I am wrestling with the homeschool issue as well for many of the same reasons. I dont want him to think that he does not have to follow the rules of school/society. On the other hand Kriston I hear what you are saying and this keeps me seriously thinking of homeschooling. My worry is that financially I may not always be able to homeschool and will he adapt back into school or will he be less able to handle being back?
Well, I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I think that I have to find the best fit for *now*, and then in a year or two or 10 I'll figure out the best fit for then, depending on the circumstances.
Who knows? You could win the lottery next year and never have to worry about money again! You can't predict the future.
Homeschooling is not the best fit for every family or even every child. There's so much that goes into that sort of choice! But it seems a shame to me to choose not to homeschool a child whom you think could use it because of a "what-if." I take it one year at a time--at most!--and try to make it work for that year. We re-evaluate every year.
As for the sibling rivalry: that's tougher, I think. I firmly believe that the education choices you make HAVE to fit into the family's needs overall. If the perfect school is a 3-hour commute each day, it's probably not the perfect school. If there's a school that is wonderful, but you have to live in poverty to afford it, it may not be a good choice for your family. Big picture!
So if homeschooling your son would make your daughter miserable, and there's nothing that would fix that, then maybe it's not a workable solution for you. I think it's okay to decide that family unity matters. But maybe talking with your daughter about why she'd want to leave an ideal school situation just because of her brother would solve the problem. Maybe she'd be more understanding than you think she would, especially if she got plenty of mom-time with you as onthegomom suggested to make it more palatable for her.
I am biased. We have one kid at home and one at public school right now, so I regularly push the "Different kids have different needs and we serve those needs in different ways" philosophy to my kids. "Fair" doesn't equal "the same." It is okay to make that clear to her. We talk about that a LOT around our house!
IMHO, it seems problematic not to give her brother what he needs because she doesn't like it... that does seem to me to border on letting the child run the show--just the other child. Or maybe you homeschool both, perfect school fit or no. Sometimes you give a kid what she wants and let her see that it isn't what she thought. Many ways to approach it...
Regardless of what you decide, family dynamics are complicated. I think you're right to keep them in mind as you look at the big picture.
