# Thinking About Homeschooling Son



## Peacock (Apr 12, 2006)

OK guys - I need some advice and info from real experienced homeschool folks.

I've always been an advocate of public schools - at least ours. We specifically chose our area because of the schools' quality. But I never criticized homeschooling; I always said that if we lived in an area with a bad school or if my kids had trouble in school I'd homeschool them. 

Well, here's trouble.

My daughter (7th grade) is doing great. My son (5th grade) not so great. Both are generally happy, easygoing, social kids - the social stuff isn't the problem. I don't have a problem with the teachers or the other students or the curriculum. The problem is my kid.

He's always said he hated school. Said he was bored. This year the school figured it out - I said they were good - decided he was gifted and put him in a self-contained class with 20 other gifted kids. That's been wonderful for him. The teacher is awesome. As I said, it's not the school's fault.

The problem is this: HE DOESN'T CARE.

He is a typical gifted kid. In my experience, gifted kids can either be driven or daydreamers. My son is the latter. He is extremely disorganized, can't seem to focus, seems intent on becoming the class clown. He blows off assignments, or forgets to turn things in. He won't ask for help if he doesn't understand something. He won't study for tests without extreme coercion - says he knows it, then proceeds to get a D. 

This has been a recurrent theme, especially this year. I have been in conferences with his teacher three times so far as we've discussed ways to motivate him. I just got a note from her today saying she's just totally at a loss of what to do. He's not failing - his grades are 70's and 80's - but he could do so much better. I see it in him and it just drives me nuts.

SO I am thinking he needs homeschooling. He needs one-on-one management. He needs me to sit with him and make sure he understands a concept - the teacher of 20 kids just cannot do that. I just KNOW that if I had him to teach, myself, that I could get him fired up about this stuff. If he lacked the constant distraction of being in a busy classroom, I could get him to focus. 

Ohio has at least two different accredited homeschool programs available for free - just enroll and go. I don't know if it's the best, but I'd be happy to try it out for the rest of 5th grade.

The only rub is this: I am in school, too. I've been going to college full time and I'm about a year away from finishing my degree. If I homeschool my son, my own school will have to be put on hold. Maybe indefinitely.

Of course, I am willing to do this if it is the best thing for my son. 

My husband and daughter are having a FIT about it, though. He's anti-homeschool already; he says we're paying high taxes already for this "excellent" school district, we're gonna use it.  Daughter, who at almost-13 thinks she knows it all, says it'll hurt him being away from his friends. Maybe, but he's got sports and scouts, he won't be that lonely.

So, advice is most welcome -- do you think homeschooling would be the best choice for us? I think I would be a very good teacher for him. I don't think I could have done it when the kids were younger, not enough patience  but now, yes. 

Thanks for "listening."


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I am always in favor of parents teaching their children. For myself, I would want to have the answers or at least a possible ideas to some questions. Can you give him all the extras that the teacher can or can you work around that? Do you have the funds to get the "stuff' he will need to stay busy? Are you willing to go outside the box in methods to teach him? How will you motivate him if the teacher can't? 

You might be able to get him to understand concepts - that doesn't seem to be the problem- it is in applying the concepts that the difficulty comes. Are you willing to teach concepts other than what is in the mainline of curriculum for his age? For my son- it is all in WHAT he wants to learn. My job is to find a way to make him want to learn what he needs to learn s he can go on to do what he wants. 

Your son sounds ADD to me -you might do a search on "quick smart" - the idea that ADD kids have an advantage in many ways over other students. It isn't all unfocused - often ADD is exactly what you describe - unmotivated, uncaring, and they are able to over-focus when they find something to be interested in.


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

With my son it's a little different, but in many ways the same. My 10 yr old DS is a special needs child. He's never been to public school. Some of the advantages of homeschooling is you can teach around their interests. What sort of things is your son interested in? My DD, who has already graduated, was interested in archeology and wanted to go into some type of law enforcement. The first year we homeschooled her, she was 14, I created a thematic unit on Ancient Egypt. She did an investigation into the death of King Tut (history), studied 3 different pyramids and made one to scale (math) she mummified a chicken (science) and wrote several reports based on her findings. We covered all the requirements that were needed, plus some, and she remembers everything. Oh, she also studied hyroglyphics and wrote her own book of the dead, which she translated into hyroglyphics. Eventually we went to a more conventional style of teaching, but that first year I had to get her to the point she realized that learning could be fun. It worked. She graduated 6 months early and enlisted in the USAF, where she is excelling.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

70s & 80s... Cs&Ds, yes? 
In 5th grade? 

