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September-October 2005 Selected Content
Questions and Answers - Laura Weldon
Personal Time and Living in a Fantasy World
Personal Time
"This is embarrassing. I'm attracted to the concept of homeschooling but I find parenting pretty stifling sometimes. I had been looking forward to sending my son to school so I could get back to some solitary pursuits. Now I am torn. I see that my son deserves freedom to choose how to use his time as well. How do you manage to parent full time without losing your own personal time?" - Quiet Mom
If your son is just now ready for school you have ended the intensive years of parenting. Congratulations! Following toddlers around and answering preschooler's questions can be stifling. But older kids just get more and more interesting. I have hours every day to work on the computer and take classes at the university because my daughter is 14 years-old and doesn't need my time. When we do things together I appreciate her company.
When she was tiny I felt consumed by her endless needs. When she got older and started school it was worse. The little time I got to see her was spent nagging about homework, picking up supplies that she needed for some lame project, or making her go to bed early so I could wake her up early. At that time we were both consumed by the school system's endless needs!
As soon as I pulled her out of school I found ways to have my own time. I let her sleep late so I could have a few extra hours of my own in the morning. I established an hour long reading time when she could take a drink of her choice and a book or tape to her room. Usually she spent much longer than the hour on her own. I looked up titles of non-fiction and fiction movies that were good learning material and used them to boost her knowledge of whatever she was studying, which also gave me extra time. I learned to lighten up on what I expected of her so that both of us had time in the afternoon to simply relax. I eventually found other homeschooling friends for her to have play dates with, too. It has been much more fun than I imagined. - Mary Ellen, Georgia
When people find out that we homeschool they often ask me how I can stand to be around my kids all day. I'm no martyr; I know exactly what they mean. You won't find me rhapsodizing about learning history all over again. No way do I want to spend every minute together. Being thrown together all the time isn't any healthier for kids than it is for parents. I did my stint as a full time parent when they were babies and carried them around in a sling 24/7. When they are tiny it's important to keep them close. When they are older you need to give them a gentle prod to explore the world.
My job as a homeschooling parent is to provide a perch to fly from, not a cage where I enclose them. Home is where my two kids can get hugs, moral support, and encouragement to try new things. They take part in all sorts of things. Sometimes they are reluctant, but I want them to take advantage of a variety of opportunities. How else will they discover what are good in? My kids go to the enrichment programs offered by area museums, summer residence camps, nature programs through the park service, religious education sessions, whatever I can sign them up for. While they are gone I have time to do the things that are important to me. We all benefit.
Believe me, when we get back together we are enervated by the experience. What do people talk about when they are together all the time anyway? - Trish, San Diego
In addition to homeschooling our seven year-old son, I am a full-time student. I originally went back to school to pursue a degree in anthropology because, well, I detest the living. Dead people don't habitually talk to you, and generally let you get about your business of poking through their bones. My son, however, is a bustling, busy, bright, and extroverted child who insists on rising at dawn. He is also convinced grown-ups invented sleep to punish children. He is sure we have a grand party as soon as he goes to bed.
So, to balance my need to be left alone and do my studies, and for him to have time with kiddos with his energy level, we did what any self-respecting homeschooling family would do - we researched and solved the problem!
We made a list of what was important. In our case, the solution needed to be relatively inexpensive, but didn't have to be free. It needed to have children who were fun (my son's request), it had to have adults I could trust (my request), and it really needed to be near our home and flexible!
We talked to a lot of people, and finally spoke with a local daycare provider. They are about three blocks from our home, they had a flexible hour program that would give me 25 hours a week at a reasonable rate, and I could use as many or as little of those hours as I needed, when I needed them. The directors are educated people who are open-minded and supportive of homeschooling, the staff is willing to sit and do traditional book work with our son (important for my husband) and, most importantly, they have kids who are fun!
I now use them while I am at school during the day, opening up more time slot options for classes. Our son enjoys spending time with other kids, and they have a structured, supervised place to safely play. When we are at home, we have more of an unschooling curriculum that is directed by his energy levels and curiosity. To channel extra energy, he also takes Irish step dance class, (that gives me an hour in the car with Spanish tapes, or cuddle time with my word processor) and violin lessons (that gives me half an hour with my day planner and checkbook).
I am a classic introvert and I understand how stressed and out of whack life can feel without a degree of solitude to put your mind back together. - Aubrey, Ohio
I want my children to have the freedom that I didn't have in school. I want them to get other people's perspectives. If they were with only me all day they would be limited to my viewpoint. That would be stifling! We've only been homeschooling for one year and I constantly think about what I was exposed to in school, good and bad, and how it helped me understand about getting along with people. I want to help them learn from other people. In this case my children have led the way.
