NOW he wants them in school ... ?!

[blueholly]

I'm in the middle of a divorce & now homeschooling is becoming a contentious issue. We were dead set against the kids going to school. Now we're here 9 years later & he wants them in school b/c "someone" told him our dd is lacking in some skill areas (well, she excels in others!) & my retort was that not all 9 yos are on the same skill level.

Truly, it's because I'm the homeschool mom & now he feels it was MY idea so he wants them in school.

I plan to start a career that would have me work only 2-4 hours a day during the week & still be there for the children. I think that's the most important thing. At this point, they will remain homeschooled this year and be "evaluated" to determine whether or not they need to be put in school. I'm absolutely sick about it.

Now as a single parent, I cannot afford HSLDF & don't even know if they can get involved in something like this. I did contact an HSLDF lawyer here early on, thinking this might be an issue but he said he's never heard of homeschooling being an issue in divorce. But I absolutely cannot be the first one ever to encounter this.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by blueholly

Now as a single parent, I cannot afford HSLDF & don't even know if they can get involved in something like this. I did contact an HSLDF lawyer here early on, thinking this might be an issue but he said he's never heard of homeschooling being an issue in divorce. But I absolutely cannot be the first one ever to encounter this.

Incredible that he would say that - divorce and custody disputes are at the root of the main legal hassles people ever run into where homeschooling is concerned! But it's my understanding that HSLDA doesn't get involved in those kinds of disputes anyway. Here's a page of articles that may be helpful.

All the best with this! Lillian

[tankgirl73]

XH and I divorced when DS was 3, almost 4. We had already decided to homeschool, but during the separation mediation, he said he now wanted DS to go to school. In part, it was to get french immersion (which was the only reason I would even CONSIDER sending him to school), but also, as it turns out, because he didn't trust me to do it well. He was only okay with it before because he would be there to keep an eye on things. And (not that it's even necessary to homeschool) but I am a trained teacher by trade. Music, not "classroom", but still, I have LOADS of research and experience with concepts of pedagogy in general and working with children.

Yeah, trust issues were a factor in the divorce... heh...

We ended up agreeing that he would "let me" homeschool until grade 4, so long as we got an independent evaluation at the end of each school year starting in grade 1. If 2 consecutive tests showed a lack of progress then school would be considered (and we talked about what we meant by 'lack of progress', with the understanding that there's a wide range of normal, so it wasn't primarily about comparison with other kids but with progress from year to year).

Grade 4 was chosen because that was the other entry point for french immersion. At grade 4, we would then re-evaluate whether or not to continue homeschooling.

Well, grade 4 came and went without a peep from his dad about going to school. I think he's been well-convinced about the advantages.

Perhaps your soon-to-be-ex would consider something similar. Keep homeschooling as you are already accustomed, with independent evaluations that you both agree on, and if and ONLY if there is a serious lack of progress from year to year, then you would consider school.

And in the meantime, he might be interested in the MANY advantages homeschooling offers for divorced couples. The primary one of those is flexibility in visitations. When XH was a PhD student he had very odd hours of availability, and we were able to totally work around those so that DS could spend time with him when he was available and not worry about getting him to school. When XH moved to another province, DS was able to visit him for a month at a time without worrying about getting "behind" in his class - we just used that as his "vacation", wherever in the year it happened to fall.

There were no battles or questions about whose turn it was to pick him up from school. Or even -- what school he would go to! XH had originally wanted him to go to school in XH's catchment area -- which would be ridiculous since by our schedule I'd be the one likely to have to get him to and from school most days.

In other words, there were a lot of practical, organizational matters (nothing to do with the education issue itself) that are just plain simpler when homeschooling.

[Lillian J]

Here's another good article - it's by a lawyer who homeschooled her children:

Homeschooling and Custody Issues: Compromise and Education are the Keys to Success.

And here's a page of links to articles having to do with Working & Single Parents. And it includes links to email groups where Working & Single parents discuss issues that come up for them - I'm sure this is one of the things that comes up often.

And this thread has discussion and links to other threads in which people share lots of tips on how to convince skeptical family members about homeschooling: help? need research support for DH. he thinks i'm nuts for wanting to HS!


