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As an experienced homeschooling mom, I’ve written posts and given advice privately to families wondering how to begin school with newly arrived children. I dispensed the majority of the advice … ahem… before I’d actually adopted older kids. It turns out my ideas were partly right and partly wrong.
My instinct that it would be best to start slowly was definitely right. But I didn’t have a true grasp of just how slowly to go. My idea of slow was not nearly slow enough for our new girls.
I began homeschooling a month after they arrived. I felt that I was beginning with fairly modest expectations. My ‘modest’ expectations turned out to be way beyond their emotional ability. They’re smart kids, but they were just too overwhelmed emotionally during those first weeks to focus on school or to be cooperative. After a month of school I scaled my expectations even further, and still they were on overload.
Do I think that homeschooling was the wrong choice for us? NO. I can’t imagine how much more overwhelmed they would have been in a school setting. But if I had it to do again, I would do zero formal school for the first six month. Yes, zero.
I know, I know — when you get older kids home, you want them to start ‘catching up.’ But kids need to have some attachment work under their belts — and they need to have at least a little bit of English — to be effective at school. Attachment takes months. Language development take years.
I now feel that a semester off school would have been of great benefit to our girls. They needed to become comfortable in our family before they had energy for school. Much of our struggle in the first 3 months home was related to compliance during school.
Around the three month mark when things were at their most difficult, my husband and I concocted a new plan for school. We decided that he would teach the girls on Monday, Friday and Saturday (his regular days off during the week). Tuesday through Thursday they’d do a minimal amount of self directed school (an educational video, some free reading, and a computer math game. This removed about 80% of the conflict between us, and left me much happier with everyone, both during and after school.
Despite the fact that we are a dedicated homeschooling family, this experience gave me a new appreciation for the benefits families gain by sending kids off to school during the day. When you’re doing the difficult kind of parenting needed in the first months of an older-child adoption, moms need rest, plain and simple.
Our plan is to gradually phase the girls back into our normal homeschool routine sometime after the new year. But the time with someone other than me as teacher has been a good thing for all of us, and has given us enough space to get a little further in the bonding process.
Different families may come to different decisions regarding their newly arrived children and school. It is important to be flexible and willing to consider a variety of options to find the best one for your child. However, after our experience I am even more convinced that going slowly in the beginning with school (in whatever setting) is a great way to give kids a chance to settle in with less stress.
(Photo credit)
Other posts regarding education
Bilingual Books for New Arrivals
ESL and Newly Arrived Kids Part One | Part Two
With older kids, unless you are going to homeschool, there is no real decision, they go to school. My expereince is that you are likely to deal with some issues, but they are in a different environment, and do OK, plus they get a break from us. The getting a break thing is important, and the kids need it too.
I am curious Mary, how would you justify skipping a semester legally? I understand the need to do it, but wouldn’t that be neglect under the law? John