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Someone commented on my recent school post questioning how I could recommend keeping school-aged kids out of school during their first months homes. I thought this was an important question. Sometimes brevity can confuse, so here’s my long answer.
First of all, I am in no way suggesting you bring the kid home and then do nothing with him. If I were a public-schooling mom opting to keep my newly arrived kids home for a semester, I would simply tell officials that I am homeschooling. Not all ’school’ has to consist of workbooks and flash cards.
You can teach a child language by talking with and reading to him. The basis for math can be built by playing games that require counting. Cookie-baking and grocery shopping teach math and reading right along with home economics.
Zoo and museum trips can teach kids about geography and science, not to mention (something that baffled my girls) the many ways there are to turn on the water in public bathrooms. A newly arrived adoptee has SO MUCH to learn about American life.
Where I live, homeschooling regulations are minimal. No one comes to your door to check birth certificates and drag kids off to school. That is the perspective from which I wrote my earlier post on this topic. If you live in a state that regulates the heck out of homeschoolers, you’ll have less freedom. You may be stuck writing lesson plans and justifying a less structured approach to homeschooling, or even incorporating a workbook or two into your day.
It certainly makes sense to investigate the laws in your own state, and of course I would recommend working within the law. But plenty of learning can be done without desks and chalkboards. It is actually very possible to look at your daily ordinary activities with your child and write up a respectable (and honest) lesson plan describing the many things your new child is learning each day.
One final note regarding homeschooling regulation. Some folks are horrified to learn that some states require no oversight of homeschoolers. They picture a boatload of hillbilly kids playing in the mud all day learning nothing. Certainly in every state there are families (both public-schooling and homeschooling) who are not doing an adequate job with their children’s education, and their kids are suffering for it.
But homeschoolers in general tend to be motivated and involved parents who care deeply about their children’s well-being. Stadardized tests show that homeschooled children are successful learners. Why? It’s not the regulation (or lack of it)– it is having parents who care.
No one knows your kid better than you, and no one cares for your kid more than you. If you weigh all the options and decide that it would be in your child’s best interests to learn some language at home with you before hitting an all-English classroom, you’re not neglecting your child. You are tailoring your child’s educational experience to fit his needs, which is at the very core of a successful education experience.
I may have gone off on a little tangent here. I think that my reader’s question dealt less with the viability if homeschooling and more with the legality of taking a semester off, so back to that point. I am not naive enough to assume that every board of education in every town would see a semester of informal school the way I do. I would encourage you to do your homework and find out what is legal in your area.
But don’t discount your gut instinct, and don’t assume it can’t be done. You may indeed learn that it is completely possible to keep your child at home with you for a few months if that seems to be the best option for your particular child.
I appreciated your blog yesterday about hind-sight and not doing “school” with the girls for at least 6 months. We are just beginning our adoption journey from Ethiopia (which is how I found this site) AND we homeschool our three boys. Honest thoughts like the ones you posted yesterday always remind me of the freedom I have in homeschooling, and that I CAN do things “outside the box”– and even should!! Not to mention all the great info I am getting BEFORE we even bring home our little one, to help me stay flexible and humble about what may lie ahead
. So… Thank you!
Blessings and Merry Christmas,
Shari
I SOOOO agree with you about taking time off. from school! I made the mistake of sending one off to Kindergarten while I home schooled one. What a disaster for both kids! It was such a waste of time and really did nothing to aid in our attachment. We are actually repeating the same grade again, at home, this year and it is going so much better. Some kids are just not ready for school when they first arrive. My kids needed a year before they were really ready.
The important thing to understand is the backgrounds of the kids. My kids had NEVER attended school, so had no experience with school. They had lived far out in the country and needed to learn about plumbing, grocery stores, zoo animals, gas stations, libraries, etc.
In all honesty, they were in such a survivial mode the first 6-12 months, they don’t even recall a lot of the things we did. Now they are open to all kinds of activities and have great recollection of all we do.
We do live in a state where we have lots of freedom in homeschooling. Yesterday, we spent the afternoon learning balance, steering, gravity, propulsion, etc, as we went sledding down a fabulous hill near our local library.
Did they learn something? Oh yeah!!
Sharon
I kept Dora with me for six weeks. I eased her slowly into school, no bus rides and no “specials” at first, just the academics with ONE teacher. And she was English-speaking, of course! The school fought me, but to my advantage, they wanted to get her registered in time to collect money for her presence, so they acquiesced!
By the way, did you know that homeschooled children in highly regulated states actually test lower than homeschooled children in less or nonregulated states? How can that be? Could it be that parents in those states waste valuable teaching time, jumping through hoops for school officials? But I agree with John, who I believe comes from a RAD (etc.) background in adoption. Severely disturbed children might do better at home, but if they are wearing the parents to the bone, it ends up bad for everyone. Sometimes a break is just what is needed. Every child is different, and it can be tricky to read those needs and be flexible enough to provide for them.
(Ah, I’m able to comment again!)
It’s probably good that you fleshed this one topic out a little more.
Regarding the oversight and the comment above that kids in nonregulated states test better: I have no doubt! I spend so much energy worrying about how our school day and school work will look in the log to the administrators who see it, that it’s a struggle sometimes to focus on what my child actually needs to really learn at the moment! And then I spend far too much time preparing daily logs and portfolios… I feel very sure that my children would be much better served if I could focus 100% on them and not the monkey on my back.
(It’s fuinny: Today, as things wind down toward a break, I know for a fact that many public school kids around here did nothing more at school than have a party, watch a movie, and color a snowflake or something. Do you think it would be ok if I had days where I just wrote things like, “popcorn party, word search, and Frosty the Snowman DVD” on my daily log?! No. But they worry about regulating US to death?!)
Sign the above comment “Marian.” I never mean to be an anonymous commenter. =)
Scraps– how interesting that homeschooled kids in more-regulated states test lower. And, yes, I can totally understand your point about a parent’s need for a daily break from a kid with issues. When we were getting thru the toughest days, I was so grateful that my husband was able and willing to let me go run errands alone at times, or just sit at the library for a couple hours….
Mary