Single & Homeschooling?

[momma2finn]

So, my eyes were opened to a wonderful possibility today! I had a lengthy chat with Finn's very cool day care provider. She is a married mama with two younglings, and we share very similiar ideas about raising children. She is going to start homeschooling her babes soon...and then I had all kinds of crazy ideas! I want to bounce them of you guys and see what you think before I discuss them with anyone irl.

1. Maybe she could take Finn on as a homeschooler when he gets older?

2. Maybe! I could work PT and help him be homeschooled/spend lots more time with him??

3. MAYBE!! we could join forces and do day care/homeschooling together???

Let me add to the equation here-my mom is buying a larger house and Finn and I are moving in with her. I groom dogs for a living, so I could theoretically still do that part time AND help with day care/homeschooling.

So what do you guys think?

(hell yes I told her about MDC -- she said she'd check it out tonight!)

[cheyennemama]

I knew a homeschooling mama and she and another mom did it together. Each took on 1/2 the subjects and together they schooled their 7? kids.

I think you could do it!

[Dar]

I've been a single homeschooling(unschooling) mama for going on 8 years now... no child support, no family support, and life is very, very good.

dar

[yaM yaM]

Wow, that's very cool, Dar.

If you don't mind sharing - how are you able to maintain your financial independence?

[Dar]

It has varied, through the years... currently I have a 13 year old, so it's pretty easy. I started grad school last month, which means we're living on loans, plus I substitute teach about once a week and I teach and tutor test prep as well. For a while I worked for a charter school that enrolled homeschoolers, so I met with families as their educational facilitator and brought Rain with me, and then I did paperwork and ordering from home. I did ebay and sold books online for a while, until everyone and his brother started doing it and the market became saturated... I still occasionally dip into that, but not very often. We lived on a farm for 3 years and did some caretaker stuff in exchange for rent, although truth be told we were pretty lucky to have a wonderful friend with an empty house on his property, albeit a fairly run-down house..

Rain babysits, and she's worked as an actress and a receptionist and a newspaper delivery girl. She's very self-sufficient.

Dar

[Satori]

There's a lot of HS moms here and there's even several yahoogroups for single HS'ing parents Do a search and you'll find a number of posts from single HS'ing moms and how they do it.

ps: check your states laws, I know in my state the parent is required to do the majority of the teaching.

[Zyla]

I've always homeschooled; always been single (well, except for a few years during which I was entangled with the evil ex, but I was still a single mama to my first during that time).

Anyway, I've always done some sort of work, or gone to school: been a nanny, a housecleaner, worked at home for thirteen years doing piece work and data entry; now I'm a full time student again, hoping for grad school next fall. (Planning on writing, doing research and college teaching).

It is absolutely possible to do and do well.

[momma2finn]

Thanks for the feedback!

Do any of the states you ladies live in have rules for yearly testing or accredited teacher co-operation?

How easy do you student mamas think it would be to work on a BSN while working PT and homeschooling?

How do you deal with skeptical X's and X's family? (or skeptics in general)

Dar & Zyla-
You mamas are wonderful! What do you think is the most difficult aspect of homeschooling? Specifically unschooling-that's what this mama and I both seem most interested in.

Thanks Again Everyone!

[pranamama]

Doggrooming sounds neat to me. I was thinking about dog-walking once all my little ones are in school.

My friends that homeschool join local coops, I would look around locally and see if you click with any of the groups. They have so many resources and get discounts to almost everything, science museum, iceskating etc...

If you are excited about something it leads to great success Isn't that in fortune cookies or something. I'd say go for it.

[Metasequoia]

I'm a single unschooling SAHM, it's trikcy this yr because Ds is 6 months old, not tricky, just plain exhausting. But, we're unschoolers, so I cut myself some slack, my theory is, they learn through everyday life. Dd1 is proof of that, IMHO, she is brilliant!

Ex is a jerk & thinks I should put the kids in school. We've never been to court, so I have no idea what problems he could cause as far as disagreeing with my hsing.

