I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to blog about, but today I have a topic. I have a feeling, after the events of the day, that this will be monopolizing much of my blog. Today, we officially became homeschooling parents...and I'm terrified. I think this blog will just be me getting my thoughts out so they aren't swimming around in my head anymore.
I will admit that I gave much thought to homeschooling Dade before he started kindergarten. Ultimately, we decided against it, and thought we would see how he did in public school. Regular school wasn't challenging enough for him, and luckily Evergreen had the Excel program for him to transfer into, which was a blessing. 3rd grade Excel went great, but 4th grade Excel just isn't working for him. He is way too advanced in math for what they're teaching him, so he's bored. The science that they're working on is stuff that he's been doing for 2 years now, so he's bored. And, his weakest area, writing, is going a too fast for him to really grasp the deeper concepts. He's been frustrated with school and it has turned something that he loved so much into a nightmare for all three of us.
So, we started talking about options. I could always supplement what he's learning at school for writing, by doing things at home, but it's very hard to coordinate when you can't get enough information about what they're really doing at school. Which is what brought us back to the homeschooling option. Since Dade has missed so much school over the last month because of pneumonia, he's been doing everything at home, and he's thrived with the one-on-one learning. But, really, we're not teachers, so it's insane for us to consider doing this long-term.
We talked to Dade about what he would like to do, and presented him with the homeschooling idea. At first he cried at the idea of leaving the kids and the teachers at Image. But, then his practical side cam out and he said he wanted to try homeschooling to see "if it would be the best choice" for him. So, we did a trial run over the weekend and he did exactly what we expected, and thrived.
Well, we had pretty much decided that we were going to do it, but the plan was to wait a couple weeks and start after his term ended, but it appeared that Dade wasn't interested in waiting. He's kind of like his mom in that respect...once his mind is made up, then he is ready to go for it. So, today we signed the papers with the school district to be able to homeschool him.
I cried. And then I cried some more.
I know it's stupid, but I can't help but worry. All three of us believe that this is the best choice at this point in time, but I keep worrying that somehow we're going to break him, or ruin him by doing this. I'm sure that, once everything starts going, I will spend more time worrying about making sure he's learning everything he needs to know, and worrying about making sure we get involved with the right homeschool groups so that he had the opportunities to socialize, and worrying that Scott and I have enough time to spend on our marriage....and so on. but, today, my worry is that we find out, years down the road, that this was the wrong choice.
