He Will Sword You.

Little G [wielding his new foam sword]: "Nobody messes with me! 'Cept for my mama. 'Cause I love her. Anybody else messes with me and I will sword you!!"

Love this kid.

Common Questions People Ask About Homeschooling

Some of the most common questions I am asked as a homeschooling parent are: What does your day look like? Do you teach for as many hours as they teach in regular schools? Isn't it difficult? Do your kids respect you as teacher, or do they think they can get away with stuff because you're mom? Do they have recess? What do you do for gym class? How do you teach two grades at the same time? Do your kids still get up early? Do they 'go to school' in their pajamas? Well, I've finally put together a post to answer these questions!

Do you teach for as many hours as they [the teachers] teach in regular [public, bricks and mortar] schools?

No. And yes. Are my children sitting with pencil to paper for 6 hours per day in a highly-structured manner? No. But if I tried to quantify the hours they spend learning, it would add up to more than the typical school day. Because I am the one teaching them, I can slip relevant information into just about every aspect of their daily routines, and I often do. Baking is science and math. There is history all around us. Health is a part of our lives every day. And my children and I love to hula hoop, so we get lots of physical activity that way and count it toward our physical education hours. My husband and I will discuss what they have learned and delve deeper into history lessons or do flash card contests in the evenings or on weekends. I find a lot of great resources on YouTube (travel videos are a fun way to learn more about geography and world landscapes, for example). The whole world is a classroom without limits! Learning at home is a much different style of learning, and affords us a lot of flexibility. For us, flexibility means enrichment opportunities more than location or time.

Isn't it difficult?

It really isn't! I was a little nervous (okay, completely terrified) going into this adventure. However, I did a couple of years worth of researching various curriculum options and I feel extremely good about choosing K12. The curriculum is excellent and the support is very good. There is very little I don't love about K12.

In terms of keeping the kids focused, I really don't have a problem there. They love to learn, and I have been "teaching" my son since he was a baby because he has autism and a speech disorder. This is no different for him than teaching him sign language or doing his speech homework. There is a lot of reading in the K12 curriculum as well, and I have read to my children since before they were even born. It is a very good fit for us. My daughter did have a rough few days one week, but that's about it. I think it was more that she wasn't feeling well than anything else. As long as you already have rules and discipline, and you discuss with your child the responsibilities of learning at home, homeschooling should not be difficult - especially with a supportive structure like K12 has.

Do your kids respect you as teacher, or do they think they can get away with stuff because you're mom?

My children respect me as mom already, and all parents are teachers whether they homeschool or not. I always find myself telling other parents this, because it's so true; you are your child's first and most important teacher. The only things I ask that differ at all during learning hours are raising a hand during discussions (which my daughter does whether we're learning or not - and it's kind of funny), and there is a no electronics rule (except, of course, the computer).

Do they have recess?

Yes, they do! Indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather. Sometimes we go for a walk, sometimes they play a board game, and sometimes they combine recess and physical education and do some hooping or bike riding.

What do you do for gym class?

Lots of things! We do many of the things children would do in a bricks and mortar school, and a lot more. I try to involve my children in community sports when possible, we ride bikes, we hula hoop, they do sit-ups, squat jumps, jumping jacks, balloon chases, run races, do hopscotch challenges, play catch, jump rope, and much more. The possibilities are endless!

How do you teach two grades at the same time?

It's very easy. I work with one child while the other works independently. Also, since my son is in Kindergarten, but doing 1st and 2nd grade work, much of what I am teaching works well for both grades. This makes it much easier for me, but I think we would do just fine even with a much greater grade level difference. It's all about time management and finding a groove that works for you. It takes a few weeks when you're just starting out to find that groove, but things go surprisingly well once you do.

Do your kids still get up early?

Usually, but now I don't have to worry about a rough morning if they have a cute holiday movie on TV until 10PM! My daughter used to catch the bus shortly after 8AM. She used to wake up at 7AM to be ready, and now she wakes up closer to 8:30AM. However, we're usually starting our school day around the same time the public schools are because their transportation time is our breakfast time.

Do your kids 'go to school' in their pajamas?

Not always, but sometimes! And sometimes upside down in pajamas!


They both like to start the day in pajamas, for the most part. Unless we have something fun planned, in which case they want to get dressed up before I even have breakfast started.

Do you have questions? Feel free to ask! If there's one thing I love to talk about, it's definitely homeschooling!

New York Times Targets K12, Online Schools In Severely Biased Article

Since we began learning at home as a family, my daughter has had a couple of rough days. Call it a rough week, even. But compared to having her come home with injuries from bullies, having her self-esteem chipped at on a daily basis, and the fact that she started to develop tummy aches about getting on the bus each day when she used to grin ear to ear every morning anticipating the day she would be old enough to ride that bus to school, I'd call our rough week a mere bump in the road. As for my son, he hasn't had one day of learning at home that I could consider rough. He craves knowledge and literally begs me to continue teaching on weekends, a request I am happy to indulge. I can make choices about the children my children associate with. I'm aware of what they are learning and I can always easily slip curriculum-enriching things into our day. We don't have homework in the traditional sense, so our evenings are family time instead of a mad dash to finish a mountain of homework, take baths, throw down some dinner, and get into bed. And academically, they are excelling. The experience has made us all happier.

Homeschooling has been a wonderful option for us, and I can't say enough good things about K12. But apparently, people feel threatened by school choice (or is it the loss of funds for their districts?) and feel the need to attack online schools. A recent New York Times article was a catalyst for some major misconceptions about K12 and similar schools. I, and many others, took great offense to how K12 and the families enrolled in their school were portrayed.

My daughter attended a bricks and mortar school for two arduous years. While I will quickly admit that her classroom teachers were both excellent - even exceptional, I was profoundly unimpressed by everything else. Perhaps most disturbing was having a school system telling me how - and if - I could parent my own child for the great majority of the day, five days a week, while they failed to do even a mediocre job of protecting her or following their own policies. The lack of predictability, reliability, and safety were major concerns. The only thing predictable about sending my child out that door each day was that, at some point, I was going to get a call about some kid doing some thing to my child. Again.

I'm quite certain that having parents regaining control of their children's lives scares some people in this country to their very cores. Independent thinkers? Oh my. People like that are so much more difficult to control and manipulate, and they tend not to believe everything they're told. They ask questions. That could be bad for those who wish to maintain control over the masses.

The New York Times article, Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools throws out a real golden nugget of revelation with the statement, "Kids mean money." Wow, really? Anyone with a functioning brain above their stem realizes this as fact, but let's examine how this affects people on a personal level. The article attempts to make it sound like this is some kind of proof that K12 has profits over kids in mind, but I challenge any parent in any school district to take a good hard look and tell me if that isn't true for bricks and mortar schools - to a much greater degree. At public school, my child contributed thousands of dollars each year just by existing there. To her personally, that translated into a sub-standard school environment, heavily-used books and materials, and parents contributing a lot of time and money from our own pockets. On the other hand, I enrolled my children in K12, and I had 100 pounds of brand new school supplies delivered to my door. Free. Yes, free. We paid nothing. I had to go buy a bookshelf to dedicate to just the books, CDs, and DVDs alone, and I had to clear an entire cabinet in the kitchen for all of the science materials, paints, clay, and other materials. And comparatively speaking, my children cost taxpayers much less as homeschoolers than they would if they had continued to attend our local public schools.

The article presents another epic failure of an argument with this little gem: "Current and former staff members of K12 Inc. schools say problems begin with intense recruitment efforts that fail to filter out students who are not suited for the program, which requires strong parental commitment and self-motivated students." Here's a newsflash: any form of education requires strong parental commitment. Whether a child is attending a bricks and mortar school, an online school, a private school, or a traditional homeschool, parental involvement is the number one factor in a child's success. Uninvolved parents who do not participate in their child's education can turn the brightest child with the greatest potential for success into an academic failure with zero motivation, and it happens all the time in public schools.

I'm quite tired of parents being painted as morons who are incapable of contributing to their children's academic success. An Agora teacher paints a profoundly biased picture with the statement, "When you have the television and the Xbox and no parental figure at home, sometimes it’s hard to do your schoolwork." First of all, we don't even own a game console. Second, my children have never been left alone in their lives. And finally, K12 kids are assessed regularly. If they are not making it, there is accountability. We are responsible for making sure our children are progressing; there is not the huge disconnect portrayed in the article. Further, they quote a mother, Mrs. Ubiarco, as saying, "I called the teacher the other day to find out what a simple predicate is...She said it’s the verb. I said why don’t they just say that?" To this I say, wow. You needed to call a teacher for that? Try Google. Better yet, that handy little teacher's guide you get with every course might be helpful, too. The New York Times apparently left out all of the many successful examples of K12 students and found a handful of disgruntled teachers, and a few parents who use videogames to babysit their children, don't know how to tell their child to put the iPod away, and manage their time very poorly to represent our online school. Bias much?

