# Adapting to home schooling



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

I posted awhile back (but the history doesn't seem to go that far) about my son, who is doing Virtual School, and was having a great deal of trouble getting anything done in a reasonable time frame ... he was taking ages to do things that I knew could be done quickly, and not able to explain why.

Well, we seem to have had a breakthrough, finally!

Things came to a bit of a head when The Boy spent a day with his grandma and had a few science experiment tasks to do with her (she offered to help). He gave *her* the same attitude and foot-dragging performance he's been giving us, and boy howdy, that did not go over well! Grandma normally thinks I'm "way too hard on the boy" but after that day, she thought he needed a personal drill sargeant to put him in line!

DH and I sat down and talked to The Boy and said, you know, we can't _make _you work. We aren't going to stand over you every minute of every day saying "do this ... now, do the next thing." (although your grandma has offered to come here every day and do just that ... this was met with wide eyed terror and head shaking) so, it's up to you. You do NOT have the option of going back to regular school, because like it or not, this is what we believe is the best choice for you right now. So, you can experience the benefits of home schooling or not - it's up to you. We no longer care if your work takes you until bedtime every day ... it's your free time you're losing. We'll plan your day, and if it takes you longer, well, it takes you longer. You own this. We're done.

And ... The Boy chose to try. He admitted later that he'd probably been trying to sabotage the whole thing so we'd send him back to regular school, that he just didn't like it, didn't want it to work, and so refused to try. One day, he just decided he'd take a shot at it. And, thankfully, things have been much, much better since then.

He's gotten a 'feel' for how the assignments flow through a day, as for about a month or more every single day was mapped into half hour blocks in a spreadsheet (which he really liked) and as the assignments follow familiar patterns, after you've done a few assignments in this manner, it's pretty easy to extrapolate for the next one. 

I got really sick and hadn't prepped his 30 minute blocks for the next week, and he said "Mom, it's okay. You're sick, I know ... but I can do this one. Really. Let me try it." So, I did. And he did great. In fact, he got done even faster than I would have budgeted. The next two days he had the same kind of excellent progress. It seems that he's weaned himself off of the minute by minute planning now, and with just day-to-day planning as to which thing to do tomorrow, he is making good headway.

Thank heavens, because the battle was wearing me right out. Funny, though, when we stopped 'owning' his success or failure ... HE could own it. And he chose to. Yay!:bouncy:

Thank you all for your great ideas and support.


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## KS wife (Jan 1, 2008)

Outstanding!


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## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

I'm glad to hear you're over the worst of it.

Just for interest's sake, did you de-school him after pulling him?


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Tracy, I did think about the whole deschooling thing but I figured a summer break was sufficient. He was totally 'off' for the summer, including some time spent on Vancouver Island with his grandparents doing neat stuff but not school. Come September, though, we started school kind of the same way you would if it was regular school - we did ease into it, with two weeks of half days, then full time. He actually did well at the start ... then things just collapsed for no apparent reason (and in hindsight, I let it go too long before intervening). 

I knew that adapting to home school was going to be a challenge, but I really didn't expect it to take this form! This kid was always done his work before everyone else - one of the big 'plusses' of home schooling for him was the chance to be done early and go play and then ... he was working until 5:30 and STILL having homework! It made no sense. If we hadn't just completed his formal testing, I'd have thought he'd managed to acquire some kind of learning disability over the summer. :S

I'm just so relieved. I'm sure there'll be more ... but whew, this was a long one. 

Just for the sake of others in this boat, what can be done to ease the transition ... besides just living through the horror of four months of struggle?


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## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

Deschooling is much more important than most people think. Leading thought tends towards one month per year of public school attendance. Therefore, if your son was in the 6th grade when you pulled him -- up to 7 months "off" between.

"Off", however, doesn't mean "not doing anything" or "not doing anything besides Xbox". It does mean learning in a non-academic way, with as much emphasis as possible on things OUTSIDE of academia.

My experience has been that this is even more important for the PARENT than for the child -- as the child, depending on how long they've been in the public system, has learned to WORK that system, and to avoid having him apply the same things he learned in "handling" his teachers in school to YOU, it's best to have a very clear area of definition between.

I find it interesting that you seem to have started back to school in September, but he appears to have taken the seven months


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## KariM (Feb 18, 2009)

It took my son nearly a year and a half of deschooling (he was 15 when he came home to learn full-time).

We were frustrated with the very same issues you're facing and I finally asked him what his long-term goals were. (I knew, but thought it would be a good way to emphasize how he wasn't going to the get there doing what he was doing).

He lit his own fire when he realized he was nowhere near ready to take the ACT and get a score high enough to gain entrance to the college he was eyeing.

Glad to hear things are improving in your home!


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