I want my kids to enjoy life!!!

[UnschoolingAmerica]

This might sound nuts. Well maybe not to others planning on hsing.
I don't want my kids to go through all the hours and hours of life wasted, as I did, wanting to be somewhere other than where I was.
Let me explain. can you remember being in school or church and just wishing so hard that you could be home or doing something fun? I did...all the time! (I am not anti-church, just using an example from my own life)
I don't want my kids to have to live like that. I remember dreading hearing that alarm clock go off every morning only to trunge out of bed and get on the bus and go somewhere I did not like to be! Then all day I would just wish time away waiting and waiting for school to be over to go home, only to go through it again and again for 12 years! UGG!!!
Don't get me wrong, some aspects of school were fun at times, but in general, I wished my childhood away wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else!
I DONT want that for my kids! I SO want it to be different. I want them to enjoy life to the absolute fullest. To go to bed when they are tired, get up when they want, and go and do fun things together as a family and learn together!
I know it is so out of the norm. But, it feels so right to me. I don't wanna have to go "school shopping" and spend hundreds just so my kids will "fit in". I want them to have better. Better than I did. I want them to have it all. To love life and love waking up every morning to a new, fresh, exciting day.
That is one of the biggest reasons we plan to homeschool. Be it small and petty and silly maybe, it is a good reason for me.

Dayna

"You did then what you knew how to do. When you knew better, you did better" Maya Angelou

[khrisday]

Dayna it doesn't sound wierd or silly to me at all. A better life is one of the main reasons why we are homeschooling. I do think it's a better life for my children, and for our family. Mine do wake when they want to, and although they have to be in their bedroom at a certain time (mom's sanity saver) they sleep when they are tired, and we do lots of fun things together during those "school hours". I always point out to my kids how their poor friends are siting in classrooms, and stuck with homework. My children definately know as much as their public schooled peers (more in many areas) and have the time to really follow their interests, as well as just be kids.

[Kylix]

In general, I wished my childhood away wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else!

Yes! Yes! I agree completely. I feel like my childhood was wasted too by unneccessary hours in doors, sitting and listening instead of outside, playing and doing!

I also want my children to wake when they are rested and ready to greet the day and not at such an early hour as 6am. As a teenager, I had the hardest time with that. And studies are beginning to show that teens do better later in the day and need more sleep than preschoolers and therefore aren't getting the sleep they need. What's with that? I want my children to go to bed when they are tired and not have to be put to bed at 7 or 8 or 9 cuz they have to be up so early in the morning (though like khrisday I would insist upon quieter activities at night...reading, relaxing in bed, playing with quiet toys or sleeping after a certain hour.

In general, I don't want my child's lives to be centered around going to school. I don't want to feel rushed and controlled by that. I don't want to have to say " you can't do that cuz you have school tomorrow, or busy work (homework) to do, or there's no time in the day for that"

I don't think that is silly or weird at all, Dayna!!!
That is one of the main reasons why my children will be homeschooled/ unschooled.

Kylix

[Linda in Arizona]

When people ask why we homeschool, I am always tempted to say:

"Because school is a waste of time and not very educational."

People who kids' attend school sometimes ask me if my kids get bored and say they are glad for their kids to be busy with school so that they don't just watch TV. I don't know how to tell them, without being very rude, that my kids like to play.

[hydrangea]

I totally agree.

My husband and I were convinced about homeschooling/unschooling from a stack of old Growing Without Schooling magazines a friend leant us. I loved reading what the children had to write. There was one issue that focused on "one thing leads to another." The children wrote about how one seemingly not so exciting enterprise lead into something else which lead into something else, and before you knew it, they had learned huge amounts of really impressive stuff while having fun! In contrast, I remember spending my nights reading and writing in my journal under the covers with a flashlight because that was the only time I had for me. If only I'd had the time to read and write during the day and go with my dreams!