(You've described me, btw. lol I didn't start getting As & Bs on a sort of regular basis until I was well into HS. Same reason.  I could coast by "good enough" without needing to put in _too_ much effort.)

Is he actually flunking anything? Because if not, that means he's figured out just how much effort is needed to scrape by. 

Have you tried grade rewards? I hesitate to recommend paychecks (they seem to be a popular idea but really bother me...), but something that you both agree on that he's going to work toward with X number of As and/or Bs?

Were you to homeschool, you're still going to have motivation issues. Homework's not fun, it doesn't matter _who_ assigns it. However, it's possible he'd enjoy it more were he helping to direct his units of study...


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

I have to ask, are the lower grades in particular subjects? Gifted and Talented kids can have asyncronous development issues, meaning they can be gifted and talented in some things and not in others. I have an 8th grader who is in high school math, science, and foreign language, but has extreme difficulty with writing essays in english, so is in a grade level class in that subject, and needs a lot of one-on-one attention from me in this _easier class!_ He is ADD/Dyslexic AND gifted and talented btw.
I can't tell you if you should homeschool or not. I can say it is very difficult to do if your whole family is not on board. It is not the easy road. Realtional stress on top of it would not be a good thing. 
Having said that, I know one other person who sounds just like your son; my brother. He learned to be lazy in school. He never unlearned it. He is in his 40's now. He still won't do what is not easy. It is important that your child gets past this however you have to do it.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Sounds reasonably familiar ... my kid was 'coasting' in PS as well. We have pulled him for HS (virtual) and are having issues still with the lack of direction and so on. 

Check here if you haven't already ...
http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=281404

Like Cindy-e, I was very worried that he was learning to coast and that if we didn't catch it early and address that habit, it was going to be hard to break. It's *already* hard to break ... although we are having success, it is a tough battle.

For us, the key was having the full round of testing done - your school seems to have done the assessments, have you gone over the results with your boy? We had a big conversation about this just last week: along the lines of "you are ABLE to do this, and so we are not going to let you get away with doing less - your teachers in school did let you get away with doing less, because they could. Not gonna happen here: you work to your potential or I make your life miserable." (and he knows I can and will do that ... I'm very creative at coming up with new 'learning opportunities' when the need arises!)

He's really turning it around now ... what he needed was help estimating each task, and knowing that if he worked for 'about that long' he should be 'about done'. That seemed to be the key ... that plus knowing he CAN DO IT. He needed to know he can do it, and that he can do it in this amount of time, and then he can be done. The reward for him is the free time of doing his work quickly.

At school, the teachers' can't let you go play when you are done. At home, you can do that. That's why we opted for home schooling: he can be done. Of course, now he has to get caught up, but he's working really hard to get there, and I'm proud of him.

Are you able to talk to the person who did your son's testing? They would no doubt have some good suggestions for you: I got a lot out of talking to the psychologist who did ours.


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## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

I'm going to list a few things here that I believe successfully home educating your children requires, and take from it what you like.

My credentials which back up this opinion are as follows: I have been doing this for over nine years. I have two children who test out in the 105th and 95th percentile nationally, and learn things (like Greek and Latin, Logic and rhetoric) that are not taught formally in the PS system. We are definitely NOT unschoolers, follow a very strict Classical academic curriculum and do it well. I speak at home education conferences, have been published many times in home education publications and other periodicals which are focussed on education and nutrition, and in my "real" life, am considered an "experienced" home educator and nutritionist. 

So take this as you see fit. This list of "qualities required" comes from my experience dealing with both successful and unsuccessful home educating families, your experience may be different. These are the qualities I feel are a prerequisite to success:

1) patience. Children don't always learn the things we wish them to learn at the rate or in the order we present them. Get over yourself and change your tactics, because the child won't.

2) the ability to actually do work. Home education doesn't "just happen". It takes a lot of research and hard work. In many ways, "unschoolers" (those folks who everyone believes don't do anything) have the hardest job of all -- putting non-academic learning opportunities in front of their kids and keeping the kids' interest high for as long as it takes to get the lesson into their head. Do not believe that there is any "easy" or "effortless" way to home educate. The people who tell you that are either A) saints, or B) not doing it right.

3) resolve. You do not mess with your kids education if you are the type of person to flit from thing to thing in a quest for your own fulfillment. If you are basically a selfish person, forget it. Everything WILL come down to your determination for your child to get the absolute best education possible, and at times, that will require your dismissing your own wants and needs. Face it, accept it, and if you still choose to home educate, get over yourself.

4) discipline. Self and of your children. If you are not a person with a whole lot of self-discipline, this is going to be far harder than you ever thought possible. If your children are undisciplined, it's going to be worse.

