So am I socially retarted? Part 2

I left off my last post about how I had learned quite a bit about socialization in public schools. But the story is far from over so I will continue from after 7th grade.

In the summer between 7th and 8th grade we moved. I was starting over again. I thought I ought to try this school thing again. And this time around it was better, and worse. At my new school I never saw kids making out in the halls so that was a good thing, however I never made any friends. I want to make it very clear that I was my fault that I didn't make friends, and not the fault of the school per say. And it may be that if I had attended public school I would have had the social skills to make friends, but that is not the end of the story.

Mom, seeing that I had no friends, decided to do something about it. She gathered other home-school moms and created a unit study class. We met once a week and studied units; like ancient Mayans, or Columbus, things like that. That is the first time I felt like I had friends, I was still weird and awkward but these kids didn't care that much. What a breath of fresh air that was.

The summer I was 14 I went through a transformation. I decided that I was going to care how I looked. I lost about 30 lbs and 9 inches. You know its funny how different people treat you when you fit into their idea of what is acceptable. That school year I continued doing classes with my home-school friend. More advanced classes. We studied Shakespeare, the Constitution, and US history. I also started High school taking Stage Production, and a religion class. And the crazy thing was I made friends just fine. I was no longer and outcast, I knew how to make friends and did so.

I could tell this play by play, my ups my downs, the boys, the drama, but I will boil it down to a few sentences. I almost went back to public school full time I really did. I liked having friends and being accepted, but I didn't and here is why. Being at school didn't give me the time I wanted to focus on getting a good education. It gave me lots of time to be with friends but that was not my highest priority.

I didn't give up on having a social life. I just chose to control it. I consider my teen years to be some of the best of my life. My good friends were my home-school friends. We had many parties and adventures, all of which my parents would heartily approve of. We really had some great times

We have all taken widely different paths, but each and every one of them has a dear place in my heart. I love you guys, thanks for making my teens great.

So am I socially retarted? Part 1

What about their social life was (and still is) the number one concern from people who found out that my mom was home schooling. My mother at least never let on that that was any concern from her. But I am sure some people may wonder what the home-schooled child thinks about that. Or at least what one home-schooled child thinks about it.

When I left school in the first grade I did not have any friends. For what ever reason I was a social out cast. I don't blame that on anyone, I believe that it was largely due to my personality and partly due to biology (my dad has aspergers and I believe i have aspergers tendencies). I was not comfortable engaging my peers in conversation, I just hoped someone would come talk to me. It may be that a child with problems such as mine confronted with this situation day, after day, after day would eventually over come and make friends. But since that didn't happen we will never know.

Most of my childhood I only had two friends, my best friend and cousin Brindie, and my good friend Jaclyn. These two were the truest friends, never judgmental and always loving. However Brindie always lived an hour or more away, and Jaclyn was in and out of my life (more about her in later posts). So for the most part I played by myself. I did have siblings there are six of us total, but as they will lovingly attest to, I was in my own world for most of the time.

At Lagoon with Brindie

I was quite aware of the fact that I didn't have any friend, even the girls at the church I attended shunned me as a loner. While at times that bothered me, like when I was the only one not invited to a party, for the most part I could have cared less. That is until I hit preteen.

Preteen is the most awful age to start wanting friends. Simply because kids at that age are not very nice. But preteen is exactly the age that most home-school children realize they want friends and that the most likely way to get those friends is at school. So when I was 11, I signed up for 7th grade, at least part time.

I enrolled in Dance and Drama, also wanting to see if I was up to speed with my peers, in pre-algebra, and English. This year was wrought with "social experiences" I experienced name calling, kids making out in the hall, proper bus etiquette, and how to respond to teachers. (I did not incorporate these into my life). I am making this sound all bad and I did make a few friends, but the reality is that all of these acts were all seen as appropriate social behavior. Having grown up in a Christian home I knew this not to be true.

well it is late and this post is getting really long and I am teaching "Joy School" in the morning so I will continue this train of thought in another post tomorrow.

How to start home-schooling

My good friend and cousin asked me "how do you start home-schooling". I thought to my self that is a very good question. Seems so natural to me guess some people wouldn't know how to start so here is my answer.

One - Make sure you really want to home-school. You are taking sole responsibility for the education of your child. Society will hold you accountable for your choices (not that I advocate bending to the whims of society). As a naive child I used to think that everyone should home-school, but now have come to realize that it is just not the right choice for a lot people. People who are emotionally or mentally unstable should not home - school. Like wise if the home is not safe environment which will encourage learning, children will most likely do better in school. Home-schooling takes time, work, and dedication. Lets face it you will be dealing with those crazy kids ALL DAY LONG!