We are members of a local FNL (families for natural living) chapter, with about 150-200 families, many of whom homeschool. We organized a homeschool co-op twice a week & each mama takes turns "teaching" (really just a storytelling type of teaching.) We have different themes each session & rent a basement of a church that has a kitchen so we can even do cooking! It ends up costing each family $1.50 a month - yep, you read that correctly .

[Dar]

Originally Posted by momma2finn

Dar & Zyla-
You mamas are wonderful! What do you think is the most difficult aspect of homeschooling? Specifically unschooling-that's what this mama and I both seem most interested in.

It has probably changed as Rain has gotten older, but the biggest thing for me has just been the logistics. We both tend to have a lot going on, and getting each of us where we need to be at the times we need to be there gets tricky. It's actually a lot better now that we've moved to a small college town, because Rain can walk or bike or take a bus to a lot of places.

We've never lived anywhere with testing regs, and Rain's dad has no power over her life - we were never married and he's never paid for anything, he just bops in and out every few years. I like it that way.

We never did any co-ops, because Rain wasn't really interested in that kind of learning situation (and neither was I, honestly).

I was a fulltime college student when Rain was little, and I'm in school FT and working PT now. For me, unschooling isn't really any different than parenting - it's all the same thing, because we live and learn. I didn't work when I got my B.A., because I made enough to live on with scholarships and grants.

Dar

[MissLotus]

I'm so glad this topic was raised! I never even considered home-schooling before YESTERDAY. My son started Kindergarten and though he did very well in pre-school, is so abnormally miserable, that if this keeps up, I would love to home-school. Not to mention, I want to BE with my child!

Just the finances here are very tough. I'm very interested in what you all have to say about your experiences!

[ssandna]

Yes!!!! You Can Do It!!!

to be honest I would LOVE to see this as a separate forum on MDC. My daughter is 11 and this is our 2nd year homeschooling. I've been single all but the first 5 months of my daughter's life. I work part time as a nurse, bring my daughter with me to an assisted living facility. I'm with DAR, life is really good. She's smart and much happier and so am I. there are different laws regarding homeschooling in each state. what state are you in? one group I have found helpful is [e-mail]. Biggest hassle for me, BAR NONE, has been her dad, and that would be a hassle no matter what we were doing. : : : : : :

[momma2finn]

I'm in Iowa. Finn's day care provider mentioned that there is a law here requiring standardized testing OR teacher involvement in lesson plans. There is a religious exemption, subject to yearly approval. Frankly I have no interest in masquerading as a religious homeschooler in order to go that route.

Here's a question that might seem silly-when do you begin unschooling? The obvious answer seems to be that we're doing it as we speak, however, is there any sort of plan that you start with? Finn is ten months now, and I think it would be best to work FT another year or two and save up some money. I also encountered something that bothered me a little bit - do unschooling families really let children go without learning to read? I know you shouldn't push the learning, but I really appreciated being able to read when I was five and six. I loved reading, and that was how I liked to learn. (my parents were both working FT when I was little) I don't think I could let Finn go that long without sitting down and teaching him how to read. Do children really not show interest in reading for that long?

I'm concerned with what my family and X's family will say when I present my plan. My mother disagrees with homeschooling, and so does X and his family. I suppose they will just have to deal with it if I decide to keep Finn at home.

I agree, I think we need a sub-forum for this topic!

[Zyla]

Um ... there is the Learning at Home and Beyond forum. Or do you mean a sub forum specific to being a single mother and homeschooling?

If your baby is only ten months old at the moment, I wouldn't sweat it a whole lot right now. Do lots of reading, ask questions, seek out homeschoolers in your community -- join a group if possible. The homeschooling info and support group I'm a part of allows families to join even if their kids are "too young," technically speaking, to be homeschooling. Maybe there is something like that in your area.

Over time, hopefully your extended family would become more comfortable with the idea. You've got a number of years to convince them ...

