Every homeschooled family has a story, whether they believe it or not. Some parents know they will homeschool their children before said children are even conceived. Generally, these parents were either homeschooled when they were children or suffered some type of trauma or lack of learning while in a traditional school setting. Other families decide to homeschool before their children are of school age. This is either because they aren’t ready for their babies to be gone for 8 hours a day or they have fallen in love with the activities and quality time they’ve already spent learning together. However, many parents will decide to pull their children from traditional schools after their first 1-3 years. There are far too many reasons why a family decides to take this route, but it all boils down to the simple fact: traditional school was not the best route for their family.
Our story weaves in and out of many reasons as to why we should have homeschooled but gets tangled in the problematic knots as to why we didn’t think we could. Spoiler Alert! We did not start homeschooling until our son’s 8th grade year.
If you’d like to learn what events guided us on our journey to homeschool, please read on.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD)
What is ADHD? Why is it important to this post? What does it have to do with homeschooling?
In this day and age, it is safe to say most people have a vague understanding of what ADHD is and probably know someone who is diagnosed with it. With that said, I will refer to the CDC’s short definition: “ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors, or be overly active.”
But why am I mentioning ADHD in this post? Our eldest son Mana (Maa-nuh) is diagnosed with ADHD. As some of you may know, this disorder can appear in many shapes and forms. Usually, kids are labeled with having either AD (lack of attention) or H (having “too much” energy and impulsive behaviors). Then there are the children like Mana, those who have the combined type.
I plan to write another post that dives deeper into the world of ADHD and homeschooling, therefore, I don’t want to get too involved in this post. I would, however like to touch on certain struggles Mana faced while in traditional school.
- Inability to focus
- Workload too heavy
- Overly stressed
- Overly emotional
- Showing signs of anxiety and depression
I vividly remember sitting at the table for HOURS during his elementary school years trying to get him to finish his homework. He usually brought home 2-3 assignments, some were planned homework, while others were unfinished schoolwork. As soon as I picked him up from school, at 1:50 PM, I would require him to start his spelling homework in the car. The drive was about 20-30 minutes and he usually finished this in the car. When he came home, he could grab a snack and then it was immediately back to homework. With constant reminders and many shed tears, we could usually finish his work by bedtime at 8 PM. On the nights he didn’t finish, we would attempt to get his work completed in the morning during breakfast or on the ride to school.
To spell it out for you, his day started at 6 AM and on most nights did not end until 8 PM. If we subtracted meal times and recess, this meant he was working about 10 hours a day for at least 5 days a week. He was only 7 years old and was working more hours than most adults do.
Looking back, it saddens me to recognize that his youth was withered away to constant work and stress. A 7-year-old child should be playing for at least double the amount of time he or she spends working. Unfortunately, this is an unrealistic dream with the current status of our school system. They expect our children to perform more work at younger ages. So, they decrease the amount of recess and lunchtime and increase the quantity of assignments with the assumption that they are creating a brighter future. But in reality, at least for Mana, this workload left a deep, red scar that reminds him every day that he is not good enough because of his ADHD.
These struggles that led us to eventually homeschool Mana were also preventing us from pulling the homeschool trigger earlier. I was scared it would be too difficult. I was scared he would fight me every step of the way. I was scared he would never learn whilst unmedicated. Why should I have expected something different than the experiences we were currently facing? It was always a battle to get a single homework assignment complete. How could I deal with these battles all day, every day? Wouldn’t homeschooling put more strain on our relationship?
I’ll let you in on a little secret, I was wrong. I deeply regret not beginning this journey earlier.
University
As my short military career was ending, I had to make the terrifying decision of who and what I wanted to be in the civilian world. I’ve fantasized about a career in marine biology since I was a little girl, however, the fear of failing has lured over my head. You see, the marine biology field is extremely competitive and in most cases, you have to know someone to even be considered for an entry-level job without previous experience.
My amazing wife convinced me that I was good enough and gave me the courage to follow my childhood dream. We packed up and moved from El Paso, TX to Pensacola, FL where I attended the University of West Florida to major in marine biology.
After my first semester, I quickly grasped my style of learning. Math and writing were easy and required no extra work. Even though I’ve always loved science, I discovered how challenging it was to memorize and fully understand what was being taught. To ensure I understood each topic covered in class, I came home and taught the same lesson to Mana.
Reteaching these lessons to a child helped in many ways. First, it helped me recall and memorize the topics. If you’ve been through college, especially in the field of science, I’m sure you are aware that simply memorizing lessons is not enough. You must fully understand the topic, know how it functions, why it functions that way, and how it relates to the functions of other topics. This is why teaching a child became incredibly helpful.