Lillian

[ladybugmomto2]

Blueholly:

I just wanted to say that I am in the SAME position...exactly. I'm just devastated, and so will my 9yr old be if he has to attend traditional school. I'm trying to present Montessori (we have one here that serves ages 4.5-12) as, at the very least, a option as a transition into public school, to my ex husband.

From everything I've heard/read, when there is a disagreement between parents about schooling, the judge almost always goes with public school. My ex has NEVER wanted them in PS in elementary school, so I'm sure this is coming from either the new girlfriend OR his desire to hurt me/exercise control. It's highly frustrating, and I just want what is best for my boys.
Anyway, I feel your pain, and it's very unfortunate. I hope that it works out for the best for both of our children.

[SundayCrepes]

Someone local had the same problems during divorce. Except her kids were older, one was well into high school. Mom did not have an attorney. The judge ordered school even though the kids did not want to go to school. Then dad left town.

Make sure you have a good attorney if you can't agree with your soon to be ex. And I mean a bulldog. We did a court battle with my husband's ex-wife. We hired a very nice attorney with great ethics. The ex-wife hired a jerk. The nasty attorney blocked us getting a custody evaluation. They brought in a counselor who lied (and blocked our ability to get another counselor.) Although we filed with the state against the counselor, it took them years to evaluate the situation. Although they sanctioned that counselor for what she did to us (and the court system no longer allows her to testify,) the kids were so close to grown by the time that happened that we let it all rest.

Again, moral of the story, court totally depends on your attorneys and not the facts/merits of the case. Sorry.

[tankgirl73]

I was writing very late last night, and so I forgot to mention something else.

Divorce is very stressful on kids. Their family is being torn apart, their world is falling around them, everything in their life is changing. One thing that is frequently recommended for helping kids deal with divorce, is keeping as much as possible in their life the SAME.

Starting school is a huge change for a child, for any child. Even if it's an enjoyable change, the change itself is stressful. (Any "how much stress are you under" test recognizes this -- even a positive change like a marriage does add stress, just from the change itself.)

And any teacher will tell you that children undergoing a divorce fare less well in their classrooms. A previously model student will suddenly change, not able to pay attention, not getting homework done, even behaviour problems... and it turns out that their parents were getting divorced.

These facts mean that right now is very probably NOT the right time to start your daughter in school. Even IF you both were in agreement that she should go to school, doing so in the middle of the divorce is probably too much change at one time. She'll already be feeling that both of her parents are being torn away from her -- and kids commonly feel rejected in divorce cases as well. Then on top of that, she gets "sent away" to school, where she will spend 2/3 of her waking hours away from both of her parents, leaving her far, far less time to spend with either one of them, time that now has to be further divided between them rather than both together. From her perspective, she would feel unwanted.

If your ex has your daughter's best interests in mind, he should be able to understand this. Perhaps he would be agreeable to just continuing to homeschool for THIS YEAR, because it would be maintaining her status quo, her comfort zone, her familiar routines, as much as possible amid all the other changes. Then NEXT YEAR, once she's had time to adjust to the new situation, once both the parents have had a chance to "cool off" about the disputes (and ideally with you having some independent testing to back up your case), then you agree that you will revisit and re-assess the school/homeschool situation.

EDIT: After writing all that, I realized that your initial post did mention that this is basically what you're doing right now... homeschooling for this year and 'evaluating' next year. Hopefully, after things have calmed down, your ex will have come to see the many advantages, which I described previously, that homeschooling offers to divorced parents. As I said in our situation, after the initial agreement, really no mention was made again of public school from my ex. A couple times, he sent me info on an alternative school he'd learned about, I looked into it, explained why it probably wasn't the right fit for our son, and never heard about it again.

Just make sure you agree to an 'evaluation' that's not some court-ordered school-board representative, because that would not be an unbiased representative! Do some sort of standardized testing (the PASS is geared specifically to homeschoolers but also provides comparison with the public school averages), perhaps, or find a local homeschool association who might know of a school board homeschool counselor who actually is fair, something like that.