Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments HSers - how did you determine that HS was...

a good fit for your dc? Just as some kids do wonderfully in traditional type settings, I'm sure some kids thrive in a HS setting. So, in looking at your own dc/situations, how did you determine that your dc would do better in HSing environment vs. traditional?

We're exploring all options, but are trying to figure out how to know if it's the best option for DS. Obviously, DS thinks HSing is the way to go because he he wouldn't have to wait to go to the bathroom and he could eat when he's hungry...these are his big problems with school . I'm sure he doesn't have a realistic expectation of HSing - he hears the "home" part, but not "school", LOL.

Any thoughts?

Here's some advice from someone who has only homeschooled in fantasy.
Remember that for many many years, homeschool was the norm, and no one tried to figure out in advance who would thrive with the system.

Seems like the first 'lesson' for homeschool would be to set up a 'charter' for your family school. Be the scribe and the interviewer and find out exactly what your son would think is fair for a homeschool.

Would he like to do each subject each day, or have a Math Day, English Day, etc.
How many days would he like to spend 'at home' and how many days would school be 'on the go?'
Do you know other homeschoolers that he would like to learn with?
How would your son know if he was meeting or exceeding reasonable expectations?
What about TV or computer during the day?
How many playdates during afterschool hours per week would be ideal?
How much of a free period for reading or educational TV would be allowed during the day?
What about physical activity?
What about household chores? (Seems to me that if you are adding school to your responsibilities, that a DC should be willing to take some of the daily househould responsibilities off your plate. Plus cooking, meal planning, tidying up can all be great learning experiences.)
I would ask your son about the parts of school that aren't fun, and how he would propose to handle 'doing the essential, but unfun parts' of school at home.

My hunch is that DS will have lots and lots of ideas about how 'he would run the school.' My guess is that even if you would modify half of his rules, that you'd love the other half.

Enjoy,
Grinity

I NEVER thought I'd be homeschooling. It was the LAST thing on my mind when I started researching options for my ds6. He was struggling in a tradtional classroom because he was bored to death. He was spending all day in another world while the other students learned material he already knew. Also, he's a very hands-on interactive learner. It was torture for him to sit in a desk or at a table all day and not speak until spoken to. Not that they never interacted with each other in the private school he was in, but it was quite rigid.

My ds learns by talking through processes and by physically manipulating his world. Worksheets send him over the edge. My first instinct was to think, "well, he needs to learn to follow the rules and do what everyone else does." Then I realized he wasn't learning ANYTHING and that he had begun to hate school. This bothered me that a kindergartener cried every day before and after school.

The school was unable to advance him to first grade or to give a differentiated curriclum. We pulled him and started homeschooling, and it's been wonderful. He's learning; it's efficient (he doesn't have to spend wasted time in line waiting for lunch or snack or bathroom or waiting for others to catch up), and I have a good handle on where he is academically. I'm glad now that they couldn't advance him to first grade b/c now that I'm homeschooling, I know that ds is beyond first grade too. So, he would have had the same issues in the 1st grade private school class as in the kg.

I am still researching and touring other schools that might be a better fit, but so far I've found nothing that feels as right as homeschooling. I do like the montessori philosophy, and we are really looking into this option. We also like the small private schools with lots of enrichment opportunities. Currently, while I hs, I am supplementing with mixed martial arts and science and art classes at a small private community school. He will play soccer in the spring too. He loves it, and he's so excited to be learning.

I'm floored at what a difference I see when I present completely fresh, new material than when I am reviewing. Because he needs little to no review, he almost shuts down when he sees the same info he has seen before. At school, he had to just sit there and wait it out, and this was all day every day. Complete torture! I'm reluctant to do anything different right now because it's working so well. HS was meant to be a temporary solution, but now I worry that even a new school will present the same issues we faced before. Like many gifted children, ds progresses very quickly, and he'd need a school where he could move ahead at his own pace. That's hard to find in a group situation.