On the other had home-schooling is extremely rewarding. You are able to cultivate exactly what you want to in your child's environment. Children who are home-schooled are typically closer to their siblings, and parents. I have even found that most home-schooled kids don't go through what is deemed as a "rebellious teenage phase". If raised in a loving supportive home most home schooled kids just don't have the desire to rebel.

Two - Find out the home-school laws in the state in which you live. Some states have very strict laws, others have very few laws or none at all. Click here for a list of the laws by state, hlsda (thanks Nicole). Depending on the state you may be required to take yearly tests to asses you level of education, or you might be required to record of all of the "school" that you have completed. In Utah the state in which I was home-schooled the only requirement was that you turn a release form into the county school district declaring that you will be home-schooling your child. Other states require that you operate your home-school as a "private school", California I know does this. This is accomplished by filling out some forms, provided by the state, and in some special cases may even require a lawyer.

Three - decide how you want to home school. There are three main methods of home-schooling those being

1. Traditional, or what we growing up loving (or not so loving) called "Public School at Home" - this type of homeschooling most closely resembles public school, and is most logically what most people try when they pull their kids out of school, knowing no other form of education. While there are some families successful with this method (typically mothers with type A personalities). A lot of families struggle with it. Parents feel pressured to As you can tell I am not a huge proponent for this method. In my opinion this is to much work for the parent and does not cultivate a love to learn in children.

2. Classical - In this method parents don't rely on texts books to get there curriculum. They use good (classical) books to educate the child. It focases more on what the child want to lean and what level they are at, as opposed to what the should know or what level they should be at

3. Unschooling - This is more or less what it sounds like. Families who have chosen this method do not have any formal education in their home. The idea is that children are bright and will learn on his/her own. (quite frankly the idea of unschooling scares me)

There are several methods which fall under these categories. Such as K-12 curriculum, Charlotte Mason method, Classical Christian Method, and the Thomas Jefferson Education just to name a few.

You can also pick and combine parts from each of these methods, creating something completely unique to you.

Four - Start, pick one thing to do a start doing it it doesn't matter if your child is 5 months old. Education is a life long process and the more we learn the more we grow, don't be scared about making mistakes, because you are going to make them. Keep learning your self and take your child along with you. There is no day like today to change your life.

Television

When I was dating my husband (way before we were even close to serious), I told him when I got married it would be on 3 conditions: 1) I wanted to home-school my kids, 2)I didn't want any kind of game consul in my house, and 3) I didn't want a TV. I think he now wishes that he didn't agree to such a list, he has even told me that he wishes that he had come up with a contingency list too. Sorry honey but there is good reason for my list. That being I like TV too much.

I would call it my Achilles heal, and is the one thing I would change about my home-schooling experience ... well sort of. You see everything I know about science is from Bill Nye, ENERGY IS POWER. And I learned a lot of good social habits from channel 9. Like how to listen. I specifically remember a show where they talked about how to be a good listener, give the other person your full attention, don't ever look at your watch or act like you need to leave, repeat back to that person in your own words what they said. I've used those steps ever since I learned them. Years later my mom was telling me that she learned this new skill called "drive by listening" and I thought to myself I've been doing that for years, thank you channel 9.

On the other hand I probably spent way to much time in front of the TV, I am just grateful we were only allowed to watch educational channels like pbs (although we didn't' always obey that rule), and that we didn't have cable. You see I am easily sucked in by Television. I know there are much better ways to spend your time, but the allure is at times is too tempting. So my solution was not TV and it worked great for the first few years of my marriage, and then came hulu, and netflix. So I guess I am going to have to exert some self control anyway.

When I comes to home-school and TV, that's a hard one for me. It definitely has some benefits, but day long marathons are also not a good thing. I guess each parent has to decide what to let into their own house.

Oh so fashonable

Being home schooled had an immense effect on my self esteem. I was the most confident, intelligent, good, helpful, kind person I knew, at least in my eyes. Even my not so good parts, like my looks, didn't suffer. I would look in the mirror and find the good things about how I looked, I would say "thank you God for my beautiful long red hair and my straight white teeth. It wasn't until my preteens that I realized that maybe I was not so perfect. Even then I didn't go through identity crisis like most teens go through. I realized I wasn't perfect and was okay with that. I can't help but think that a child with that much confidence can't be a bad thing.

My favorite example of how confident I was how I dressed. I was not a skinny child, I had quite a few extra pound on me (which I will address in another post), and I had the most delightful wardrobe. I was so proud to get up every morning and say to myself "I don't care what other people think of me, I don't care what they think about how I dress" And I was actually really proud of how I dressed, I liked what I wore. The innocence of it makes me smile.

My mom never said anything about what I wore she just let me be who I wanted to be, knowing that if she had faith in me I would turn out just fine, and I did.

What I want most to say to parents is, don't get so caught up in the oddities of your child that you don't see their brilliance. Set a good example, put a bit of faith in them and they will turn out just fine.