschool journey and what’s going on. Over the past few months we’ve had tough times and hinted at the fact that it’s difficult to navigate how and what to share. As for my life, I have always been open with you guys The purpose of the blog has always been to share my experiences. Not my child. It’s a difficult line to walk, especially when they’re a big part of my life and I feel that many of you are part of our family. Similarly, I have always tried to take a sensitive approach to my content, as I don’t want their privacy to be invaded by what I share here.
The Nutshell versions are: Eventually, I was forced to transfer my LIV to another private school in January. We were all struggling with a heart-warming amount of homework, tests and assignments. Her competitive dance schedule was particularly challenging. We switched studios to cut her time in half, but she’s at least every night (over the past two years) trying to finish everything for school. I have a great belief in hard work and I think there’s a place in academic rigor, but that was too much for everyone. So she’s switching and thriving.
When she switched schools, it was the first time P hadn’t had her big sis in school, but that was challenging for her. The pilot also retired, but this was a massive transition and she began to suffer more frequent stomach pains. (Her stomach had been bothering her for years. She had a fierce reflux like a baby and was in Zantac with Prirosek and Zantac who had been recalled for horrifying reasons.) She saw multiple doctors. She also did CBT twice a week. Her stomach pains and anxiety got so bad that she missed out on days of school. We were trying to catch up with an insane amount of homework, class work and testing here.
The pilot was at home to retire, taught her content, completed a huge packet of classwork, and took her to school for testing. He was back in training for commercial airlines, so I had solo parenting, work, and I asked her to choose to go back to school or we could pull her out, and she said, “Homeschool.”
I wasn’t going to be a teacher, but I’ll do anything for our baby, and if that’s what P needs now, I’ll do it.
(We love Nicole, a math woman! Amazing Rec from Brittany. )
It is also worth mentioning here what I have decided to do Food Susceptibility Test (and several other functional labs), reaching the root cause of some intestinal problems, her gluten sensitivity was serious. It’s no wonder her stomach is hurt.
Our plan now:
– She is on Liv’s new school waiting list, but realistically she can’t enter until 5th grade.
– I’ll be homeschooling until then. If she decides to go back, that’s great. If she doesn’t want it, that’s fine too.
The funny thing is that I was really on my guard against homeschooling. A pre-kid who came up with himself said, “On the planet, how can parents expect to teach their children more effectively than their teachers?”
During the girls’ time at school, we had an extraordinary teacher, everything a teacher should have. They love their children, they love what they teach, they are more than that. But at the same time, some teachers are…not good. They say strange things in the class, embarrassing kids in front of their peers. This always happens in private school settings when you are paying for your child to be taught by instructors who seem to have no love for them at all. For the majority of the time, we weren’t able to teach content during class, so we awarded 3-4 hour blocks every night anyway.
Growing up, I thought homeschooled kids were probably awkward because they didn’t have that much social interaction. The reality is that all the homeschooled kids I met are kind, clear, friendly and incredibly smart.
I’ve seen friends’ homeschooling and seen fantasies like how fun it is, but I’m working from home, calling clients, creating content, podcast interviews, zooming, IHP work, And so on. I didn’t feel like I could add another to my plate, but when I reached this point I never thought about it again. I shuffled my schedule a lot, as most of the content creation takes place over the weekend. The beauty of homeschooling is that it only takes about two hours a day at this age.
This post is already very long so I’ll be sharing another post right away with the curriculum we use and how we build our days.
I would like to thank you for your kindness and so amazing over the past few months. In many ways (this is just one of them). Being here every day is a big, bright place. We’ve finished our first week of homeschool and I’m pretty excited and hopeful about it! We’re also grateful that we can spend extra time together and are considering all the cool homeschool activities that Tucson has to offer!
xoxo
Gina