With hs I am able to guage when he needs review and when he doesn't and know when I've lost him and when he's engaged. My biggest concern was ds not being with other kids all day, but he hasn't missed it. We just make sure he gets the time with children in other ways. He's an only child, btw. Hope this helps. Wow! Just realized how long this is!

Couldn't agree more. I had just reached a point where I knew PS wasn't working and wouldn't work for my DD. My DD9 begged to be homeschooled so we agree to try at the start of that summer, figuring if it didn't work, we had at least tried. She now attends for ELA (for the last year I think) and for art, and music.

A little of both worlds, although it took us six months to work that out with the school. What worked for one has also worked for the others, and I consider myself priviledged to spare them the misery my oldest went through in those first years of PS.

Almost forgot, I don't think I would have dreamed of homeschooling if I hadn't read so much about some of the very knowledgable people here who have taken this route or suggested it. A BIG thank you to all of them!

Very true and excellent point. We've become a society of 'over-thinkers'.

I suspect this is what I would see with my ds, as well. The one thing I hear from him repeatedly, is how he hates sitting/listening while the teacher is instructing something he already knows how to do. He just wants to hear it once, give the practical application a try, and move on if he's got it.

You know, the social aspect of school is the funny part. DH and I have been talking about how there is no more socialization in school really these days. At previous schools, it was single-file and quiet in the halls, silent lunches or eat first, then chat. (I should say that I understand the need for some of the changes that have taken place - the expectations of teachers/educators are ever-changing and I don't profess to know what it's like to walk a mile in those shoes.) There are days now when my ds comes home and says he didn't get to finish his lunch because he was too busy talking . He's a social creature and the two recesses are spent playing and expending the physical energy surplus instead of chatting. So, I don't see school as the social place it used to be when I was that age. His social time is after school/homework anyway, and he does have an extra-curricular activity, so I'm not as concerned about him missing that at school.

I think, more than anything, I worry that we'll make the wrong decision and it will have an impact on ds. We're researching all the options.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[/quote] Almost forgot, I don't think I would have dreamed of homeschooling if I hadn't read so much about some of the very knowledgable people here who have taken this route or suggested it. A BIG thank you to all of them![/quote]

I couldn't agree more! I second that Thank You to everyone here who helped us make the decision to hs!

I worried myself to death too over making the wrong decision. I didn't sleep, couln't eat. It seemed like a very radical decision, and my family didn't agree with our decision (other than my father-he was all for it!). I can't tell you how relieved I am now that we've done it. My son is happy again, and that means so much to me. A 6 year old shouldn't feel daily stress, and he no longer feels that. Family is coming around now that they see ds thriving and learning. Now if I could just get them to stop quizzing him all the time! : )

I agree that school is not the social institution it used to be. My ds was in kg and couldn't speak unless he raised his hand and the teacher gave him permission. My ds thinks out loud, so you can imagine how that went over in his Catholic school! LOL He'd get excited about something he did and run over to tell the teacher, and instead of hearing that he did a good job, he'd hear, "Did I give you permission to be out of your seat?" Of course, that's another story. My ds can't even stay in his seat to eat dinner! I, too, understand why they have those rules in place, but it just didn't suit my son's learning style, and if he's in school, he should be learning!

Good luck with your decision. Remember, your his mom. You know best. Trust your gut, either way it leads you.

That's how I feel about it too. It was a really difficult decision to make. Homeschooling felt really radical. We are secular homeschoolers and I wasn't sure we'd have a community. My family and even my husband were hesitant initially. We took the leap because DS was absolutely miserable and not learning a thing. After looking at many educational options, none of them seemed much better than our previous school. We thought we'd give it a year. We're into our 2nd year now. My DS - would be 3rd grader is absolutely thriving, could get his school work done in an hour or two a day if he chooses to, and is learning a lot. I am now homeschooling his 5 year old sister as well (who attended play based preschool as well). She has not been tested and I am not feeling a pressing need to do so (that $$$ can finance a lot of homeschool activities!). She is surprising me every day right now.