Of our attendance requirements, the same Agora teacher who made the Xbox comment said, "Students need simply to log in to be marked present for the day." While it is true that K12 is not sending someone to the door of each and every homeschooled student each day to be sure each child has pencil to paper, the academic progress and assessments speak for themselves. A child who is not "attending" regularly is not going to meet standards, plain and simple.

And then, because you can't have any good, irrational anti-homeschool argument without bringing the topic of "socialization" into it, the deputy superintendent of Memphis City Schools, Irving Hamer, offered the following: “The early development of children requires lots of interaction with other children for purposes of socialization, developing collaboration and teamwork, and self-definition." Fascinating. Children couldn't possibly garner these skills from, say, Scouts, homeschool co-ops, neighborhood children, friends of the family, siblings, K12's field trips and other opportunities for social development, community sports or classes, or anywhere other than public school? I'd like to inquire as to when children are obtaining these wonderful social skills in school; would it be on the playground, the school bus, or in the lunch room? As far as my personal experience tells me, those are basically the only times children are doing any socializing in bricks and mortar schools - and it is largely unsupervised and where most bullying takes place. Ah, but Mr. Hamer's pompous assertions probably shouldn't surprise me, since a quick Google search revealed that he handles people who disagree with his policies by telling them to "go flip burgers". Nice. I think I'll pass on any social advice he proffers, particularly since Mr. Hamer's degree is in education and not child psychology.

The article (yes, it's quite lengthy) goes on to say that schools like K12 have "aggressive recruitment campaigns". I prefer to view them as awareness campaigns, which are rather necessary with anti-homeschool propaganda such as the New York Times article that prompted this blog post. K12 and schools like it do try to provide many informative opportunities for parents who have been brainwashed into believing that they cannot contribute much to their child's education beyond buying school clothes and supplies, and joining the PTA. Parents need to become aware of how much they really mean to their children in terms of learning and education. I cannot begin to count how many times people say to me, upon learning that I homeschool two advanced learners, "I could never do that." My response is always the same, "Yes, you absolutely could." Any parent with the time and desire to teach their child can teach their child. K12 has amazing teacher support. You are never alone. But public schools do everything they can to convince you that homeschooled children will be socially-awkward, poorly educated nitwits who will never go on to college. K12 has students go on to Harvard. But those students were not included in the Times article. I'd laugh at how utterly ridiculous the Times article is, if I didn't know so many people really believe that.

Is K12 perfect? No. But it's lightyears ahead of bricks and mortar schools in every way, in my opinion. Nothing is perfect. This is a relatively new concept and there will be bumps. Overall, I think this is a wonderful thing. There will always be naysayers who don't like change or who are just too uninformed to make any kind of judgment about this type of education. As for the New York Times, I'm not (nor was I ever) sure why people give that rag so much credibility. The reporting is poor and biased, the stories are highly sensationalized, and I wouldn't use that publication to line my cat's litter pan.

Celebrities and Bullying

The new fashionable trend in Hollywood these days is the statement, "I was bullied in school, too." At first, this appeared to be a good thing. When celebrities talk, people listen. But now? Now people are saying to themselves, "Meh, everyone gets bullied. So what?" This celebrity bullying bandwagon has served to take the anti-bullying movement, which had gone from meh, everyone gets bullied to a growing awareness of a serious problem, right back to meh.

When I was dealing with some serious bullying issues as a kid, my mother told me a billion times how this celebrity was ridiculed about big lips, and that ones was teased for her height. "But look at them now! They got the last laugh," she would say. Thing was, I had exactly zero interest in celebrities, being a celebrity, or anything celebrities did. I didn't care what they were wearing, what they looked like, how much money they had, or how many people wanted to be like them. I never understood people who fawned over celebrities, and I still don't. So my mother's well-intended sharing this information with me basically accomplished nothing more than convincing me that she had no idea what I was going through and no clue who I was as a person. At all.

While I am probably a statistically significant exception to the rule on my opinion of celebrities, or lack thereof, I realize these idols do have the power to influence parents and young people. I'm glad they are trying to do something, even if it is just to look fashionable. Thing is, if getting teased about my name was my biggest issue, I wouldn't call it bullying. I want to hear from the celebrity who was bullied to the point their life was significantly altered, or they actually attempted suicide over it. Those celebrities exist, but they are few. And the impact of severe bullying tends to be lifelong; the shame of repeated abuse over years and years sticks with a person to the point they may be unwilling to share, even to help someone else. That is the sad, scary reality for many children and teens these days.

I have been thankful beyond words more times than I can count that I didn't have to grow up in the age of the internet, cell phones, texting, cell phone cameras, and so forth. It is the introduction of these technologies that makes it more critical than ever for bullying prevention to be implemented by everyone caring for children at every age and in every part of a child's life. Parents, teachers, school administrators, and individuals working in the school transportation departments all need to come together to make and enforce anti-bullying policies. Bullying is extremely serious, and it goes so far beyond name-calling or taking someone's lunch money. Children can be cruel, and teachers can be bullies, accomplices, or perpetrators as well. Childhood should be a time of innocence and healthy development. Bullying, abuse by one's peers or teachers, can destroy a child's chance at having that innocence or healthy development, and it can ruin their chances of academic success as well.

This topic is easy to turn away from if you are not directly affected. But don't. We shouldn't allow ourselves to become numb to the pain and suffering children are enduring on a daily basis when bullies turn their school days into a terrifying, demoralizing, abusive nightmare. Forget celebrities, because they make it easy to forget the lives ruined by bullying. The suicides. The high school drop outs. The ones who might have found the cure for cancer, who instead gave up and wanted nothing more to do with education because they associated learning with pain and misery and could never trust people again. The ones living with nightmares, even as adults, because of their tormented childhood years. Bullying is no less devastating than any other form of child abuse, and it absolutely must stop now. The only way that happens is if we all come together and stand against bullying. There is no excuse for abuse.

Why K12?

The K12 page featured the following question this morning:

Finish this sentence: The reason our family chose online school for our educational needs is ...

I love answering this question, because we all feel really happy with our experience thus far. Homeschooling my children was something I gave a bit of consideration to from the moment I found out I was expecting, though I wasn't entirely certain it was for us. For starters, with the exception of being an assistant to my Psychology professor during First Year Seminars at Penn State, I basically had no teaching experience at all - and what little I did have wasn't very relatable to teaching young children. I realized that most homeschooling families probably didn't have parents with teaching degrees, either, but I didn't even have the benefit of personally knowing someone who homeschooled. The extent of my experience with this type of learning was based purely in stereotypical viewpoints and jokes made on television shows.

As my daughter neared the end of preschool years, I felt immense trepidation about putting her into the public school system. I'm aware of the growing epidemic of bullying, my children's quirks, and how those issues might not mesh so well. Since education is a very high priority for me, and my children both love to learn, my second greatest fear was that negative school experiences could ruin that for them. But we tried it, both because Reezle had done so well in her mainstream preschool and because she expressed great enthusiasm about going to Kindergarten and riding the big yellow school bus. And sadly, and one might also say predictably, problems emerged before the year was half through. Academically, she excelled. Socially, she did well, but still managed to be a frequent victim of bullying. It got to the point I was afraid every time the phone rang during school hours because I dreaded the principal's voice on the other end telling me which kid hurt my daughter this time and how.

It became evident that homeschooling was due some additional consideration, particularly since also struggled deeply with the massive disconnect fostered by the traditional public school system. I wanted to be more directly involved in my children's education experience, especially since I always had been involved in their learning and know how to work within their different (er, wildly different?) learning styles. Both of my children are advanced learners, and I wanted them to have a rich educational experience. I didn't feel the public schools could provide it adequately, nor did I agree with the fact that gifted programs didn't even begin until grade 3. Furthermore, with my son's various challenges (speech, sensory, autism), I knew there could never be the type of one-on-one interaction that would allow him to thrive the way I knew he was capable of.

