I'm a little on edge lately, trying to defend the decision to homeschool to my parents and in-laws, friends, school personnel, his teacher, etc...
LDParents, I've been in this place, and it's not fun. :-(
Though it's hard to do, I've had to stop caring what "everyone else" says and thinks because no amount of explaining/defending is going to help them understand. I've had to make peace with the fact that others--be they family, friends, neighbors, school personnel--simply are not going to "get it," so I can't look to them for validation and support.
And that's okay. Why? Because they aren't raising my children--I am. They haven't done hundreds of hours of reading/research on raising gifted children--I have. They don't know what's involved. I do.
What I'm saying is I've learned to trust my own intuition when it comes to my own children, and so far time has shown that I'm usually right (LOL, not about all things, mind you, just about the "big decisions" regarding my kids' education).
Take DS8's preschool experience at age 4. He liked the first day, increasingly hated it after that ("Mommy, all they talk about is shapes and I already know all my shapes."). Said he liked the teacher and other kids, but cried/protested more fervently each time, not wanting to go. Everyone I asked--friends, neighbors, teachers--said "make him go, because if you let him drop out now, he won't want to go to K next year." (So many people said that!) Or: "he's manipulating you" and "he won't develop good social skills without preschool." Well, I decided to follow my heart. Yes, my son is a preschool dropout. (Gasp!)
Forgive me here for the nostalgia, but I will always remember his last morning of preschool--him crying, begging me not to leave him there, and me with everyone's advice whirling in my head. Then my heart said: he's 4 and he wants to be home; how can that be bad? So I took him back home. And I will always remember this one moment, after we left the preschool building... as I buckled him into his car seat, he put his hand on my arm, gave me this incredibly intense, tender look, and said, "Thank you so much, Mommy. Thank you for not making me go to preschool. Thank you for listening to what I wanted. You are the best mommy in the whole world."
I realized in that moment that it was infinitely more valuable for him to know that his mother listened to him and respected his need/desire for security (staying home) than anything he would have learned in that year of preschool. He loved staying home that year--and next year, when K started, he was so sick of his little sister that he couldn't wait to leave home and go to school! (So much for those naysayers who said he wouldn't want to go). I look back on that experience and was so glad I followed my heart and intuition, no matter what everyone else said.
Same with the decision to find a way to get DD6 early entry to K at age 4 (got around the age cutoff by finding a private religious school that accepted her for K). It took over a year of my time, effort, research, persuading, hoping, praying just to find a place that would take her... and then a year's worth of money spent on tuition that we could barely afford. It was tough. But it was what she needed, and I'll always be proud that I had the tenacity to make it happen.
Same thing again with the big decision this year (when DD6 started 1st grade at public school and they would not accommodate her needs) to pull her out after three weeks and transfer to a different school in the district. It's a hassle. It means I have to deal with the complications of having three kids at three different schools. It means I have to drive DD6 to school every day, morning and afternoon. I have to contend with the teachers and others at the first school, where DS8 still attends, who snub me and give me nasty looks and talk behind my back because I dared to transfer my child out of there, LOL. But the bottom line for me is, my child is happy. Therefore it was absolutely the right decision, and I don't care what anyone else says or thinks about it. I know it was right.
Sorry for being so long-winded. My point is, if you are doing what you know is right for your son by homeschooling, I believe you will look back a year from now, 5 years from now, and be so proud of yourself that it won't matter what anyone else thought. And don't defend your decision. All you have to say is "This is my son, he was not happy at that school, and I am doing what I believe is best for him." Period.
Kudos to you.
GG