I really like the list of questions Grinity posted. One thing I like to tell people is that homeschooling for most families is really a lifestyle choice. It's not a choice that can work for every family, but it can be wonderful on many levels if it works for the grownups and the children involved.

Just a thought, but this sort makes it an either/or scenario, which is an odd way of looking at it. I'd think of it more like a Venn diagram - some are red, some are blue, some are purple! I went to a traditional public school, but would have thrived in either environment (provided my mother wasn't my homeschool teacher - but that's not the point!)

We've never considered *not* homeschooling, but I've also considered the "what ifs" should something happen that would force Dd into the public school (we're talking both Dh and I would have to be deceased...but I guess it's a possibility).

In the end, I pretty much decided that bright children will figure it out and make it work - especially as they get older.

I was bored to tears in the PS I attended. But, by middle school, teachers had "caught on" and I was allowed to surreptitiously do my own thing, as long as it didn't interfere with the regular class work. So, while everyone else was doing spelling words, I was reading a book slipped under my desk.

In high school, I did my calculus homework in physics, physics homework in English, etc. I only paid attention in French class (a real challenge) and, on occassion, in English class - where I was often the only one participating in the discussion on The Scarlet Letter.

Adaptation and accomodation seem to be common tools of gifties - on either end of the school "debate."

Dd does get to "choose" some subjects, but some things are non-negotiable. She has chores, which are to be done before we start any classwork. And "sometimes" the kitchen really *is* closed - especially if we're on the third snack since lunch! It's how she learned to make her own pb&j.

As someone rightly said - homeschooling *is* a lifestyle as much as an educational choice. And, I would encourage you that if you do try it, give it a fair time period. It took me two years to really feel like we had a handle on things - and I had been planning to homeschool all along! Some folks give up after a couple of months, and consider it a "poor fit," but it really does take adjustment on ALL sides.

I've blogged some about homeschooling an only. Maybe our experiences might help a bit - I wrote the blog for my SIL who is considering homeschooling her dc, so it's more than a record of what we've done. You can find it here:
The Homeschool at Mingo's Corner

HTH!

Two things: now that we're homeschooling, I feel like DS8 has more time and energy to be social. He was so tired and cranky after his bad school fit that he was losing friends and didn't really want to be with them anyway. He certainly was unpleasant to be with! This is really why we chose to homeschool: DS8 experienced a radical personality shift, and something major had to change. His teacher was clearly unreceptive, and it clearly wasn't going to be worth banging my head against that wall.

The fact is that happy kids do better socially. If you can find a good school fit, great. If not, homeschooling can actually make a kid *more* social. It does tend to be a bit more work for the parent to get to social opportunities. But it's manageable even for me, an introvert who desperately needs alone time. You adjust and prioritize.

Secondly, the good thing about homeschooling is that if something is wrong, you can turn on a dime and do whatever you think will fix it. With only your kid(s) and no required loyalty to anything or anyone else, you can do whatever works, changing every day if you have to! the flexibility is really what makes it work well for so many GT kids. It's a very responsive system. The only thing you have to overcome is your own resistance to change and the knowledge that you spent $X on books you'll never use.

Worst case, if homeschooling is a dismal flop, you can always send the child back to public school. They have to take him, even mid-year. So nothing is ever set in stone. You can't "fail" at homeschooling...you just change your mind! So if it doesn't work for your family, if it has repercussions that you don't like, it's an utterly reversible decision.

If you are already answering your child's questions and helping with his homework and reading together, you're pretty much doing everything you'd need to do for homeschooling. You just get to be more creative with it. There are bad days--sometimes bad weeks!--but you figure it out. It's not as far-removed from what you're doing as you think it is. I promise!

Oh, and I agree about it not being an either/or situation for many kids. We're debating about whether to keep DS5 in public school next year or homeschool him. He's happy in half-day K, but so was his big brother. We wonder if 1st grade will be a rough year for DS5, as it was for DS8.

He's the sort of kid who tends to fit wherever he goes, so it's hard to decide what's better for him. We're watching and thinking...