From Home to School

A few months ago I wrote this blog and when I hit publish I didn’t realize that our internet connection had gone down and it zipped out into a black hole.  It was pretty maddening as I had worked hard on expressing myself but alas.. here I go again.

I did something this year that I never thought I would.  I put my kids in public school for the first time.  For some people this might not seem like a big deal but for me a  it was a huge decision and and a big change. I spent a number of sleepless nights before making the decision.  The girls had done well homeschooling but we all needed a change. I still think homeschooling is amazing and my eldest graduated last year from homeschool high school at age 17 and is full time in college and doing spectacularly well. She will transfer to a four year program at age 18 with almost enough credits to go in as a junior.

Our transition has gone much more smoothly than I thought it would. Everyone immediately adjusted, in fact, I think the kids did better than I did. The hardest part for me has been that I can not leave the house until my youngest is on the bus and that means no more early morning work outs. My day starts much later and ends earlier too because I come home before they do. I used to be home from the gym before they got started with their day. Now with one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school my morning routine is lengthy. With the occasional kid needing a ride, mornings are hectic. No more doing school work in our jammies.

All the girls are doing very well academically and the issues we are facing with behavior and concentration are the same ones we faced when they were homeschooling, so no surprise there. It would be nice if my distracted daughter could miraculously get organized but somehow she is managing to get good grades and do well. Hopefully she can learn some organization skills as she goes along.

Here are some things I never expected. First of all we do tend to have more family time in the evenings. Each of the girls has homework to do and often we end up together in the evenings preparing for the next day whereas when we were homeschooling we did our own things more and seemed to spend less time together. Now, I am more focused on doing fun field trips. For example, recently the girls had two days off school and we did two amazing field trips, one to the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art and another our fossil hunting. I am reading aloud as much as I did before and help with school work, I hate to admit this, almost more than I did when they were homeschooling.

I have no idea what next year in our house will bring, but then nobody really does as the future can not be predicted by anyone with exact clarity, but I have a feeling the girls will continue with the path they have chosen. If not, we’ll take up homeschooling again.

The other thing is that all the girls chose to go to school, I would not have made them. The door is open too, they may come home if they wish. The only thing I said was baring a major catastrophe, they had to stay in at least until Christmas and I really wanted them to accomplish at least one year. So far they plan to go back.

~ by whatchamacalit on November 12, 2009.