5) mutual respect. If you don't respect your kids, you're going to have a tough time of it. If they don't respect you, what on earth are you thinking? 

6) the support of your spouse and immediate family. It *CAN* be done without this, if there is a very good bond and mutual respect between the parent and child in question, but having your spouse behind you can make the difference between a bad day and a nightmare day. And there *WILL* be bad days.

7) a positive attitude. We all have "off" days, but if you are basically a negative person, please, look at your other educational options.

8) funding. Home educating your children *CAN* be done on a shoe-string (there are a LOT of books on this topic out there -- good books with GOOD ideas), but really, it's a LOT easier if you have some money to put towards it.

9) time. Time is the one thing you cannot buy more of. If you don't have at least 15-20 hours a week to devote to this (and I mean "devote" in terms of "my attention is wholly and completely on my child and their learning needs"), your success rate is going to go WAAAY down.

10) an ability to change yourself. This is rather a specific one that I bring up in all of my conferences. It has to do with learning styles -- there are tests available online where you can find out what your learning style is, and what your child's learning style is. It is important that these be matched. Your child will NOT be able to change and learn at the best of their ability, so if you do not share the same learning style as your child, YOU will have to learn how to "teach" differently. We tend to "teach" (or "present information", if you like) in the same way that we best learn it, and if the child learns differently, YOU must change, not them. If you are the type of person who believes that your way is best, if you have "control issues" or are incapable of recognizing that your way may not be the optimum for everyone, you're going to have a very, very rough time of it.  

11) maturity. You're an adult. They're a child. Guess which one you are NOT going to be able to act like?

There are many, many other qualities which can deep-six your attempts to educate your own, but if this checklist gives you doubts, please, think long and hard about the wisdom of the decision. There are many, many educational options. If the local school isn't working, consider them all, including home education, and decide what is best for your family, given the situations and personalities involved.


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## Peacock (Apr 12, 2006)

I appreciate everyone's input - and Tracy, what a thorough, detailed, insightful list. I hope I do have those qualities, even if I decide not to homeschool! Those are qualities that make a good parent, regardless of what else is going on. 

I think that perhaps part of the problem is that he's got "second child syndrome." You know how it is, the first child gets all of your attention, every milestone is a first for everyone, you take lots of pictures, you ooh and aah over every doodle they bring home from preschool? The second kid, well, not so much.  Almost as much, I mean he's not neglected! I hate to think what it'd be like if I had more than two. By my fourth kid I'd be forgetting his name. 

But really, I was spoiled with my daughter. She's a squeaky wheel. It's always been, "Mom, watch this," "Mom, help me with this," etc. Which gets old, but I was grateful that she TOLD me what she needed from me. With my son, I guess I just tend to assume that if he doesn't ask, he doesn't need it. 

I look back on all the evenings I spent with her, practically spoon-feeding her work to her because OMG it was 9 p.m. and we still had two pages to do...I knew she was tired and just couldn't bear to see my little sweetie get a bad grade. But then, she also took it more seriously and was upset when she got bad grades, while the boy doesn't seem to care so much.

Kids are different, so we treat them differently, whether we intend to or not.

I need to be disciplined myself and sit with him for a specific time each night and really go over what he does. In effect, I need to homeschool him AND send him to school each day. If I can't do that, then there's no way I'll be successful homeschooling him.

I still think I'd be a good homeschool teacher and we could make it work, but maybe first I ought to do some research in to parenting a gifted child before I try teaching one.

Today was better. We took some time tonight working on his math homework -- that is one of his troublesome subjects. He started out upset because he felt totally lost - but once I explained it, he found out that he was overthinking it, that it was far easier than he thought it would be.

Same situation with a science worksheet. I have noticed two things with him. First, he tends to misread things because he stops reading too soon - thinks he knows what it is going to say so he doesn't really look at the words. And second, he assumes the work is going to be hard before he even tries it.

So I made him repeat two things over and over...made him promise to say them to himself whenever he feels overwhelmed or distracted -- say, "YES, I can do this," and "It's not so hard!" It's a start.

We need some other systems in place too, like a reward chart. I'll work on it!

Oh and I wanted to add -- boy, do I ever know about asynchronous learning. I was one of those kids myself -- way off the charts at reading/verbal skills, and horrible at everything else.  He's not like that. He's got a good aptitude in most areas - like someone said, it's not the concepts, it's practical application. Self-discipline. 

Again, many thanks!!!