RE: unschooling. Eh, I'm not all that fond of lables. I use "unschooling" because it pretty much fits what we do. Every family who homeschools will look different from the next. For us ... we do a combination of what the kids want to learn/do, when they want to learn/do it; and I throw in liberal amounts of what I want/expect them to be learning. There's a fair amount of ebb and flow. It works for us. I'm not a particularly rigid person. I've never used a pre-packaged curriculum, but I am very bookish and so are all of my kids. (Blog link down below if you're interested in some "daily life" glimpses).

The thing with unschooling is ... there's a real wide range of what it means, or looks like in any given family: pretty much like anything else in life, you know?

RE: difficult aspects to homeschooling ... um ... in all honesty: it's all good! I love homeschooling my kids; it isn't so much an education choice as a lifestyle choice. I'm still going strong seventeen years after becoming a mother and even if I never have any more kids (though I hope/plan to), I've got another fourteen years of homeschooling ahead of me.

Like Ssandna, for me the ex is the biggest difficulty, and that would be true regardless.

[Dar]

Originally Posted by momma2finn

Here's a question that might seem silly-when do you begin unschooling? The obvious answer seems to be that we're doing it as we speak, however, is there any sort of plan that you start with? Finn is ten months now, and I think it would be best to work FT another year or two and save up some money. I also encountered something that bothered me a little bit - do unschooling families really let children go without learning to read?

There are a whole lot of threads on unschooling in the Learning at Home and Beyond forum, if you haven't checked yet.

Unschooling is pretty much doing what all good parenst do, I think, except that you don't add "school". You spend time with your kids, share, respond, talk, explore, listen, discuss, suggest, and all sorts of things. I don't have an educational agenda for my daughter, because I trust her to know what skills she needs to live and thrive. It's worked very well so far. Some unschooled kids read at 2 or 3, and others at 12 or 13. Reading is developmental, and not all kids' brains are ready at 6. Rain was an early reader, and this week she's reading Lolita and Catcher in the Rye (I've never read the first and thought the second was fairly dull, FWIW, but I'm a non-fiction person and she's big into fiction). She's also dancing 16 hours a week, and I never would have guessed when she was 10 months old that the skills she'd really need to succeed at 13 would be dance-related... but they are, and those are the things she's working on.

My goal, up until a year or two ago, was to support us in the way that meant I spent the least amount of time away from Rain possible. YMMV...

dar

[momma2finn]

Again, thanks for the info!

I have spent quite a bit of time lurking in the learning at home and beyond forum. I guess I should post there, I really like it here though! (hehe)

You have given me plenty to think about. I've spent the last several days educating myself - I'm thrilled, because until yesterday, homeschooling was something I thought I would just have to dream about!

[SoulJourney]

Momma2Finn: I am DEFINITELY wanting to homeschool Noah, too. Too bad we don't live near each other...I was thinking it would be nice to have a fellow homeschooling single mama so that we could work as a team. My family is VERY supportive of my decision and wish that my brother would even let me HS my nephew. Ex, on the other hand, well...that one *might* be a different story, if only for the sake of arguing with me. That's several years down the road, though, so I'm not worrying about it. Technically because of cutoff dates he won't even be allowed in K until he's almost six anyway so we'll have a good start on "proving" ourselves!

ETA: Wouldn't it be nice if we could at least have a sticky in the Single Parents forum for this topic? I wonder who we see about that b/c it would definitely be very helpful and supportive to see so many single mamas (& papas?) doing this.

[yaM yaM]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Dar.


I love hearing about your choices and I totally agree with this priority:

Originally Posted by Dar

My goal, up until a year or two ago, was to support us in the way that meant I spent the least amount of time away from Rain possible. YMMV...

[momma2finn]

Peacefulmommy-
maybe we could support each other anyway! like pen pals...I always wanted one of those.

I know our boys are still very young, but I need to figure out what to do now, ykwim? I want to be able to work my butt off for the next few years so that I have less financial headaches if i do work PT and HS.

And I agree, a sticky on single parent homeschooling would be very appreciated!


PM me anytime if you want to talk!