“We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” - Stacia Tauscher, quoted in The Change Your Life Challenge by Brooke Noel.
One of Noel’s suggestions is to have a regular “happy half hour” with your family. Set up fresh fruit or other health snacks, pour cups of juice or some sort of drinks they like, and set apart that time for everyone, kids and adults, to connect in a positive way. No “must do” talk, no downers, no complaining - just good stuff. Encourage each other, express your gratitude for each other and the good things in your lives, share your joys, and catch up with each other.
Homeschooling families seldom need that as much as some others do, but it can’t hurt, can it? There’s never a bad time to share some happiness with our families.
Katie is absolutely loving school.
Well, she loves the social aspect, and the challenge of interacting with new instructors. She isn’t happy about living by a bell, and of course all of us are adjusting to living on the school’s timetable in general.
At the end of the very first day, she called and asked if she could go hang out with her new friends at a nearby coffee shop. That’s my girl, the extrovert. She’d already made friends and continues to do so. So much for any worries (which we didn’t have) about her social skills.
She’s doing well academically, too. We talk about her school work and she asks for input at times, so I know what she’s doing. It isn’t nearly the same as the level of involvement required for homeschooling, but it’s something.
She isn’t accustomed to the adversarial relationship some teachers and staff members automatically assume towards students, and it isn’t something I ever want her to accept as right or normal. Expected at this level, maybe. But not right.
I’m still having some “empty nest” feelings, but seeing her thrive certainly helps deal with them. Homeschooling was definitely the right thing for us for the past few years, and did prepare her well for high school. We have no regrets at all there!
National Geograhic is leading the My Wonderful World campaign. There are suggestions for parents, kids, teens, and educators.
I wanna be a teen. I want to get a passport and a nifty little GPS unit and go geocaching and explore the world and learn other languages.
Katie is going to high school in a few weeks, a 10th grader. The school is much larger than the one she attended last fall - approximately the same population as my own alma mater when I was there.
I, at least, will continue to write here, as I’ve been interested in homeschooling and education much longer than I’ve had a child at home officially being homeschooled. In fact, I first heard of homeschooling as a modern reality right after I graduated in the mid-1980s, and was immediately intrigued. I read everything I could find about it, and have kept up that connection since then.
Katie is all excited, of course. I’m excited for her. I fear she may be dampening that excitement down a little because she knows that I’ll miss her, but she shouldn’t. That’s just a normal part of being Mommy. Letting go is in the job description.Trying new things is in hers.
“If you cannot write well, you cannot think well, and if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.”
George Orwell