[SagMom]

Small and petty?????? No, it's HUGE, really. By the time our children would graduate high school, they'd have spent 13 of their 18 years in that environment, wishing they were somewhere else.

My oldest spent 3 1/2 years in public school--with his teachers trying to make it fun, with me trying to make it fun, but for all our trying, he was not happy. He hated school, he hated afterschool and weekends because homework intruded. We were making arrangements to pull him out to homeschool when he told me, in tears, "I have no time to be with my family, I can't do anything I want to do, I have no life!" That's when I knew we'd never go back and that we'd made a terrible mistake enrolling him in the first place.

I wish we'd had your insight, Dayna, before we got on the public school road.

[sweetsage]

I have vivid memories from kindergarten of just staring over the fence in the playground planning my escape. I really felt like I was in a prison, and I just wanted to be out there with all the people in the real world! I always did well in school (grade wise) but I spent nearly 13 years feeling trapped! I totally agree that our children deserve better than that! My brother had such awful experiences in public school (teachers telling the whole class that he was dumb because he didn't know how to tie his shoes! teachers attempting to fail him because he was hispanic, in elementary school! and the list goes on and on. It took my mother a long long time to undo the damage and I know for a fact that it still affects him every day, and he is 24 now!) The more I read about homeschooling (my son is only 2) the more I feel like it was our destiny, just waiting there for me to discover it and open up a whole new world for us! SO in other words, I just wanted to say Right ON!

-Elizabeth

[TreeLove]

SING IT, SISTER!

I ALWAYS wanted to be somewhere else. I was also in the top of my class, so I spent HOURS a day waiting for the slower kids to finish the work so we could move on. I actually got in trouble for reading in class! I would hide my book in my desk and read while the teacher was talking....then when there were times that I didn't "get" what the teachers were talking about I was too shy to raise my hand and admit that everyone else seemed to understand, but I didn't. I also remember feeling like I NEVER fit in and I had total anxiety about going to school. I used to cry on the bus (I'm talking up until highschool! ). I just wated despartely to feel comfortable and happy. I also was NEVER encouraged to explore or investigate or learn anything on my own and with school in the way there was never any time. I also have 2 children who were born 11 weeks premature and are somewhat delayed. If Emmet Moon needs to take four months to learn 1+1, I think he should.

He's ENTITLED to learn at his own pace. It's his birthright!

Now, that said, they are in public school right now. They are Special Ed preschool. I'm gonna keep them there for this year, and possibly kindergarten, til I have a good handle on what kind of learning disabilities they have. They have a WONDERFUL teacher who put her own LD dd through Waldorf and has her room set up in a waldorf style. She is the only lady I know (besides myself) who can get punched or bitten by them and still love them!

I am actually in the process of learning about hsing and trying to figure out what we want to do in the Fall of 2003.....

[hydrangea]

Originally posted by TreeLove
I ALWAYS wanted to be somewhere else. I was also in the top of my class, so I spent HOURS a day waiting for the slower kids to finish the work so we could move on. I actually got in trouble for reading in class! I would hide my book in my desk and read while the teacher was talking....then when there were times that I didn't "get" what the teachers were talking about I was too shy to raise my hand and admit that everyone else seemed to understand, but I didn't. I also remember feeling like I NEVER fit in and I had total anxiety about going to school. I used to cry on the bus (I'm talking up until highschool! ). I just wated despartely to feel comfortable and happy.

I could have written this. Word for word. I particularly hated reading lessons, when we'd go around the class and everyone would read a paragraph from a chapter book. I was already reading books that were much harder and reading them much faster than much of the class, so I'd get bored as hell. So I'd read ahead, get caught up in the story, and then when my turn came around, I'd sound stupid because I didn't know where I supposed to read. That was torture. I hated school.

[joyful_mamma]

I can third what TreeLove said. I too was far ahead of my classmates in reading, and was always frustrated by the fact that I couldn't go at my own pace.