I began researching various curricula available to determine if there would be a good fit for our family. K12 kept popping up in my searches, so I decided to look into what they offered. From the start, I was really impressed. The curriculum was exceptional compared to all the others I had looked into. There were options to buy the curriculum or enroll in an online, teacher-guided virtual academy. Right then, I knew this was exactly what we needed; I could provide my children with an excellent curriculum while also have the safety net, so to speak, of lesson plans, experienced teacher contacts, and technical support. The unbelievably awesome bonus? We received over 100 pounds of school books, materials, and supplies...absolutely 100% free. I must have saved a fortune, which freed up money to enrich our curriculum even further.

K12 gives my children the opportunity to work at their own pace and seek out enrichment and curriculum enhancement opportunities or explore in greater depth their own areas of interest. They love learning in the comfort of their own home and we all love the freedom we have to hold "class" anywhere we choose. I no longer have to worry about what kind of peer-perpetrated abuse my child has been subjected to every time the phone rings. If we miss bedtime by an hour and sleep in because of it, we simply work an hour longer. We don't concern ourselves with sick days, because they won't miss anything. And it seems the list of reasons we love this program just keeps growing over time.

So, on this last day of November 2011, I am thankful for having the opportunity to homeschool my children, and for the outstanding curriculum offered through K12. (I also highly recommend it to anyone looking at alternatives to traditional schools!)

Learning and Language

Teaching my son is ridiculously easy most of the time. He loves to learn, absorbs information like a little sponge, and is advanced enough in his math and language arts skills to help his sister when she gets stuck on something. Only rarely do we encounter any difficulties, and when we do it is always in language arts.

Little G's challenges in language arts are not due to the fact that the material is beyond him, or that he has any difficulty with comprehension; he is a year ahead of his peers. The challenge we face is directly related to his communication disorder. Our sticking points have been with getting him to understand when a sentence is a command, a question, an exclamation, or a telling sentence. More recently, he has difficulty with the positions of letters in certain spelling words. Based on these two challenges, I have realized that (a) my son does not rely on the sound of a person's voice for his information, but instead interprets what he hears as-is using logical cues, and (b) the way his brain processes the sounds he hears when a word is spoken to him (dictation for spelling words) sometimes results in him having the correct letters but putting them in the incorrect order. Since his earliest expressions of spoken language came out flipped in an almost identical manner, this is not a surprise at all.

Visually, Little G does great with spelling words. If it is something he has read in the past, he can spell it almost without fail. Similarly, if he is skilled at sounding out words - not in the phonics sense, but the actual correct spellings based on the rules of English and grammar he is familiar with from experience. Because of his speech disorder and his inability to make the thoughts in his brain form coherent speech on demand, especially when he is experiencing negative emotions (sadness, frustration), I spent a great deal of time teaching him sign language and handwriting so he had other communication options. We have been working on non-speech communication since we was 2 years old, and he has picked up an incredible amount in the past 4 years. He's gifted, no doubt, but I think his need to communicate helped.

We haven't seen his speech therapist in about a year, but she was absolutely wonderful. Her understanding of the various things which can affect speech acquisition and language went, in my opinion, far above and beyond what would be expected of any therapist. It was clear that her work was not simply a paycheck, but something she was called to do in life. Several times since our school year began, I have wished I could ask her questions about these language aspects of G's learning. I hesitated, knowing how much she already has on her plate, especially since my son is no longer part of that center. But finally this afternoon I thought, what the heck, why not? The worst she could do is refuse to talk to me, though I didn't think she would. So I waited until the end of the day, when I knew there would be no more appointments, and I called. She was just as kind and helpful as ever, and gave me a few great ideas to try with Little G. I will be starting them tomorrow. I got everything together after the kids went to bed tonight and I'm looking forward to finding out how this works (I will explain in a later post). She told me I could give her a call again if I had other questions, and I thanked her sincerely.

It was so nice that someone who owed us nothing at this point still cared enough to offer a few minutes of her time and some helpful suggestions. I've become used to the type of people who wash their hands and don't offer so much as a backwards glance the moment their necessary involvement is done.

In other Little G academic news, he knocked out about a full unit's worth of math in the past two days, and my Kindergartner is now just about where first graders (who started this course material in August) are, despite beginning 5-6 weeks after them. I am super proud of him!

My little Reezle girl has been up to some very cool things recently as well, and I will be sharing soon.

Bullying and Bullicide: A National Epidemic

According to the Youth Suicide Prevention Program, 1 in 10 high school students report at least one suicide attempt, and about 1 in 4 has seriously considered it. Let that resonate for a moment. Think about your typical high school classroom of approximately 20 students. Two of them have actually made an attempt to end their lives. The statistics are even more dismal for LGBT youth, 30% of whom report having attempted suicide at least once in the past year.



Ashlynn Conner, a smart, beautiful 10 year-old honor student who aspired to be a veterinarian when she grew up, made headlines last week. It wasn't for her academic success or achievement, or the type of news clipping she might frame and look back on through the years; after enduring bullying for two years and being told by her mother that she could not be homeschooled, Ashlynn decided to end her own life. While every story of a bullied child turning to suicide as an option is devastating, this one has left me chilled to the core. She was a little girl. Ashlynn was just two years older than my own daughter. I try to wrap my head around the idea of a child so young carrying such a heavy burden on her shoulders that she went as far as to end her life. No child deserves that. Her story has made me more determined than ever to do what I can to stand against bullying and encourage others to do the same.

Another young girl, 14 year-old Cheyanne of Ohio, endured verbal abuse and bullying by her teacher and teacher aid. What makes this even more troubling is that Cheyanne is developmentally disabled and these adults were the ones responsible for her education and safety during the school day.

While my own children are not in a bricks and mortar school, and some might think it would be easy for me to turn my back on the problem happening in public schools, I realize it is up to all of us to come together and turn this epidemic around. The effects of bullying can be lifelong, life-altering, or even life-ending. As the adults in this society, we all have the responsibility of ensuring the safety of our children. Just because bullying is a form of abuse perpetrated by other children, it is no more acceptable to ignore it than it would be to ignore obvious abuse of a child by an adult. Abuse is abuse, and it scars just the same. Too many people choose to turn away from this epidemic until it affects them personally, and saying nothing is essentially a quiet acceptance and granting of permission to the perpetrators of bullying; bullies realize that there are no guaranteed consequences for their actions, because most of it goes unpunished.

Not every parent can take their child out of public schools, and really, they should not need to. My daughter, a kind, compassionate child who cannot comprehend why all people cannot just be friends, was a victim of bullying during Kindergarten and first grade at our local elementary school. She was verbally harassed, spat on, and pelted in the face with snowballs to the point of injury. Responses appeared to be more to placate than to solve the actual problem. The district loosely followed its own guidelines on handling the bullying, and I suspect that the less than optimal results we got were only as good as they were because of my determined persistence.

I do not entirely blame the schools, however. Bullying has long been viewed as a fact of life for school-age children, and the extremely broad spectrum of types and degrees of bullying behavior allows even more disconnect because people tend to assume most bullying is of the garden variety and much less severe and impactful than it actually is.

So what are we to do? First and foremost, prevention starts at home; after all, parents have the greatest impact on their children. Sadly, even concerned parents too often consider bullying a fact of school life or a "harmless" rite of passage. Statistics on bullicide, suicide resulting from bullying, say otherwise. And there are the parents who believe that their child should become the bully, which will protect him or her by default. There is also the growing threat of technology as a bullying tool, which is like giving bullies super powers. It is more important than ever to take every preventive measure we can. Lives depend on it, as Ashlynn and so many others illustrate.

And yet, in some places right here in the United States, we're going backwards. Michigan's senate recently passed legislation called Matt's Safe School Law, which actually allows bullying for religious or moral reasons. This means that a bully can excuse his or her abuse of another peer as long as it can be justified within the parameters of supposed morality, as defined by the new legislation. In response to this, Michigan Democratic Senate Leader Sen. Gretchen Whitmer said, "This is worse than doing nothing."

If we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. There is no middle ground. If we pretend this doesn't exist, if we ignore it because it has not touched our lives personally or we hope our children will outgrow this phase, we are just as guilty as the bullies perpetrating the abuse. We are the example, and we are the solution. Schools are responsible for the children in their halls and classrooms and on their playgrounds for a substantial portion of the day. No child should be terrified to go to school, or end up robbed of a decent education because their school days make them sick with anxiety and fear. Likewise, parents cannot expect the schools to shoulder all of the responsibility for properly "socializing" their children. This is a joint effort, and I cannot stress enough the importance of creating a safe environment for our children to grow and learn. The effects of bullying can last a lifetime.