Here's an example. My very focused and lively daughter, Ava, is interested in rock collecting. I know nothing about it beyond what we've been able to learn from documentaries and books. I took her to a local rockhound club and right away she fit in with the people there who were decades older. They respected her in-depth questions, gave her samples, and she has been on every trip they have taken since (with me dragging along for safety reasons). Now Ava is researching geology at only 10 years of age. Her freedom to follow her interests is inspiring and so un-stifling that I am thinking about the talents that I suppressed years ago and am working on a business plan of my own! - Susan Rutgers
Living in a Fantasy World
"My first grade daughter wants to virtually 'live' inside the stories she makes up or the books we are reading, sometimes for longer than a day or two. She acts like one of the characters and is insistent her friends and family go along with her make-believe. She can be very bossy about this. She has no problem doing math or going to the grocery store in her storybook role, just gets fussy if we want her to be herself. My husband is thinking that school might help her mature." - Becky Lyons
Your daughter sounds like a very bright and imaginative young girl. Why would you want to change her into being like everyone else? She is understanding the content of the stories and going a step farther by seeing what it would be like in another person's shoes. Sending her to school would probably stifle her creativity. She is too young to mature right now. Let her be a child. - Courtney Gonzales
She's still at an age when fantasy and reality blur into a make-believe. Afford her that luxury as long as you can. Surely your husband doesn't want to hurry her maturity too much. Most dads complain that their young daughters dress like teenagers and want boyfriends! Your daughter may be on her way to a career as an actress, writer, or some other creative field. - Eric's mom
When I read your question I admit I became very excited about all the possibilities that your situation presented. Your daughter has handed you a complete text of how she prefers to learn! You don't have to dig, or guess, or wonder; she's just given it to you all wrapped up in a wonderful package of creativity and opportunity.
My daughter, who will be eight years-old this summer, is very much into the American Girl stories, full of history tidbits and little glimpses into the way things might have been at different points of time in our American history. I've been struggling to find a fun and interesting way to expand on these stories and use them as history segments. It might be clear to others how to approach that, but I confess to being not the most imaginative person around, so for me it was painfully difficult. Then I read your letter and all of a sudden it became clear. My daughter, when asked how she felt about becoming the character in our current stories, was so excited! My husband thought it was this marvelously creative idea on my part (until I 'fessed up that it came from your girl), and he's on board, also. We have had a wonderful time working within that idea for the past week or so. We call her Kirsten, she calls us Mama or Papa, we talk about the chores required and how necessary certain behaviors were, and the limitations and the freedoms that the stories' characters had as contrasted with our own lives now. We've talked about what we think we might have enjoyed and what we are pretty sure we would not have enjoyed about life then. She understands, in a real and applicable way for her, what things were around, weren't around, and is getting a better grasp on why I putter in the garden and preserve foods, etc. She even picked/cleaned/prepared/dried her first batch of parsley this past weekend, as Kirsten. It's been wonderful.
I think your daughter is trying to empathize with the characters in the books. Choose books that are in her interest area (better yet, let her be the bigger voice in the choosing unless they are inappropriate), and find the ways to make it beneficial for her and for your family. She does her other stuff, so she's not totally absorbed in fantasy to a dangerous level at all. She's role-playing.
Don't squelch that, please. I hated school for the main reason that they slowly killed my enthusiasm for everything. I had to struggle every day to find a happy idea to hold on to. I tried, when I was younger, to pretend to be a different person to make the days be somehow different. I loved the Little House books, and found in Laura's character much that continues to benefit me. For example, if someone was hurtful to me and "I" didn't know what to do, I'd imagine what Laura would do, and I would find a way to cope.
I chose homeschooling so that my girl could be free to learn in her way. And that brings to me the part that is now the hardest for me to do - relax and role-play with her. You see, public school took that away from me, and now I'm learning again how to enjoy life, finding magic in dandelion fluff and looking for the fairies in the rings.
Don't be in a hurry to have your little girl grow up so soon. There's only a little magical time during which to be young and live a life where ideas are open doors. Soon enough she'll need to struggle to cope with situations that are bigger than she is. Hopefully, she'll have such a store of examples and ideas that they won't keep her down for long, if at all. I'll bet we'll be seeing her name on the spine of a book or two. - Teresa Asgharian
© 2005, Larry and Susan Kaseman
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