Parenting, Teenagers and now Homeschool?

A growing concern for parents that are deciding to homeschool after their children have been to public or private schools is not always an easy decision and certainly can come with struggles in the transition.  Becoming a parent is already a full time responsibility and adding 'schooling' to the repertoire often is something unforeseen.  I remember when my first daughter turned 8 years old and wondering where that cute little baby went to.  She was growing so fast and suddenly searching for your own identity in her own world that I wasn't prepared for.   This child who had explored her world, who came with me on many of my adventures in my life, traveled with me, hung out with me, shopped with me, laughed with me, hugged me constantly was slowly showing me signs of resistance to all of that.  As I fumbled through each day communicating to her the way I figured was the best way at the time, I realized she was no longer this little person who wanted my constant attention and the ease of 'what was', for me was becoming 'what the heck?!'  As I internally processed the idea that she was 8, I realized no one had ever told me when she was this new little baby, a bundle of pure beauty and expressive joy, that one day I would be a mother to  an 8 year old, or a 12 year old.  Yet there I was, wondering daily, like the first months of her newborn life making sure I was saying and doing the right things correctly.   Where was the Chapter 8, or Step 8, or Age 8 part in the book that I could read now  to support this next stage?  Searching the book shelf I found the last book I had on parenting and what to expect and it was called, 'The First 2 Years'.  That obviously was not going to cut it.

For personal reasons we decided to home school when this daughter was 14 years old.   I wanted her to experience the 'school of life', to explore the world, to travel and to experience culture and to report back on that to the school.  Now a home learner, the school mandated that she  follow curriculum and at that time there was not another option.  With the books in hand, the curriculum in hand and the online teacher support I was transported back to Grade 9 with her.  It was as if I was having to redo my whole grade 9 year over again.   She had all the books and outlines from school that were expected of her. She had resources and access to online teachers for math which were extremely helpful.  To speak honestly I  realized how rusty I was and she was. We studied Social Studies 9, English and Math together.  It was a lot of writing, reading and answering pages and pages of questions and then submitting them.  What I noticed was that there was no satisfaction with learning when my daughter was doing the school work.  She was bright, already fluent in French and English and yet when doing her school work I observed that her goal was just to get it done and that was it. There was not much excitement in learning the school work or a satisfaction of learning what she read. In fact I was more into what she was reading when I studied with her than she was, even though I knew at one time I had studied this exact same material in school myself, somehow I was enjoying it more now than I did then!

Once the school work was done, as a family, we explored the the country we had traveled to.  We took Spanish lessons, traveled to unknown places and cites with ruins that were thousands of years old.  We climbed pyramids, swam in Cenotes, learned of early civilization, wars and ends of civilizations.  We went to museums, hiked, swam in the pools and the ocean and whatever we could do to explore this new world.   We saw those living in poverty conditions.  We had discussions about life, poverty, lack, gratitude, and forged a new relationships with each other that were more still, calm and grounded as we as a family and our children could see what life may really be like outside the classroom.  I wanted her to still excel in school and education and have a love for learning.  It was apparent that year, the love of learning from textbooks was not there.  The years of testing and submitting and worrying about a grade mark being the status quo were not a want or desire, just a want and a desire to 'get it done' and to move to the next grade.   Eventually that year ended and she went back to school in 10th grade.

There were many things I realized in that year and now looking back, we were fortunate to give that opportunity to ourselves as parents and to our children.  What was needed was remediation and time to unwind from the traditional school.  Very easily I could see how the affects of the learning in the atmosphere of pedagogy had hindered the older children's love for learning.  Taking the time to allow them to unwind from the school work, stress and to see that learning comes in a variety of ways aside from testing and regurgitating back information out of a textbook was important for her and for us as parents.

I have discovered, that my struggle as a parent suddenly having a teen homeschooled after traditional schooling, was having to change myself first and not the child. It was important to have the time for just rewinding, clarification and just shaking off the pressures of the traditional mindset.  I realized in that year, once I removed the pressure from myself that my child must succeed, or must get the highest mark, or must understand every thing she read immediately and if she didn't then unintentionally make her feel bad or not good enough or smart enough,  that she started to relax and really learn.  My desire to have her succeed was coming from a starting point of fear of what I would look like as a parent in that year if she did not get good marks or worse yet, failed a subject. To me that would of meant I had failed and I cared more about what others would think of me then what really was best for my child.   When I changed my starting point to one of understanding and love, and a real focus on what she really needed, it was then that I started to understand her world and her frustrations. When that became clear to me, something magical happened. This child that that I experienced in her first 8 years was still there and I just couldn't see it because of my own interpretations and my starting point of fear.  We laughed more, we had closeness, we communicated, we traveled, we hugged, we learned together.  She was free to find some of her own interests.  She still had to complete the school work and with my help she did. However she found that there were so many other things in the world to learn, explore and study that didn't have to end with an exam or a question/answer period, it was just natural learning.  I saw that part of the foundation of her learning in those first years of school with the pressures I had put on her to learn had become cracks that needed to be filled first with myself and then with her before more learning could take place.