This is in part why we recently made the decision to homeschool our daughter. She is also ahead of most of her classmates in reading, but yet a little behind in math. I find it very frustrating that she's not allowed to do anything at her own pace, but is rather forced to learn whatever has been deemed appropriate for her age group. What about having room for individuality? Everyone learns at a different rate. It's really ridiculous if you ask me.

The other main reason we've made the decision to homeschool is exactly what Dayna posted about. I don't want my daughter to spend her life cooped up in a stuffy classroom. There is sooo much to see and experience and learn in this world, and I really don't feel that public school gives children much opportunity to see and experience and learn much of anything. It seems to base learning on weird standardized rules about age, and there's far too much 'you must sit down, shut up, and be mindless' going on for my tastes. I also don't like the fact that when my daughter's not in school, she feels like she has to cram all her living into the available hours. I want her to live everyday! all day! Not just after 3 pm on weekdays and on weekends and during vacations. And I also don't want her to associate learning with school. I want her to realize that learning takes place all the time-every moment we spend on this earth is an opportunity to learn something.

And she should be able to have fun! She is only 9, for Goddesses sake! Why should her life have to be so regimented? I think it only encourages children to grow up to be regimented, non free thinking adults. (and we certainly don't need any more of those in the world..More freethinkers, I say! )

Anyway, I'm soooooo glad we've made the decision to homeschool, for so many reasons. It makes me wonder why more parents don't take the homeschooling route!

[kel]

I love your post Dayna, and Linda's, too! It makes me so happy and excited for my kids whenever I think about all the amazing things they'll have time to do in their lives without school getting in the way!
-Kelly

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George Bernard Shaw -- born 1856, Dublin; died 1950
winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature:

. . . and there is, on the whole, nothing on earth
intended for innocent people so horrible as a school.
To begin with, it is a prison. But it is in some
respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for
instance, you are not forced to read books written by
the warders (who of course would not be warders and
governors if they could write readable books), and
beaten or otherwise tormented if you cannot remember
their utterly unmemorable contents. In the prison you
are not forced to sit listening to the turnkeys
discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that
they don't understand and don't care about, and are
therefore incapable of making you understand or care
about. In a prison they may torture your body; but
they do not torture your brains; and they protect you
against violence and outrage from your
fellow-prisoners. In a school you have none of these
advantages. With the world's bookshelves loaded with
fascinating and inspired books, the very manna sent
down from Heaven to feed your souls, you are forced to
read a hideous imposture called a school book, written
by a man who cannot write: A book from which no human
can learn anything: a book which, though you may
decipher it, you cannot in any fruitful sense read,
though the enforced attempt will make you loathe the
sight of a book all the rest of your life.
"A Treatise on Parents and Children," preface to
Misalliance (1909), reprinted in Bernard Shaw:
Collected Plays with Their Prefaces, volume IV (1972),
page 35.

[Brydean]

I AGREE!!
Even now when I pass a school on a nice day I feel sorry for the kids inside. Trapped in a stuffy boring classroom, just waiting for the day too end! If I want too pack up my kids and go too the park or the zoo. I want too be able too do it without someone telling me they belong in school. I want too be able too set up a classroom in the yard and enjoy nature while learning! I want them too enjoy education not dread it! I don't want too force an active child too sit still all day, when I know they will learn better if they can move around, and have an active part in thier learning! Not too mention why should anyone have too ask permission and possibly have it denied, too preform such a basic function as going too the bathroom!

[Itlbokay]

Dayna everything you wrote is how I feel too. I did well in school and had lots of great friends but it never felt right to me either. As soon as my DS was born I remember holding him in my arms and thinking "how can I ever send him off to school?" Well I did send him off...1 year of preschool, k and then first grade. I am so excited to say that this will be our first year of homeschooling. I think he is elated to know that he will not have to get up 5 mornings a week and have his days mapped out by other people. Steph