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## Peacock (Apr 12, 2006)

Callieslamb said:


> Your son sounds ADD to me -you might do a search on "quick smart" - the idea that ADD kids have an advantage in many ways over other students. It isn't all unfocused - often ADD is exactly what you describe - unmotivated, uncaring, and they are able to over-focus when they find something to be interested in.


I've suspected this as well - I wouldn't add in the "H" because though he's an active kid he's not bouncing-off-the-walls hyper. He does have trouble keeping his butt in the chair most of the time, but I think that's fairly typical for a 10 year old boy.  Some days he does have trouble settling down to work. And yes, he does focus quite deeply on things that interest him, like Legos and computer games, and even a book now and then.

Of course we will not be medicating him. No way, no how. Not that anyone has suggested it, but it isn't happening.


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## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

Another thing to consider is that you're describing a typical 10yo boy. Many of them go through a stage where "application" isn't high on their priority list. They are VERY different learners than girls at the same age. Very, very different.


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

edayna said:


> Oh and I wanted to add -- boy, do I ever know about asynchronous learning. I was one of those kids myself -- way off the charts at reading/verbal skills, and horrible at everything else.  He's not like that. He's got a good aptitude in most areas - like someone said, it's not the concepts, it's practical application. Self-discipline.
> 
> Again, many thanks!!!


Organization, practical application, and self-discipline are academic skills. They are not classes, but they are needed academic skills, and the fact that he is able to handle the class "material" but doesn't know how to study, to get answers for himself, to critically analyze what he is being asked to do and perform the task is classic asyncronous development. He acts like a "normal" 10 year old boy in the organizational (perhaps spatial? How clean is his room?) arena, and yet academically functions as if he older than he is. That is asyncronous. 
As for the "I can't do it" attitude, he has (fortunately/unfortunately) learned that school should be "easy". If it is NOT easy, that is abnormal, and he doesn't know how to deal. I have to applaud you right here, because you did the EXACT right thing in dealing with it. The ed psych we have worked with identified certain behaviors that are typical of kids like this when faced with a problem (and of LD kids to incidentally). One of them is called the "melt down". The brain decides that the material is "too hard", and then looses the ability to recall what it knows. Changing the messages in the head when that happens is the way he suggested dealing with this. He said it this way,"thaw, regroup, retry." That is pretty much what you did with your son, helped him back up and take a new look at the material and reconnect with what his brain knows. GOD JOB! See, you are already changing things for the better. 

CIndyc.
ETA: Brain faster than fingers. Skipped words.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

cindy-e said:


> As for the "I can't do it" attitude, he has (fortunately/unfortunately) learned that school should be "easy". If it is NOT easy, that is abnormal, and he doesn't know how to deal. I have to applaud you right here, because you did the EXACT right thing in dealing with it. The ed psych we have worked with identified certain behaviors that are typical of kids like this when faced with a problem (and of LD kids to incidentally). One of them is called the "melt down". The brain decides that the material is "too hard", and then looses the ability to recall what it knows. Changing the messages in the head when that happens is the way he suggested dealing with this. He said it this way,"thaw, regroup, retry." ETA: Brain faster than fingers. Skipped words.


Ooooh that is our situation too!

Thank you for the great advice ... you can bet we'll be applying it at our house too!


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## Christine in OK (May 10, 2002)

Tracy, everyone who ever even thinks about homeschooling should have to live with that list taped to their forehead for a month before starting. It is wonderful. It is also the reason that I don't homeschool - I fall short in a couple of those areas and I know it. Especially the patience thing - I get it, and I don't understand why you don't. Sometimes I have to step away and either let Lance explain, or spend some time thinking up another angle.

Edayna, I have to say that you have pretty well explained my 21 year old nephew. He is extremely bright, and could absolutely have cared less - to the point of flunking out of college, not once but twice. Finally, he enrolled in a diesel mechanics class at the local tech school, and is now a happy mechanic. Some kids grow out of the 'couldn't care less' stage, and some don't. You may have to leave him in P.S. and still basically homeschool him - every evening, sitting down and going over homework problem by problem. That's what my sister ended up having to do a lot of times, and she said she felt like she re-earned another diploma. 

Good luck!


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## mammabooh (Sep 1, 2004)

edayna said:


> I need to be disciplined myself and sit with him for a specific time each night and really go over what he does. In effect, I need to homeschool him AND send him to school each day. If I can't do that, then there's no way I'll be successful homeschooling him.


I'm so glad to have read this...it's exactly what I was going to recommend you try. By doing that, you're letting him know gently that it is not ok for him to slack off and that you really care about his education. I would imagine that, even if he won't admit it, he wants you to take an interest in what he's doing at school.


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