Talk. Whether you are dealing with a bullying situation already underway, or you are trying to prevent one, talking to your child is key.

Don't judge. Even if you think you aren't judging, you might be. Don't ever tell your child that bullying is "no big deal", or that they should be quick enough to fight back. By doing this, you diminish their experience and fail to fully understand what they are going through. This could burn the bridge of communication between you.

Listen. Once bullying starts, listening is more important than talking. If you are busy telling your child that bullying is a part of life or that "it's not a big deal", you are completely invalidating your child's experience and missing critical details that could potentially save your child's life. Hear them out. Ask them what they would like to change, and how they might like you to help them. Create a dialogue by asking more questions than you try to answer. And make sure you are listening attentively. Listening with your back to your child while you do the dishes is not listening.

Know your school district's bullying policies. Be familiar with them so you know your rights in the event you need to know your rights. Most student policies are listed on district websites and are easily accessible to the parents and students in the district.

Consider joining the PTA/PTO and raising the issue of bullying prevention, or go further and try to get a group of parents together to start a school anti-bullying program.

Encourage your school district to adopt a program where children learn social skills. With autism spectrum disorders being diagnosed at an increasing rate, there are many children who need additional help with social skills even if their diagnosis does not qualify them for special education or other school-based interventions. In fact, all children can benefit from being taught social skills. We can no more expect that putting children together in a group will prepare them to do well socially than we can expect that putting them in a kitchen with unprepared foods will teach them how to cook like a professional chef. Guidance must be provided. If children cannot cope socially, neither can they learn or succeed academically.

Know that bullying starts shockingly young. Don't dismiss a child who says she is being bullied in preschool. It does happen, and it can be a traumatic way to begin one's school years. Having confidence and support during those early years is critical to how your child will view the rest of their school years and education in general.

To learn more about bullying, especially in the age of technology, I encourage you to watch Bullying: Words Can Kill, a CBS News 48 Hours Special

Five Months Later

Out of nowhere, five months after my daughter last walked the halls of a bricks and mortar school building, she informs me that one of the two playground monitors at her former school prohibited her from sitting down. My first reaction was what!? "Yeah, sometimes my legs would get tired and my brain would get tired and I just wanted to sit down and think. She would come over and tell me to get up. Sometimes I tried to sit where she couldn't see me, but she was usually right there where the seats were. She never let me sit. Only if we had a headache or something."

While I understand the value of children getting out and getting moving, as mine often do with great enthusiasm, my daughter has a couple of extremely valid reasons for needing a break. One is that she is on the autism spectrum. Though mildly affected, the social and sensory aspects of the diagnosis can become overwhelming in crowds or when the pace is extremely fast. For a child on the autism spectrum, a few short minutes on the playground can be more exhausting than a couple of hours of bike riding or other more solitary, focused play. The second reason is that, like her brother, she also has some issues with mild hypotonia, or low muscle tone. This is a disorder that is not fixed with exercise, and may cause children to tire more easily depending on how and to what extent they are affected.

Some children with her diagnoses will act out with undesirable behaviors, unable to express or even understand their needs in those moments. My daughter understood her social and sensory limitations, opted to take a break to calm down and refocus so she could "calm [her] brain" before going back with her friends, and was prevented from doing this. R did tell me on numerous occasions that she didn't play with certain friends or do the things she wanted on the playground because "everyone just moves too fast". Effectively, the playground monitor was removing the only tool my daughter had to deal with the situation, and she was miserable.

Reezle is slow, methodical, and deliberate in what she does. She contemplates, thinks things through, and is slow to anger or frustration. She has a very good sense of herself and others, as well as how to best soothe herself in overwhelming situations. We have tried our best to help our children find the tools they need to navigate the world successfully. What she wanted was not unreasonable for any child to ask, but especially a first grader dealing with as much "input" as a busy playground (and all of its weather variants) has to offer.

Perhaps I wouldn't have felt my blood boil instantly if there was not already a history with that woman. She stood by as my daughter got pelted in the face with rock snowballs by another student when she was in Kindergarten; Reezle came home with a welt and a scratch about an inch from her eye and no one had done a thing about it. The same child spat on my daughter at lunch, apparently because my daughter just wanted to be friends and the girl did not. Reezle cannot understand why all people can't just be friends and care about one another, and this crushed her. The playground monitors are also the lunch monitors, and again nothing was done. There were other more minor things as well, so I was already not a fan of the woman.

I can say, heartfelt and happily, that removing my children from the bricks-and-mortar public school system was the absolute best parenting decision of my life thus far. There never seems to be a shortage of things to remind me and confirm that. In our homeschool, my children can take a 5-minute recess, or an hour. They can sit when they want, swing, ride a bicycle, or as the seasons change they can make snow angels and build snowmen. Extra layers or fewer, hot cocoa or a cool drink, and a hug from mama when they're done. But I can guarantee no one is going to tell them they can't sit down if they need to.

Five months and I'm still finding reasons to be angry at the way my child was treated. Five months and things are still surfacing that I didn't know. No, there is no way I could have ever tossed my son into that snake pit. And for that matter, I never should have allowed my daughter to be subjected to it, either. There are better ways to socialize, with actual caring supervision, and socialization is about the weakest argument for public schools anyhow.

On a brighter, much more fun note, the number nerd in me is pretty excited about today's date: 11/11/11. Enjoy!

Beautiful Autumn Days

The phone rang just before 5AM today. It was my husband's work calling, as sometimes happens. I couldn't find sleep again, so I figured it would be a good time to assess where we're at with school and put together a plan for getting back on track in terms of what the online school says we should be doing.

Every day, my children have some form of Language Arts. We read every day, taking turns. We have Technology daily as well, because I allow at least 30 minutes each day of educational computer games. This is a special interest for my son, who really enjoys ABCya and iXL. Another favorite of his is a website that allows him to put together meals and desserts with various ingredients. The boy loves to cook! My daughter loves it, too.

We also have music daily, because the kids and I just love music. It is a great way to boost energy ad improve mood in mere minutes with very little effort. Since the three of us love hooping, we usually take breaks by turning on some of the kids' favorite tunes and hooping for 20-40 minutes each day. We're all better prepared to focus on school work afterward, and it's keeping us fit and healthy. Since we can hoop indoors, even though it is more fun to hoop outdoors, it's a great activity for staying fit and active during the winter months. Nature has been very generous so far this year, though; the incredibly beautiful and warm autumn days might be part of the reason we're a tad behind on some of the OLS items. You know, maybe. Heh. But in this snowy part of the world, November doesn't typically offer much in the way of gorgeous autumn days that beg us to open all the doors and windows and head outside to hoop and swing. We're taking advantage when we can, before the snow starts falling. And I love the smell of autumn. Except when people are burning leaves, I could do without that.

Today is pleasant, but overcast and somewhat gloomy. Reezle noted that the trees are quite bare now, though the remaining leaves are putting on quite a colorful show for us. The yellows and reds are absolutely brilliant and photo-worthy. Too bad my good camera is in need of major repairs. We took the gloomy day coupled with the 5AM start to my day as an opportunity to do a lot of work and catch up. Reezle really worked hard today, tackling several lessons in Math, Language Arts, Music, History, and Science. No complaints at all! I'm so proud of her. She is currently enjoying some free time on the computer since the majority of her lessons today did not involve a lot of screen time.

Little G spent most of the day curled up in the recliner with Reezle's Math workbook. He copies problems out of there onto scrap paper and asks me to print him worksheets. When Reezle gets stuck on a problem, he helps her understand it. The boy amazes me. He definitely did not get the math genes from Mama. He also helped Reezle with some of her spelling, as he has been doing since early last year. He picks things up so fast that there is very little effort involved in teaching him anything. Reezle does get frustrated with him, though. She is very bright herself, so being corrected by her brother, who is two years younger, doesn't always sit well. He just can't seem to help himself. I guess if there is some good to be found in it, the sibling rivalry element sure beats bullying, and it does seem to inspire Reezle to push herself more to really grasp the material. A little healthy competition is fine, as long as no one starts having self-esteem issues. So far, that doesn't appear to be the case.

