Guilt, and the pledge to do better

I screamed at my daughter today. I mean screamed. 

While this happens other days, today was different. If she's flopping the cat's head on the floor, or dumping chocolate milk on the carpet, or purposely tormenting her brother, that's one thing. I don't feel that I can be the type of parent that promises not to yell at my children. Not only is it not in me, but I feel the real world does not consist of people kindly and gently speaking all the time. One day they will get yelled at in their profession. One day they will have a screaming match with a friend or significant other. And so, me screaming at them from time to time, while not pleasant for either of us, isn't going to hurt their psyche for life. Granted, it does not teach them total self control when I'm bellowing, but we are not all perfect. 

But today was different. And I can't do it again. 

Today Z was working on math. The goal was to draw a line for each item in one box to another box and draw an x for each item. Zahra could not, for the life of her, understand an x. Not at all. We went through it 50 times (no really, I counted and it was over 50). And yet she drew straight horizontal lines from one end of her paper to the other. Over and over and over, until that paper was a matted mess of horizontals and she was at a loss as to what the activity was all about. 

So, we started over. With me gently (straining) explaining that we start at the top of our paper, not the middle.

 "The top Z. Where do we start?" 

"The top!"

A vertical line at least would have been an improvement. She confidently nodded, said "ok" and proceeded to draw a horizontal line starting in the middle of her sheet. 

The middle. 

All my patience over the past year with her and learning just evaporated away. This is the same child that after two years of having the same garbage cans, one plain and one with HUGE red recycle arrows all over it, still asks me every time she throws something away which is the garbage. Thus, I exploded, "THE TOP Z! THE GD TOP! THE TOP Z!" All while stabbing a pencil angrily at the top of her paper. 

She melted and cried, a lot. I apologized, a lot.

But this is learning here. This is something I want her to be excited about because I KNOW she struggles. I KNOW this is hard for her. I can see it. And I took all her fears and made them a reality. I told her that her efforts were not enough. Shame on me. Seriously. 

I have a lot to learn and patience is my biggest lesson. Things don't click for her now, but so what? She's only four. Fricken four. What was so important about that x? Why couldn't I have told her since x was hard she could draw a circle or a dot?! SHE'S FOUR! Why didn't I let her use stickers instead? What is the matter with me? 

If things end up being difficult for her with school it is my job to help her, not yell and tell her that her efforts are not enough. 

We are always in school, the learning does not end just because we graduate. I have a lot of patience to learn. I'm so glad I get another day to practice it. 

Homeschool

So I have decided to venture into the crazy land of homeschool. I am not quite sure how our adventure will go. I'm sure some days will be smooth and others will be quite rocky. However, I am super excited to start nonetheless.

One of the most common questions I get when people find out we are going to homeschool is, "Are you going to go all the way through high school?!?" Wow, I don't even know if I am going to go all the way through this month! When I was first toying with the idea of homeschooling B and Z, I was nervous about that myself. Was I going to homeschool all the way through high school? How was that going to work? Blah blah. But I have come to realize that this isn't an all or nothing venture. I don't have to have it all figured out right this second. Maybe it'll work out well for one child but not another. Maybe we'll do homeschool this year, public next year and homeschool the next. I do not feel that popping them in and out of homeschool will affect them negatively because in life we all need to be versatile. How many children these days aren't able to accept when something doesn't go their way? How many adults have a hard time with that concept, and with change, for that matter? I feel that we will take this as it comes and we will do what is best for us at the time. After all, what more can I do? I cannot predict the future. I cannot see the outcomes for the way I am raising my children until it happens.

I know that there are a few family members that are against this decision and I hope that over time I can show them that my children will not be weird, they will learn something, and that they will be able to function just fine as adults. These are not my objections against homeschool, but rather, some I have heard in the past few months.

The other question I hear the most is "Why?" Well, there are a lot of factors. The most important being my childrens' individuality. B is simultaneously the most mature and the most immature 6 year old I have ever met. I had the opportunity this past year of hanging out with quite a few 4-6 year olds in a private school setting and it just amazes me how different and unique they all are. They have many similarities, but our differences as people really does start right away. I love it. B got into a lot of trouble this past year for simply being himself. Many times when he was in trouble it was fully his fault. I, by no means, feel that my child is a saint. In fact, truth be told, he's an asshole much of the time. However, he sees the world in black and white. There is no grey area in his mind. This leads him to be overly serious and emotional much of the time. Thus, since his birthday is just a few days from the cutoff, we decided to hold him back to 4K instead of putting him in Kindergarten this past year. I feel that academically that was a mistake. When I assess him now, he is very much in first grade material much of the time. He understands concepts that are far beyond that level. His one lack of understanding is with reading.  So, where to put him? When he's doing simple multiplication at age 6 but cannot read cat?

Zahra is a wildcard. She learns nothing but knows much more then we are ever privy to. Doing her math with her the other day she rattled off her numbers, counted and even did simple addition. This is a far cry from working with her last week when she couldn't even point out the number 1. She knows things when she wants to, and doesn't when she doesn't. I am over the moon excited to see what she can do this year. We don't give her credit for enough.

Our family situation also is a bit different then most. J has to work weekends, and has days off in the middle of the week. The regular school week just doesn't let us be together as a family. That is one thing that is so very important to us. J and I can rarely ever be apart. Most of our jobs throughout life have been together! We feel the same way about each other as we do the kids. Family time, us together, is very important.

Lastly, I felt I was losing B last year in public school. My child runs around wearing ties and fedoras. He looks at the world in a different way. He spends his time filling obligations he puts upon himself. He is my little helper. He would rather weed the garden than play. He would rather craft and create something out of cardboard than drive cars. I just can't explain it, but I saw him losing that last year. I saw the happiness floating out of him. He was depressed. He was always told to stop helping and worry about himself and what he was told to do. He told me he was different then the other kids and he was always in trouble for it. He just lost his light. I mean he really did. Some kids don't lose their light. Others, like my brother, like my husband, like me, Do.

Anyway, what this post was really inspired by is that I FINALLY have narrowed down all my curriculum! I. am. so. excited! I had originally planned to do it all myself. To piece together my whole program and after 2 weeks of testing it out, I just can't. I don't have the willpower. Or the awesomeness, or whatever it is. So...YAY!! Here's to getting my curriculum next week and getting started with the year! I'm sure I'll post about what we are using and how it's going. I cannot explain how excited and nervous I am to start this adventure with my children. I know we are all ramping up for the school year, public, private, homeschool, whatever. So here's to a new year!!