I suggest if you are faced with deciding to homeschool your child for whatever personal reasons you may have, that as a parent you take the time,whatever time is needed to look at the foundation of learning first, not just your child's but your own.  All children are brilliant and given enough time, success will come.  It is important to look at the foundation whether your child is in traditional school or homeschooled and see where the cracks need to be filled in first.  Structuring that foundation to be the best comes from vocabulary and understanding how we use words as parents to the child.  I was not prepared to be a mother or a homeschool mother at the time and since have worked on filling in my own cracks in order to be more effective not just as a teacher to my children, but as a parent.  This goes a long way when suddenly your newborn baby is 14 years old! Prevention is always the best cure!

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"What Did You Learn Today?"

When I decided to homeschool, our 5th child was 2 years old.  A friend had given me a book which started my whole journey called;

A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century.

Up until that point I never imagined myself to become a homeschool mom or understood why a parent would homeschool.  What happened was that upon reading this book I realized that the philosophy spoken in the book had always been my own innate idea of how a child learns.  What stood out to me the most was the 4 Learning Phases of a Child that was taught.  I took some of the key elements from these phases that made sense to me at the time and decided that I would homeschool child number 5. 

4 Phases

Core Phase
Love of Learning Phase
Transition to Scholar Phase
Scholar Phase

Read about the phases here:

Phases of Learning

The Core Phase is ages 0 - 8 where the child learns through reading and discussing good books, physical movements and play in their environment, games and having fun through their family values and structure.  Lessons in self-discipline, perseverance and pursuit of excellence are modeled by the parents, and experienced by the young child, in mostly physical ways.

I figured that this was the best way for my child to learn and the phases made practical sense.  

What I experienced was quite unexpected.  Within my core being I wanted to have this type of environment for my child and to foster her foundation to be strong for lifelong success in education and life.  Feeling at times completely unqualified and questioned by others, specifically family members who were expressing themselves through genuine love and concern, I was constantly battling some inner doubts the first 4 to 5 years.  To combat this I surrounded myself with others who had been on the same journey with their children for quite a few years, met with other families with young children who were also just starting their homeschool experience and carried on. I read, I researched, I found mentors, great alternative schools and I started to see a whole new world emerging. 

There would be weeks and months where I was completely satisfied and pleased with the progress and environment I created in our home to facilitate a love of learning through play, games, acting, household chores, fun cooking activities, singing, dancing and reading.  As my daughter grew from the preschool age to the kindergarten to Grade 1, the questions increased from those around me who did not fully understand my decision. Then there would be weeks and months where I would question myself.  When it came to the age of where my daughter should be reading like all the other grade one kids, we had a problem.

The problem was not that she wasn't reading, but 'almost' was, the problem was that other children would question her as well as family members.  In all the years of homeschooling the most asked question my child was asked on a weekly basis from well meaning family members was ' What did you learn today?' It was asked with the connotation of 'what possibly could you have learned and what are you missing out on if you were in school', at least that's what I heard it sound like!  As a mother/new teacher I would cringe inside of the question being asked as my daughter would always answer the same way.  'I don't know!' That's all she would say after I thought we spent the most magnificent day learning as we explored the world around us! Of course I would stand there and defend her, myself and my wonderfully creative home environment and remind my daughter all that she had learned that day such as patterns as we took a long walk and pointed out every pattern we saw from flowers, to sidewalks to houses, to trees and leaves.  Alas, it never seemed like the answer that was good enough and only because I had yet to master my own confidence in my own decision and stand by that.  There were days when teaching her to read because I felt so pressured, I would wonder if I was actually doing her a disservice and I would start to compare her reading level to other children that went to school.  She belonged to many outside social groups so other kids that knew her and grew with her would ask her why she was homeschooled, in which she would reply 'I don't know!' (me, again cringe)

One of the concerns of parents today that are taking the homeschool route are those same things I concerned myself with in the beginning of self doubt and confidence in their ability to provide the best for their child.  The great news is that we live in a time where information and support is at our fingertips.  Surrounding yourself with those that have children who are older and have gone through their whole education in the home and seeing their success will ease those concerns.  At the end of the day, it is you as a parent that understands your child's true potential.

My daughter who is almost 12 today is an avid reader. As she grew she became interested in music and acting.  She started playing piano at 6. She performed in a few musical theatre productions  and picked up the guitar at 9 and with a mentor started self teaching.  She became a songwriter and  composes a song on the guitar in as little as 20 minutes, lyrics and all.  She is articulate, smart, and is now in the the next phase, the love of learning.  This stage is where that foundation that was fostered in the Core Phase now comes into play. She has deep questions, not just about what a text book is telling her but how things work in this world.  She creates art, music videos, street performs and has written chapter books for kids and is working on her third.  She loves to learn!  I think we are doing pretty good.  She doesn't get grades, she doesn't take year end exams, she is followed by a home learning consultant and can communicate effectively with her peers and adults. 

I can say that starting out with little understanding of the 'how' I was going to do this, I unschooled myself from my own schooling and learned and experienced along the way.  My daughter suffered from anxiety from the time she was 3 to 7 years old.   Everything I knew or was learning, I had to look at to see if this was the best for my child.  It was not that any one thing was wrong, it was more that I could provide so much more for her since there was her and I in a very experiential free flowing environment which happened to be a more natural environment.  This has paved the way for me to become confident and sure based on results and one happy child.  The road is not always smooth and I still am always learning as she grows. 

There is still that question I hear sometimes, 'What did you learn today?'  Instead of me answering (cringing) or having to defend anything I simply stand and smile while she says "Well, let me tell you all about it..."

To Be Continued... 

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