At only 8 years old, Mana challenged me. He was more interested in what I was teaching him than his schoolwork. He asked questions I never thought to ask myself. If he couldn’t understand, then I had to re-explain. If I couldn’t explain it in a way he could understand, that told me I was simply memorizing what the professor taught to me and I didn’t fully understand it myself.
I dove into the topics I couldn’t explain to him and when I emerged with a greater understanding, I retaught it to Mana. He loved learning with me. There was no stress or pressure put on him to learn the topics. If he couldn’t understand, that was my fault, not his. This gave him the courage and comfort to ask as many questions as his little mind could think up.
It was during one of these lessons, in the middle of one of his questions, that I realized he would thrive in a homeschool setting.
You might be wondering, why didn’t I start homeschooling at this point. I was a full-time student taking 13-16 credits per semester and spent another 2-6 hours studying or finishing assignments. Cherie worked 2nd shift from 3-11:30 PM, which left me in charge of making dinner and completing Mana’s bedtime routine. At the time, the thought of taking on another task, especially a task as difficult and important as Mana’s education, seemed impossible.
If I had the knowledge back then that I have now, it would have been clear that homeschooling would not only have been possible, but it would have been easier than the rigorous schedule that traditional school required of us.
COVID-19 Online School
With all the bad that Covid-19 brought to the world, there were a few wonderful experiences. It brought our family physically together. Cherie’s work gave her time off and public school and the university turned to online learning. This gave us time we didn’t previously have.
When schools shut down, Mana was in 6th grade and was taking a higher dose of medication than he previously had. This opportunity allowed both Cherie and I to watch how he functioned during school hours. We obtained an understanding that he still required many redirections and encouragement to align his energy and focus on his schoolwork, even on the medications.
With constant monitoring, we could ensure that his schoolwork was finished during school hours. This opened up our afternoons and allowed us to learn and do things that Mana enjoyed. We built things, we made art, we listened to podcasts, we played games, and we dove deeper into our hobbies and passions. We saw the sparkle in his eyes and the smile on his face nearly every day. Something we hadn’t seen very often before COVID.
The other thing COVID brought to light was the busy work. There were many assignments I felt were pointless. I pushed those assignments to the back of his to-do list and I honestly didn’t care if he completed them or not. Another thing I noticed, he usually grasped the topics that were difficult for the rest of the class and struggled with the topics that the others understood more easily. Why was this a problem? This meant the teacher spent more time on the topics Mana already understood and sped through the topics he needed help with.
After noticing the joy Mana experienced while learning at home compared to the one-size-fits-all schooling environment, we were pushed closer to the idea of homeschooling. This was when I started researching the different types of homeschooling.
The Return
As time ticked on, the world became more accustomed to Covid-19. Restaurants, stores, and unfortunately for us, schools started opening back up. When the news of physically returning to school crept up on Mana, his demeanor changed. As if someone flipped a switch inside of him, the anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues resurfaced instantly.
I’m not saying life at home was without flaws, but there were major improvements in Mana’s mental and emotional health which seemed to resolve many of his behavioral issues. As a direct result of Mana’s improvements, our (both moms) mental/emotional health was revamped as well.
After only a week of school, Mana fell behind again. Middle school assignments were much longer and harder than his previous years’ work. Battling hormones, physical changes, and schoolwork only brought more frustrations and a lack of willingness. STRESS. ANXIETY. DEPRESSION. BEHAVIOURAL ISSUES. FIGHTS. This lasted at least half a year before I asked myself if this was our only choice in life.
Mom vs. Mana vs. Homework
Who wins? Who gives up?
Trick question. Homework never gave up. The parent-teacher meetings never ended. The fights and the stress were tearing us apart. Everyone loses.
Finally, I decided to find a way to homeschool! After all my research, I fell in love with unschooling. Scared she wouldn’t go for the unschooling approach, I timidly brought my idea up to Cherie. Turned out she already knew about unschooling and was on board before I could even pull out my PowerPoint presentation. We decided to let him finish the school year since it was nearly over and I worked on creating a plan of action.
When we informed Mana, he was ecstatic. Although, he also thought unschooling meant he would be doing no work at all…we informed him over summer break what it truly meant.
Unfortunately, we did not start homeschooling. There was still one last bump in the road (if you read the “about me” section, you’d know there were 2 bumps). If you’d like to continue reading about our homeschool journey, please read “The Events that Led Us to Homeschool (Part 2)”.
If you’ve made it this far, please leave a comment and tell me about one of the struggles that prevented or is currently preventing you from homeschooling.
Merely a smiling visitor here to share the love (:, btw outstanding style and design.
Thank you so much Patricia! This means a great deal to me 🙂