Did anyone else pull their kid out of school and quick-start homeschooling?? Did you survive
Thanks!
Yes and yes.
For us, the first key was finding some outside classes (either fun or academic) to make sure are DDs social needs were met.
Academically, most people recommend a detox (or 'deschooling') period. Maybe instead of a formal curriculum, you and your DSs could come up with a list of books to read and then organize a fun activity / assignment for each one (discussion, writing, further research, illustration, etc).
While you may still move to a formal curriculum later, this might be a nice easy transition into the less structured world of homeschooling. And it will teach you all to be more relaxed about learning.
I have to say that the biggest change for us since we started homeschooling has been a mental shift in our thinking about education. It was really a paradigm shift (and is therefore a little hard to describe).
We stopped worrying about all the window dressing of school (tests, ranking, scores, etc.) and have focused more on how do we get DD the very best education for her. We stopped caring about the "system" and it's opinions. We stopped feeling under the thumb of bureaucracy and politics that we couldn't control. We stopped feeling like we were lacking in options (now we have a surfeit). It's been liberating and I believe that change will stay with us even as we move back to a more traditional setting (DD is transitioning to an online public school for highschool).
I think that I should note that we are NOT unschoolers. DD has been in a series of brick and mortar classes with a teacher and other students. She requested (and we provide) grades. We are big believers in the process of teaching and learning and directed effort. It's just that we learned how to distinguish that from all the other silliness and dross that public schools layer on.
Just relax and you will do just fine.