My daughter is happier than she was last year. She does miss her friends, but she isn't having tummy aches all the time and is no longer extremely moody. She smiles more, enjoys her studying, and says that I make it fun. That warms my heart. Little G, well, I stand by the belief that traditional schools would not have been able to handle him. He gets so frustrated, even with first grade math, because he knows (or learns after one quick explanation) most of the material. He does not appear to be challenged even by his sister's second grade math, which he actually helps her with when she gets stuck. Too bad his conceptual understanding and whatever it is that goes on in his head doesn't translate well into actually teaching others; he becomes impatient rather quickly when others don't understand things as rapidly as he does. Boy, I suspect he is going to be a handful as he gets older!

We're all looking forward to the holidays while at the same time enjoying these amazing days that autumn is offering up before the snow flies. We've been fortunate not to have any of the white stuff yet. It's difficult to look forward to it when I know it's going to stick around until April. But at least the warmth of the holidays helps dampen the effects of the bitter chill and brighten even these dark days as the sun sets much too early for our liking.

After completing our first 9 weeks of homeschool and being well on our way into the next 9 weeks, we're all still enjoying our adventure...including watching the bus go by without making a stop here! It feels right being together and learning as a family. Yes, it can be hard work sometimes, but I can say without any doubt that this was absolutely the best choice for all of us.

Autism and Feelings

Little G came up to me the other night, tugged on my shirt and said, "Mama? I want to tell you about something." I said okay. He said, "When you talk to daddy for a long time, I feel jealous." I asked why. He said, "Because I want your attention and when you are talking with daddy, I can't have your attention all for myself." ♥

Sort of dispels that whole 'autistics don't feel' stereotype, doesn't it?

A Closed Discussion

Going into the homeschooling adventure, I had sort of steeled myself for the inevitable judgments and misconceptions I was sure I would face for the decision to remove my children from public school. The majority support I received was a huge surprise; with very little exception, the reactions have been very positive. That is, unless you count the people in our former school district.

What I didn't expect was the reaction I got from a friend of 17 years, with whom I have always been able to talk about anything. When I first mentioned, in response to why I haven't had a lot of time for friends lately, that I had been busy teaching my children, I got no response at all. We were chatting online at that time, and I didn't think much of it. The abrupt silence did make me wonder, but I'm not one to create problems where none exist.

Recently, when I did have a few minutes to myself and we talked on the phone, our conversation moved into the realm of what we've been doing lately. I said, "Same as I said before, I've been keeping very busy teaching the kids. It's time-consuming, but they love it and so do I." Again there was no response, so I said, "I'm getting a vibe here. You seem to go silent when I mention homeschooling." I mentioned our online conversation. The response was, "Yeah, I just don't agree with it." The implied was that there would be no discussing homeschooling. And it just didn't sit well with me.

For 17 years, my friend and I have agreed and disagreed on many things. I accept my friend, despite some things (i.e. judging others, selfishness, narrow thinking) I may not necessarily care for. Overall, I consider my friend to be a good person and I realize that people experience and view the world differently. So I have to admit that it bothers me more than a little that homeschooling is a closed topic. We've never had a closed topic. We've been able to have disagreements, wildly different opinions, and even arguments throughout the time we've known each other. I am not opposed to hearing a good counterpoint from my friend, but the anti-homeschooling sentiment seems to have no basis whatsoever. If there were reasons, or even just one single tiny reason, I would listen and do my best to understand. But I have been refused that opportunity.

My friend's refusal to even disagree with me feels highly critical and judgmental; even strangers who disagree with my choices will at least debate me or provide a reason for their disagreement. It seems extremely stifling and unfair that my friend can talk for hours about life and work, or anything that comes to mind, while I am essentially forbidden to discuss teaching my children and the wonderful benefits (like my son being a full grade level ahead in Math, Phonics, and Language Arts, or the confidence that is returning in my daughter after being free from the bullying she endured during her two years of public school). I hesitate to discuss anything which might lead into the topic of school or learning. Or, at this point, anything at all. My friend has absolutely no experience with homeschooling, and does not have nor want children. That makes this silent criticism even worse.

Why am I sharing this? Aside from the fact that it's cathartic to get these thoughts out of my head, this story also illustrates some of the utterly mindless and hurtful reactions some people have to homeschoolers. While I can only guess the basis for my friend's extreme distaste for homeschooling is related to the myth that children need public schools to 'become socialized', I can say with certainty that these misconceptions really need to go. The only way they ever will is if people talk and others listen. I will continue to talk about homeschooling.

And if you've read this far, thank you for listening.

Birthdays

For their birthdays, the kids had a choice: big birthday parties with all the trimmings, or a new computer to share and a modest celebration at home with pizza and homemade cake.

I think they made the right choice. This should also make school go more smoothly, since they no longer have to share a computer. Not that it was a big issue at all, but this will be great incentive to get them to complete their Study Island requirements!

Happy Birthday, homeschoolers!

Autistics Speaking Day

November 1st has been designated as Autistics Speaking Day. (It's also 11/1/11, which is numerically and symmetrically awesome, in my humble opinion.) My son wasn't aware of Autistics Speaking Day, but he did make a contribution which may help to disprove one of the most frustrating stereotypes about people on the autism spectrum. The myth: people with autism feel less than other people. The fact: people with autism feel at least as much as everyone else. My son did a beautiful job of illustrating this point.

Little G often uses his magnetic drawing boards to say what he otherwise cannot when his words "won't come out right". He also likes to draw pictures sometimes before bed. The other night, he made this:

I asked what it was about, and he said, "It's called Things I Feel." Top, from left: sad, happy, surprised. Bottom, from left: angry, silly, talky.

People with autism often express their feelings differently, or in less obvious or outward ways than typical people, but this doesn't mean they don't feel. Little G might not tell you, "I am so happy right now!" But he probably will draw a picture of himself with a huge smile, surrounded by things that bring him joy.

Happy Halloween!

Whew. October is a busy month for us! I just realized that I have not been posting much about our actual homeschooling, so I thought I would catch up a bit.

We celebrated Reezle's birthday recently, and she is now 8 years old! I can't quite wrap my head around that yet, but I'm trying. My husband and I also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary earlier this month. And we are also preparing to celebrate Halloween, a favorite holiday in our family. Pumpkins are out, candy is bought, and costumes are ready! Reezle is going to be a beautiful witch, and Little G is going to be an awesome superhero. Even I have some PJs with skulls!

I've also been trying to make the most of these last few nice days before winter takes a firm hold of our area. Its seemingly relentless grip can last well into spring, with temperatures well below zero, epic snowfalls, and ice storms. Last winter, our final snow of the season occurred on April 18th.

But there has also been lots of learning happening here at home. My little Kindergartner is progressing quickly in his first grade Math, Phonics, and Language Arts. He is on par to finish with first graders in Phonics, and he is just a handful of days away from being caught up with the first graders in Math and LA. Considering he started 5 weeks behind the children an academic year ahead of him and will likely surpass them before the holidays, I am thoroughly impressed. He loves school, and the first thing out of his mouth each morning is, "Can I do school today?" Yes, even on weekends.

Reezle is similarly enthusiastic. Though we have had a couple of difficult days, mostly in the beginning, I never have to ask them to do their school work because they always wake up ready to get started and eager to learn.

Having completed the first 9 weeks of the school year, I am more confident than ever that this was absolutely the right choice for our family. We are happy, we are together, the children are learning (and retaining) so much. Because my husband and I are always aware of exactly what the content of the curriculum is, we can randomly ask questions and discuss topics in greater depth. Right now, R is studying Roman history and G is learning bits and pieces as well. Both my husband and I feel pleased with their levels of comprehension and retention of the material, some of which we had forgotten ourselves since our gradeschool years.

Our PE classes are lots of fun; we've been learning hoopdance! The kids are really picking up on it quickly, and it provides such great proprioceptive input for G. Public school gym class was 30 minutes once weekly. We do our PE classes almost daily, and almost always for longer than 30 minutes. None of us want to put down the hoop! I'm trying to figure out how to share video of the kids hooping without compromising their privacy.

I have much more to share, once I have the chance to organize and post it. That won't be happening today. Today, we are preparing for our little Halloween celebration tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

Water

A recent quote from my 5 year-old son: "Water only runs, it doesn't walk!"

Indeed, little man.

No Subject Left Behind

No Child Left Behind. It sounds great when you just hear the words, doesn't it? But what does it really mean and how does it translate into real education? Simply put, it may mean a whole lot of subjects left behind instead.

