Now I am homeschooling a child in grade four and a child in grade one and I have a baby at home. I have more confidence and things are in some ways easier but I have two children who have learning challenges and behavioural challenges. I have a nursing baby and a child who wakes up screaming in pain every night. Homeschooling is still really hard. However, out of necessity, I do my best.
Again ~ God comes through ~ as ALWAYS ~ with support and care.
While I was pregnant with my third child an eye doctor started me on a journey to get my two oldest children tested to get funding for the financial support they needed in school. I ended up with the kindest most empathetic psychologist to test my daughter who then agreed to also test my son. In the end they both qualified for support. At first I didn't know what this meant and it took years to get this into place.
When my oldest was in grade five she went back to a private school for three years. It was a wonderful experience for her for the first two years but in that third year much went wrong again. During that time she had some support at school and a wonderful teacher. I continued to homeschool my second child.
It was interesting having the option to now hire help. Admittedly since adopting my oldest daughter I was used to professionals coming into my home and advising me on how to raise my child. It was not a graceful journey. I eventually realized that I was her parent, I knew her best, and advice from people who don't actually know her personally or live with her should not be taken as God's truth.
This ended up being my journey with my son as well. As different people came into my home to help him learn it did more harm than good. It was another challenging journey to realize how and who I needed to hire to actually help him and sadly he went through trauma because of it.
If you have a child who requires support at home or at school ~ remember that you know your child best~ and you know if the hired person will be a good fit or not no matter their education and qualifications!
After grade seven my daughter came back to homeschooling and continued that journey until she graduated. She did really well through her high school years with different tutors supporting her and me at the helm leading the way (although she didn't really realize I was at the helm). She took classes that truly interested her and she was able to do a lot of extra curricular things that inspired her and taught her many great skills. She is a very gifted musician, dancer, riding instructor, artist and more. She would not have learned this about herself if she was in school all day. She also took multiple years of gymnastics and many different types of art classes. Homeschooling was the gift it could be and needed to be. She graduated with honours and went out into the great big world to live her life.
For my third child ~ the summer she was in her fifth year of life she went to a Vacation Bible School and when I saw her in her performance up on stage I knew she could not attend school. She had gone to preschool and I had hopes she could attend school. However she could not sit still for a moment! I knew she would get in trouble constantly in class. My husband had been the same way and had struggled all through his time in school. He had thought himself dumb for years because of his ADHD and Dyslexia. He is actually brilliant but his time in school taught him the opposite. I did not want that for her. She was such a bright little active light! She started kindergarten with me and has never been to a school and she is now in grade ten and fifteen years old.
She is dyslexic as are my two oldest kids. She is more severely dyslexic than them and she has ADHD. She did not learn to read until she was eleven. My son did not learn to read until he was twelve. Both of them can now read and do read a lot. My daughter reads multiple novels a month. It was such a journey to get to that place though with so much research and so many building blocks put into place to get her there. She also went and got testing done but was not given any funding. I have had a tutor for her once a week for three years now and that has helped her immensely but I pay for it myself.
She has a dream to graduate early and is well on her way. She wants to travel and see the world and she wants to start as soon as possible.
This is the gift of homeschooling. She started taking grade ten courses when she was in grade nine, she took more over the summer, she has taken grade eleven courses while in grade ten. She is done grade ten Math and starting grade eleven Math in January because she started grade ten Math in the summertime. She has worked so hard and been so focussed. It is incredible. This is the gift of homeschooling. She also has been able to play volleyball and basketball through a local school, she has volunteered at a horse stable and now has a job that she would not be able to have if she was not homeschooling.
Do I like homeschooling yet? NO
How many children am I now homeschooling ~ last year it was FIVE children ~ this year it is only three.
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