Oy....let me say that first of all schools are nothing like when we went and we went at some pretty sad and dark times. Columbine happened a couple blocks away from our high school. We were the high school they played in sports and such down the street. So we went through our scary moments. I do not blame the schools or teachers whatsoever on this so please do not take this the wrong way and it ALL is only my opinion BUT I feel it was 99% the parents fault....I know I know...blame the mom. I just feel like parents used to hold their kids responsible and now they blame it on everybody else but the kid and dang it those kids need their butts whipped once in a while! Geeeeeeez! Crazy how much parents allow their kids to do and if I hear one more parent say "Well he is like that because he has ADD"......AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! Now do not get me wrong. I do feel that is a condition however I feel it is VERY over diagnosed and sometimes the kid just needs a parent to step up and take on the parenting role and NOT ALLOW THEM TO ACT LIKE THAT!!! I get you all think my kids are angels and that I have no idea since I live with such well behaved children....a little hint....I DID NOT ALLOW THEM TO ACT LIKE THAT!! My kid threw themselves on the ground and oh yeah...mama got the spoon! NO WAY my kid is pulling that crap! Although they still try and I will never be the mom that says "my kid will never..." since as soon as I say it they are doing it. I just find certain behavior unexceptionable and my children do get spanked for it. Do I beat them...no. I would like to sometimes but I do not. They get a spank on the butt and that is it. I must say if you are sitting there thinking "yeah but she does not have any strong willed children (yes out of 4 kids I never had one strong willed.....BAILEY....child at all)" however keep in mind that I do I just controlled it before it got out of hand. If it ain't cute at 12 it ain't cute at 2. OMG sorry....back to homeschooling....lol.
So a couple reasons we decided to homeschool. First of all we prayed long and hard about this. We waited until God said it was time and that was when we pulled the kids out of public school. Taylor was coming home and talking about how mean kids were and was telling me what they were doing. They were not making fun of her but of other kids and she did not like it. That is when she started coming home a little sad each day because of this and if you know her you know it takes a lot to bring her down...she has an amazingly happy spirit. Another reason was I wanted to be involved with their education! I could volunteer in the kids classes but I was not allowed to bring other kids. Wa wa wa...yep....can't do that. Then I noticed Brecken was not learning what he needed to. Those were our BIG reasons. Some smaller ones were Brecken has 5 therapies a week and I am getting worn out from doing all his therapies and school so I can imagine how he is! We decided it would be best to pull him and keep him in his more intense therapies then in the school therapies. It was just too much. Plus he would cry when we tried to take him to school which is weird for him too. He is a very happy kid and loves to play. Then being a military family and having Doug in and out of deployments and such, I just figured it would be nice to be able to pick up and go back to Colorado for a couple days if I wanted to and not be worried about the truancy officers showing up at my house. California is crazy on their school attendance laws. Then I started hearing about teachers strikes and kids were suffering for it and then the whole morning after pill will be offered to high school girls (they are starting this in NY)....I was done. Too much for a kid to worry about that they should not even be thinking about! SO all in all we decided this was best for out kids at this time in our lives.
Now let me just say I have MANY friends who are teachers and they are good! I would love my kids to be under them and I do not think that teachers get paid enough whatsoever but when you are a military family and you are seeing soldiers on food stamps and getting any other help they can because they are not getting paid enough and instead of going on strike they volunteer for a deployment and leave their kids and spouse behind in hopes they will see them again to make a little extra money...then you tend to frown upon people going on strike....especially when you are letting kids pay for it and then we have the awesome referee strike which cost a couple football teams some wins...that is a WHOLE other blog...just all bad.
So back to homeschool....lol...wow I am on a ROLL today!! Taylor has been doing great so far! She loves it and I love working with her. Brecken is already doing better then he was! It is working out so far and we shall see where this takes us. Please do not take anything in here offensive. It is all my opinions and I have slept no more then 2 hours straight since September 1st so I get to rant once in a while.