Math and language arts (reading/writing) are the core areas where schools are evaluated based on student performance. This is great if you consider how much these areas mean to effective learning and functioning in this world. However, it's not so great once you realize that schools are losing sight of equally important areas such as history, science, and the arts. While some would argue that these areas are not on level with math and language arts, I completely disagree.

First of all, there is a saying that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. I was appalled not long ago at how many people my age and younger don't even know who Adolph Hitler was, or much of anything about World War II and the mass genocide of the Jewish people in concentration camps. Far fewer are aware of our own country's post-Pearl Harbor internment camps which the Japanese-American citizens of our country were forced into, many after agreeing to renounce their American citizenship because they were bullied into doing so. If we do not know our history, and world history, we are doomed to repeat it. That is a frightening thought. But beyond simply repeating past atrocities and costly mistakes, there is also the insight that comes from comparing similar past events to current situations and making more informed decisions based on what happened previously; this insight is lost when we do not know our history!

It is not just political leaders and big decision-makers who need to know history, but the people voting for their leaders, laws, and government. People rely much too heavily already on others to make decisions for them, and a frightening number of people are just plain apathetic about politics. As a country, we do not appreciate the power we have to vote and make a change; and considering how far we have come to have such right and privileges, this is truly a shame. If our forefathers could have seen the ambivalent mess we have become, they would likely have either thrown their hands in the air and said, "Why bother!?" or done everything they could to instill within each new generation the importance of knowing history and being a part of their own instead of passively sitting by and consenting to whatever others chose for them. I choose the latter for my own children; in some ways I believe history is even more important than mastery of math or language arts. Our country was founded on the hope of having a choice and the freedom to govern ourselves. We have become a country that largely lets others govern us. It may not be kinds and queens anymore, but it's more corrupt than ever.

Science is important as well, for reasons too numerable to list. Science helps us understand how our world works and how we interact within it, in addition to providing us with an understanding of the most fundamental facts about ourselves and our bodies, from nutrition to exercise to our overall health picture. But it goes much deeper. Without science, history, and all of the subjects we used to learn in school, we become sheep. Plain and simple.

The cursive writing debate is one that seems to be drawing attention from just about everyone. Because the focus of education is the "core" math and language arts courses, cursive is being dropped from many curricula around the country because it is not something the schools are evaluated by. This is not in the interest of our children at all, but rather the interest of the ratings of the schools and their respective districts. Good penmanship may not be as critical as it was 20 years ago since technology has become paramount in producing finished academic works, but there are benefits (as this ABC article points out) which are being overlooked for the sake of schools looking better on paper. I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't care less what schools look like on paper; I have always wanted my children to have a full and excellent education which will prepare them for the future - whatever that means.

People seem to be completely unaware of the fact that our current way of life is neither natural nor sustainable. We have achieved great things in this world, things which are incredible to even consider. Most people, however, stick a plug into an outlet or place a call from their cell phone and take it completely for granted. I'm not saying we should all return to the times before electricity, computers and cell phones. I rather enjoy these luxuries and I believe most people do. What I am saying is that we should all be prepared to live off the grid like our forefathers did, should the need ever arise. This is not some doomsday prediction, but rather something we should give some consideration to; what kind of mess would our society be if we had to live as they did 100 years ago? 200 years ago? It's fascinating but also sad how far we have come from that. Also, we should value the wealth of knowledge we have to learn from, realize that many of our ideas are not new but tried and tested, and act accordingly. In 200 years, your school's academic performance rating won't mean a thing to this world; your child's knowledge and potential to change the world, however, will mean a great deal.

Learning is important, and not just the subjects someone deems more important than others and evaluates schools by. Knowledge is power.

Autism Awareness

The Sensory Post

A few people have asked me how we address Little G's sensory processing needs. The short answer is, "With a sensory diet." Most people respond with, "Cool! Um, what's a sensory diet?"

A lot of Little G's sensory diet is so intertwined with our daily activities that I actually have to put effort into thinking about each thing to make a comprehensive, well-defined list. As his 6th birthday approaches, we have been doing sensory diet activities with G for 2/3 of his life, so it is literally second nature at this point. And he has come so far. Once the little boy who would dissolve into a sobbing, inconsolable heap if I happened to put a shirt with (or without, it depended on the day) sleeves on him, he can now handle just about any type of clothing. I used to have to shop at secondhand clothing stores because he needed the broken-in feel of washed and worn clothing. Not that I'm complaining, I love a good bargain! But selection was an issue sometimes, so I basically had to shop constantly to make sure he had all the soft clothes he needed each season.

Why a Sensory Diet?

Just as children need a good nutritional diet, they also need a rich sensory diet. In preschool and sometimes Kindergarten classrooms, you will often find sensory tubs with dried beans, rice, or sand, painting stations, musical instruments, and lots of other objects and toys designed to provide young children with various sensory experiences. Some children, like my son, need much more than others; he is a sensory seeker. In some areas, he is also a sensory avoider, such as with auditory (noise), visual (excessive movement, bright lights), and oral (food, dentist) input.

What is sensory processing disorder?

The best way I have come up with to explain sensory processing disorder to others is that my son has the volume turned way up on his senses; he lives in a world where the radio is too loud and he cannot turn it down, so he has to find ways to cope with the volume. He doesn't, and probably never really will, experience the world in the way most people do. In a typically-functioning sensory system, the brain sort of has gateways or gatekeepers; it moves relevant, necessary information to the conscious mind so we can focus on what we need to, while filtering out unnecessary environmental stimuli that would otherwise be extremely distracting. For example, while shopping at the grocery store, you may be aware that there is noise. You ignore most of it with little effort and go about shopping like everyone else does. A particularly loud or unrelenting scream from a child may catch your attention, or a loud announcement about a manager's special, but for the most part your focus is not broken and concentration is not difficult.

In the same store, my son is aware of every individual noise. His sensory gatekeeper isn't distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary sensory input, and nothing is held back. He hears every beep of every cash register, the buzzing lights, the voices competing with one another, all of the crying babies and children within ear shot, the squeaking wheel on the cart, the item a customer just dropped as they were reaching for something, the automatic doors opening and closing, a bird that flew in chirping way up in the framework of the ceiling, the oven timer going off in the bakery, the music on the speakers, the televisions and video games in the electronics department, the clicking of a device being used to scan items by a store worker, and so on.

If it seems virtually impossible that someone would be aware of all of these things at once, consider yourself fortunate. If it sounds awful and exhausting, I assure you it is. It is not uncommon for my son, almost 6 years old, to fall asleep in the car after a trip to a store because his brain has just done the equivalent of a marathon processing all of that.

So what do we do to help him cope? Lots of things. The goal is to provide the sensory input he craves, or give him tools to cope with sensory input he feels overwhelmed by, in ways that are the both socially acceptable and functional for him.

Shopping and Other Potential Overload Situations

We have a deal in stores; if Little G stays with me and remains calm while we are walking, he can spin in place while I am browsing in a section. This helps him deal with the overwhelming sensory overload. It works extremely well to keep him calm and able to handle focusing when he needs to. I also encourage him to grab things for me from lower shelves and put them into the cart. Having something to do in the store helps a lot, as it gives him something purposeful to do and something to focus on.

At the mall, I typically use a stroller for him. He is very short for his age, so he still fits easily and comfortably into our stroller. It allows him to deal with the environment by simply closing his eyes, focusing on the patterns in the floor or ceiling decorations, or to get lost in his mp3 player - things he cannot safely do while walking. If it is a shorter trip and we do without the stroller, I might give him a snack like fruit leather to chew on or let him carry a familiar comfort object like his toy cat.

Dining Out: The Mega-Overload

Little G has some rather severe sensory aversions when it comes to anything mouth-related. Except brushing his teeth, which he loves to do. In fact, when I want him to try a new food, I will often have him brush his teeth (without toothpaste, as to not alter flavor) before doing so. But it is not always possible to do this, and dining out can present some serious sensory overload potentials.

As with many other things, Little G likes the idea of dining out. In practice, it can be quite unpleasant. A few months ago, a friend of mine invited me out to a rather busy and loud restaurant with my children. I decided to try it, mostly for the sake of my friend but also to find out how Little G would handle it. Little G tuned out completely, focusing his entire existence on eating his salad, but he was absorbing all of the sensory input. He fell asleep in the car almost immediately, so I knew right away that he had been severely overloaded with sensory input. And sure enough, it was three days before he calmed down, slept at a normal time, and stopped throwing himself against couch cushions and spinning in circles.

