[Chinese Pistache]

If so, what challenges did you encounter when you started hsing? Did your dc resist? How did you solve that problem?

I guess this is more for hsers and not unchoolers. We'll be a little of both I'm sure. Still, I'm curious about the transition and if you can tell me how it was and how you dealt with it.

 

[ABand3]

My DS did public K and a couple months of 1st before hs'ing. He liked K, but was frustrated and bored in 1st, so he was ready for a change. We slowly mentioned the idea of hs'ing for a month or two before we pulled him out, and the only hesitancy he had was missing his friends. He had only known these kids for a couple months, and wasn't best buddies with anyone, so we were confident it would pass.

He had a just a couple of instances of crying and missing his old class after he'd been home, but only when he was either overtired or something else was stressing him.

Before his last day I took him to pick out business card paper and on the computer we made him cards with his name, our phone # and email for him to pass out to all his 'friends', teachers, etc. That made him feel better, and he did get a couple of calls/emails at first.

We also tried to keep busy going to a lot of hs group events, so he'd quickly meet a lot of kids, and I encourage him to play with neighborhood kids whenvever they are available after school (which he didn't get as much of in school b/c of the hour of homework).

The only other issue in the transition is my expectation that he'd be able to do more independant work/reading than he's been willing to do. It's getting better, but if I had to do it all over again I would try hard to throw out any expectations, and just spend time assessing how to best spend our days.

 

[frogguruami]

DS HATED reading even though he could read several grade levels above where he should have been. He has been out of school for almost 2 years and we are just getting to the point that he enjoyed reading. Up to this point I would have to assign him reading times. He was allowed to read anything he wanted but he had to read for 10 minutes each day. The trick with this was finding something he really enjoyed even if it wasn't the most educational or classical story. He loves Captain Underpants (which I think are awful) and Star Wars books. Comics have become a favorite too.

He also had issues with getting things wrong. If he did something wrong, like a math problem, he would fall apart. It took a lot of reassurance that being wrong wasn't a bad thing. For a while I would work his math with him so we could avoid writing down an incorrect answer. Once it made it on paper it was set in stone for him. So if we could work through things before they made it to paper things were easier. It took about 9 or 10 months to work through that. He still doesn't like being wrong but it isn't the end of the world anymore.

 

[Copper]

We did not spend much time in PS. Dd was in for 4 days actually before we pulled her out. Prior to that she had three 1/2 days in a private school I wanted to try to see if it would work out for us for K. Right before the K year started the private school closed. My dh was not exactly ready to try homeschooling we figured how "bad" could the local public school be.....

At any rate after the 4 days dd came to us crying and spilled the beans about some of the goings on in school. This pertained to bullying and the lack of supervision as this took place at lunch, in the restroom, playground, you name it. So her experience at this school was NOT positive in any way.
We also knew one family that homeschooled and it is something I thought about but was not sure about because we only had her I was afraid it would be boring for her. She did say she missed one friend she must have really liked there and her teacher. She does not want to go back. I have found that she really likes "structure" though and a routine she does not like if we are too laid back.

We took it easy for the first week or so but she got bored quickly so we started right in and have never looked back. We found a h.s. group and go to most activities and field trips - sometimes we find we need to find/make time for schoolwork

She did great this last year which of course brought dh totally on board.