This is a situation where we simply make our choice of location carefully. There are plenty of restaurants where the atmosphere is calm, without blaring music and screaming children. Restaurants with "sports bars" are absolutely out. The ones where the customers are typically not children and families work better. We sometimes get a sideways look coming in the door, but that is always followed with comments on what "polite and well-behaved" children we have. What a difference their sensory environment can make!

School, Speech Therapy, and Learning

When Little G was in formal speech therapy, I would always give him lots of proprioceptive input within 30 minutes of going into his session. He was in gymnastics for a while, and that worked well for balancing him out and giving all of his joints and muscles the input they needed to he didn't feel so "bouncy" when he needed to be calm and focus. When he was not in gymnastics prior to speech therapy, I invented a game called Push Mama. We would put our hands together and he would push me backward around the building. This, too, gave him the input he needed to feel "balanced" as I like to call it.

Since we homeschool, it's obviously not a problem to let Little G flap and spin and jump during his lessons, because it does not interfere with his learning. And sometimes I do let him. However, he needs coping skills that will translate well into the world outside, and he sure can't do that in a Cub Scouts meeting or a community art class.

Just as we did to prepare for speech therapy, we have activities which help give Little G's joints and muscles lots of good input before he has to be more calm and focused. There is little preparation needed for the first class of the day, which is almost always Math or G's choice, but his need for sensory input increases throughout the day. At break time, we can go outside and run, kick a ball, ride bikes, play on the swing set, or play hop scotch.

Daily Sensory Input

Little G's need for sensory input is mostly of the proprioceptive variety; he loves spinning, rocking, swinging, jumping, running, bumping into things and people, hugs, eskimo kisses, clapping games, hula hooping, and dancing to music. I make sure these things are very much a part of his daily sensory diet.

While we usually discourage running in the house, the weather here is limiting for outdoor play during the winter - especially when my son hates being cold. With the house cleaned up and the floor cleared of toys, I do allow Little G to run in the house - usually as part of some game or with direction, not just wildly and randomly. We do the Electric Slide, The Hokey Pokey, The Chicken Dance, and other children's activity songs; YouTube is a great resource for these! Their History curriculum includes songs, so I add clapping, dancing, or other movement to those (they have mini flags to wave around to It's A Grand Old Flag, for example).

The two sensory issues I am still trying to work out are tricky. One is emotion/behavior self-regulation and the other is his severe oral defensiveness. These probably deserve dedicated posts of their own, since there are more factors involved than just sensory. Little G's speech disorder and his diagnosis of autism definitely play their own roles in these sensory struggles. I will post about these sometime in the near future.

Math is Everywhere

How much does my son love math? Today I was plotting the kids' height and weight on the CDC growth charts when the little guy walked up behind me and squealed with delight, "I want to do that!" Apparently, he thought it was some sort of math worksheet.

What I Believe (and don't) About Homeschooling

I don't believe that public schools are terrible places, or that the children in them are doomed to lives of misery and bullying. And I don't believe that all or even most homeschooling families are religious freaks, social outcasts, or unsocialized weirdos. Are there some? Well, sure. But it is unfair to judge all homeschooling families based on stereotypes about a few sensationalized situations we hear about in the news or through the grapevine. There are religious freaks, social outcasts, and unsocialized weirdos in schools, too!

I do not believe that public school offers children the socialization they "need". The socialization which children receive at school is largely comprised of things we'd prefer they were not exposed to. And by 'we', I mean most parents, not just homeschoolers. Until the 1840s, compulsory education did not exist in the United States; education was something done in the home and society functioned just fine. In fact, people were quite displeased with the idea of compulsory education! But I don't believe that children should be shielded completely from the outside world; that's just nuts. However, some bits of knowledge can wait.

I do not believe that homeschooling is always the better option. In fact, I think public school is sometimes the better option. Each family needs to assess their individual needs and values and make decisions that are best for their situation.

I do believe that learning about diversity and other cultures is important. I do not believe that public schools, at least where we reside, teach children anything about diversity and other cultures. College will probably be the first place they truly experience this. The most important thing now is to teach tolerance and acceptance of differences. And that will quite likely not be learned in any public school. In fact, I've witnessed quite the opposite.

I do not believe that bullying is some rite of passage that all children must go through, or that children need to go to public school to "learn how to deal with it". Bullying is not a harmless childhood experience, nor is it something that is a critical or healthy part of their development; bullying leads to poor self-esteem, academic failure, drop outs, a lifetime of trust issues, and even suicide. Though a lot of schools talk a good talk about bullying prevention and zero tolerance of such behavior, I've found that lip service is far too frequently as far as it goes. More often than not, schools fail to protect children who are targeted and fail to discipline children who are the perpetrators of bullying. It seems that children are viewed as almost inhuman by schools, with comments such as, "Oh, it's just kid stuff." If adults were subjected to the same treatment by their peers, it would be called stalking, harassment, or abuse, and criminal charges and restraining orders would be ways of dealing with the perpetrators. But when this happens to children, who are far less capable of dealing with these things emotionally and are still developing their sense of who they are in this world, the consequences can be utterly devastating for the victim and schools often dismiss it as child's play.

There are no bullies walking our hallways.

I do believe that all parents are teachers, from the moment their babies come into this world. I also believe that compulsory education and the sheeple mentality it drills into all of us has most parents convinced that they are completely unfit to be teachers. "I couldn't do it," is the most common thing people say to me when I tell them I am homeschooling my children. My response is always, "You absolutely could." It saddens me that parents, who are their children's first and most important teachers, do not see themselves as such. Homeschooling is not a new invention or some wild idea, but a natural continuation of a process already well underway since a child was born. Parents don't have to become teachers to homeschool their children, they already are teachers.

I Got This

If you've been reading for a few weeks, you may remember back in September when I mentioned our issues with my son's IEP and those involved (or, um, not) with it here and here. Since nothing really IEP-worthy had come up in our homeschooling needs thus far, I was content to put it on the back burner for the time being. To be honest, aside from securing paid speech therapy, we had little need for an IEP - at least at the preschool level. My son is diagnosed with autism and an expressive-receptive speech disorder, but he is also academically gifted and compensates extremely well for any deficits related to his diagnoses. I have worked with him on speech every day for years. I have thoroughly researched and implemented an ever-changing sensory diet to meet his sensory needs. He has improved steadily, sometimes in leaps.

Our school district did pick up the tab for our speech services once Little G turned 3. That was a nice relief after paying it out of pocket for almost a year after tracking it down myself. But really, I can't think of much else they've done for us. Perhaps it is the now clouded view I have of them after the rather epic failures on their part when my daughter, as a Kindergarten student, was being bullied verbally, emotionally, and physically by other students who were repeat offenders. And when it happened again in 1st grade, if to a lesser degree. Or maybe my opinion is somewhat skewed after being unceremoniously dumped by our district's special education people into the lap of the virtual charter school with no direction whatsoever. Take your pick; I'm not impressed.

I called the special education department for our charter the same week we were dumped. I've yet to talk to a human being, but I've now left three messages on various voice mail services that claimed someone would get back to me soon if I did. No one has. My son's teacher contact wants a copy of his IEP, but for what? So we can needlessly entwine ourselves in miles of red tape and frustration so another group of people can fail to meet my son's needs? No. I'm over it.

IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan, and the purpose of it is to help children (usually with disabilities) succeed in the pursuit of their education. To date, I have seen nothing that an IEP could do for my son that I could not or have not accomplished myself for him. Since I am the one helping him reach his educational goals, and I would say I'm doing good job since he has never been in a public bricks and mortar school and he is doing first grade Math, Language Arts, and Phonics easily at age 5, even just attempting to involve the IEP people at this point is only causing needless frustration. It is clear that doing their jobs is an inconvenience, even for such a low-needs family as ours. So fine. My son certainly isn't missing out on anything by having these people or that piece of paper absent from his life. Believe that I would be The Parent No One Wants to Deal With if the opposite were true, because I wouldn't just quietly accept the fact that 90% of the people I have encountered thus far in special education don't want to do their damn jobs.

I learned early on in life that we're basically on our own; things like IEPs are there to hold people accountable when they don't do their jobs. Unfortunately, it's almost always easier and overall more beneficial to just educate myself and do it myself rather than deal with all of the ridiculous stress and responsibility avoidance of people who seem to work harder to avoid their work than they would need to if they just did what their job titles require of them.

New Materials

These are Little G's first grade materials. My 5 year-old first grader is pretty stoked.

There is also new Math materials, not pictured here since it was a lot more of the same items we had for Kindergarten and I've already put them away. We do have Math+ Green now, and apparently the color change is pretty exciting stuff. There will be plenty of pictures soon.

The weather remains unseasonably warm and beautiful for October. My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, and the warmth and sunshine reminded me of the weather when we got married in 2001. I've got all of the windows open and we're taking advantage of these beautiful days before the dreaded snow starts to fly. Outdoor hooping for the win!

Bunny Ball

We played "Bunny Ball" as a family tonight. It was lots of fun, a great PE activity (yes, at 7pm on a Saturday, we can log PE hours!), and also a wonderful sensory diet activity for Little G.


Yes, the Easter Bunny sure scored big points when he put these in the kids' baskets last year. And yes, I intentionally hide my children's faces on my blog. And I always will.

A Sensory Diet Super Win

This picture captures something absolutely amazing.

It seems simple, right? A cat-lovin' boy and his pet cat sharing a friendly hello. But this? It would not have happened even a week ago. Little G has some sensory avoidance issues, but overall he is a sensory seeker. This means that he is always jumping, spinning, speaking loudly, putting things in his mouth, squealing, humming, intentionally bumping into walls and furniture, and handling things - and pets - roughly. Because of this, I incorporate a lot of proprioceptive input into Little G's sensory diet.

For those not in the know about sensory processing disorder, a sensory diet is simply a list of things a person can do to give them the sensory nourishment they need to function at their best. Just as children need proper nutrition from food to be healthy and grow, they also need a proper sensory diet to be healthy. Some children have greater sensory needs than others, as my son does. Because of this, I use all kinds of sensory diet suggestions and invent a few of our own to meet these additional sensory needs. Some of the activities in his sensory diet are designed to give him extra input to help calm him, while other activities are meant to desensitize his system so he can handle typical sensory information (sounds, foods, etc.) in a way similar to how most people do.

For Little G, I make up a lot of games that involve jumping, clapping, or running. We have a cool game called "push mama" where we put our hands together and he pushes me backward around the house, the yard, or wherever we happen to be, which gives his muscles and joints lots of "input" and helps him to relax, or seek input less. His sensory diet is long and ever-changing, and I would love to blog more in depth about it, but for now I want to discuss the incredible success with our cat.

Little G loves cats. He has endless books about cats, cat toys, cat coloring books, and often plays dress-up as a cat. The fact that our cat, usually tolerant of anything, runs from him has always been a source of pain and frustration for Little G. I have explained to him, talked about what cats like us humans to behave like, shown him how to pet the cat gently and without being scary to Sticky. But nothing really worked. So, with the hope that my little guy would one day be able to enjoy his pet cat as much as the rest of us do, I started putting together a sensory diet plan specifically for getting him to relax enough to be gentle with our cat. I implemented my plan for approximately three weeks, frequently discussing the topic of building trust with the cat by behaving in certain ways and by giving him a book on cats to read. I remained hopeful, but not extremely optimistic. Had any hope of Sticky ever trusting Little G been too damaged to repair?

Imagine my complete and utter shock the other night when I saw the scene I captured in the photo above with my cell phone. It's blurry from my quick movements, grainy from the poor lighting, but still one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed; my son, my sweet cat-loving little boy, finally got to pet his beloved pet cat. She didn't shrug and shimmy away, she didn't run, she didn't swat; she simply nuzzled up to his hand and enjoyed the attention.

These are the moments that bring me the greatest joy in life.

Europe

Tonight, my 5 year-old son randomly comes up and holds up his magnetic drawing board and says, "Hey mom, look! These are some places in Europe."

Uh...wow. I realized by some of the misspellings, one of which he caught and corrected before showing me, that he had done this from memory. I guess he is really paying attention to the History lessons!

Something else my Little G did today that melted my heart was quoting his current favorite book (This Plus That, Life's Little Equations), "Did you know that every star in the sky plus the sun plus the moon times my heart equals love you to the infinite power?" Yes, little dude. I did know that. Because I feel exactly the same way about you.

Art, Math...and Chicken Dancing

Today is brought to you by the letter M. M is for Math, and my son is now officially in 1st grade Math. You'd have thought Santa had just stopped by if you had been here this morning. We logged into the online school (OLS) and voila! there it was: Math+ Green. He jumped, he danced, he was all yeaaaauhh! Kudos to anyone who catches that reference.

It's funny, because I have a 5 year-old who comes out of his room each morning and either asks if his Math book has arrived yet, or wants to know if he can do Math first. Convincing him it is time to stop writing numbers and mathematical problems for the night when it is bedtime is no easy feat. You won't hear me complaining; it's not a video game controller and a bag of Cheetos I'm trying to get him to part with. If he really wants to sleep with the Sudoku puzzle book under his pillow so no one "messes with [his] puzzles", I'm cool with that.

I love this kid, and his cool, number-focused brain.

As promised, I have more Reezle art to share with you. Though I know her ability is impressive, she continues to amaze me with the things she comes up with. Here is a sampling of her work from the past week:




I love these. Her art brings me joy. It always has. I believe there is something of who a person is in everything they create, like a little fingerprint on the world. Maybe that sounds silly, but, I don't know. When she was about 4 years old, I bought her a really big 3-ring binder and a bunch of clear sheets to tuck her art safely into. We keep adding to it, and it has grown so much over time. I love that she has this little personal portfolio, but honestly, I can't bear to part with most of her art. They are personal expressions of who she is, of what she is thinking, of what touches her heart.

The weather this week is amazing. It is everything I love about autumn, from the warm and sunny days to the cool nights that beg for chili to be made and breads to be baked. They make me think of family, of my babies. My daughter will celebrate her 8th birthday this month. Our beautiful weather is also perfect for PE class. In addition to playing outside and doing some good old-fashioned being-a-kid stuff, we have been learning The Chicken Dance, The Electric Slide, and the Hokey Pokey. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the Chicken Dance is quite a workout! A fun one, though. Our living room was full of sweet little laughter this morning as we wiggled and flapped our wings and danced in circles. And in case I have forgotten to mention how much I love being with my children and homeschooling - I know, I know. But I do. So much. And I count my blessings daily.

The Cats of Mirikitani

Tonight, thanks to a recommendation by a friend, I watched a documentary film (I love documentaries) called The Cats of Mirikitani. It was beautiful. I shared it with my daughter, who wasn't about to let me watch it without her anyhow.

The story chronicles a Japanese-American man, Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, who spent time in an internment camp here in the United States during WWII. He becomes homeless on the streets of NYC, and in the wake of September 11th, a woman who was following his story as a homeless artist takes him into her home. My comments and thoughts on it don't really do it justice; it's such an incredible story about people and history. Really, I can't put words to it.

Netflix has The Cats of Mirikitani available via their Instant watching option, so if you have a membership you can watch it right now from your computer. You won't regret it.

Art and Organization

I had these great plans for a homeschool space in the kitchen. First, I decided on a shelving unit I thought would go well with my decor. Once it was all together, I hated it. It was taller than advertised (I ordered online) and looked every bit the small price I paid for it. For someone already having to make peace with non-kitchen items in the kitchen, this was not going to do. Yes, yes, I have issues. No worries, though; it will make the perfect organizer for our outdoor toys in the garage.

My second option was to buy some paint and transform my daughter's old 9-cubby bookshelf into our homeschooling kitchen storage area. My husband picked up the paint and sandpaper, and I set out to get it done before school started.

I'm ashamed to admit I never even got to the sanding part, though I still have good intentions. However, I did find that the shelf in our living room had just the right amount of space for all of our books and the printer, and the extra cabinet in the kitchen holds all of the manipulatives, shapes, DVDs, CDs, Art supplies and Music items perfectly. Little G approves.

In other news, it seems my little artist girl took us very seriously when we said she would be a famous artist selling her works someday; note the little price tags in the bottom right corners of both of the creations below!


For the record, I got a great discount because I'm mommy. I paid 3 warm and fuzzies for the pair of them! They are now proudly displayed on the fridge for all to enjoy.

There is much more art to show, but our weekend became full of other things and I am currently helping R reorganize her drawers and bedroom and sorting through clothes to determine what will still fit the kids for the cooler weather. We seem to be jumping right into cooler weather here! We're also going to work on R's giant art binder, which we've been adding to since she was a toddler. Projects, projects. Home is always full of them.