what made your conviction so strong...

Sometimes I waver too, just because it can be hard at times. But just because something is hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. If I feel like I need some instant encouragement I read John Holt quotes...Here's a couple of my favorites...

"Children do not need to be made to learn to be better, told what to do
or shown how. If they are given access to enough of the world, they will
see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to
others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world
then anyone else could make for them"

~John Holt in "How Children Fail"

True learning - learning that is permanent and useful, that leads to intelligent action and further learning -- can arise only out of the experience, interest, and concerns of the learner. -- John Holt

"Young people should have the right to control and direct their own learning, that is, to decide what they want to learn, and when, where, how, how much, how fast, and with what help they want to learn it. To be still more specific, I want them to have the right to decide if, when, how much,and by whom they want to be taught and the right to decide whether they want to learn in a school and if so which one and for how much of the time.

No human right, except the right to life itself, is more fundamental than this. A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech."

"Escape From Childhood", John Holt

Hang in there, hang out here for encouragement!

The comments are SO hard! Esp. those made by strangers, IMO. I am usually polite to them but am crushed inside myself when they make judgemental comments. Then I think about the special times I have with my kids that I wouldn't have if they were in school. The things that we have time to do together. The things they get to do with eachother, with children of all ages, with older people, with their grandparents, neighbors, ect. I think of how much I hated school. I hated being locked in that building all day, esp on glorious winter/snowy days and beautiful spring/fall days. I think of how I wanted to lay in bed all day reading and rereading my fav books like Little House on the Prairie, Charlotte's Web, ect. I remember how the magical time of childhood is so fleeting and even more fleeting when kids are in school. I think of the delight in my children's eyes when they learn to sound out a word, teach themselves multiplication, how they delight in watching our butterflies fly off into the big world. Anyway, I could go on and on. It IS hard, that's for sure, but forever worth it.

Well, all the "comments" seem to be made by the same people who think things like cow's based formula is just as good as, or better than human milk, for a human baby, and that a 2 week old is "manipulating" you, and needs to learn to put themselves to sleep, and eat on a 4 hour schedule, and that NIP is just inappropriate, and women need to do that in the bathroom or stay home for the whole 6 weeks they nurse, and that of course what kids need is a good hard spanking to keep them in line.

I just stopped listening to those people a long time ago.

I didn't need a strong conviction to nurse, or not spank etc. I just had to come to realize that I made my choices because I thought those choices were right for us.

I think homeschooling is the right choice for us. So that's what I'm going with. And EVERY choice comes with harder phases than others, or some more difficult aspects. The grass isn't always greener.

My conviction became stronger with time. At first, homeschooling was something we were going to "try out." I found a lot of things about homeschooling attractive, and ps sure wasn't working out well for ds, but still, I was very nervous to take the plunge.

I said, at the beginning, that we were taking things one year at a time, because it all felt so overwhelming and I wasn't certain that the critics didn't have any good points.

But hsing quickly became a lifestyle, rather than just an educational choice and it's just so obvious to me that this is a great fit for our family. Our lives are much happier now than when we used the ps.

So, if it helps you to think short-term, you could always just stand on the, "This is good for our family right now." platform and leave the future open. Since others' comments are bothering you, people might back off if they think you're just trying it out. After that, you can let your own hsing experiences speak for your decision and your conviction will grow based on that.

I think it's great to have done research and thought about the benefits of hsing as others have described them, but without discounting what the "experts" have to say, it will be your own experiences with hsing that will make you want to continue.

What made my convictions so strong?

~My own school experience of being academically unchallenged and socially ostracized

~Our family's values, which conflict with those of the public schools

~My love for my kids and desire to be with them

~My experience editing textbooks, during which I became convinced that textbooks are created to sell well, not to educate children

Namaste!

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My thoughts exactly.

This rings true to me too:

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My conviction grew out of a number of reasons, specifically these...

1. I'm a teacher and I know that it's a real hit-or-miss profession: some are great, some are mediocre, and a LOT are dreadful.

2. Every elementary teacher I've ever encountered, with the exception of my SIL, has been unbelievably narrowminded, detail-focused (to the point of losing the actual purpose of education), and many, many of them have seem to have stepped straight out of a Pink Floyd song.

3. My kid is very different from the norm and would not be adequately accomodated

4. Teaching is not rocket science.

5. If my hubs and I teach my child, we can go exactly at her pace.

6. We both were terribly bullied in school in different ways and neither of us want to put our daughter through anything close to something like what we went through.

7. We want our daughter to understand that education is about learning, not about conformity.

8. We want to shelter her from gangs, drugs, Mean Girls, people dressed like whores, and other people with basically bad attitudes and poor ethics. This includes teachers and administrators.

That's about it.

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wow! I came to the right place! This is all how I feel about my children...but I've been so indecisive lately (ppd induced I think) and the comments are really swaying me.

But Sara, this is SOOO true. In fact, my neighbor whose comments specifically affected me, ask Cameron and I if we've "Ferberized Ellery yet"....We were stunned and said no, we like Dr. Sears way. She told us how she left her 4 month old in a crib and said I love you, good night and "after 4 days of her crying, she didn't cry anymore" She did BF for a year though! This is also the same neighbor who said "I think Kaya needs time away from you...all kids need a break from their moms". A break! 5 days a week for 7 hours is a looooong break if you ask me. This is also the same parent that gave me a photocopied article from Psychology Today about parents who "over-parent". Basically says, if I don't cut the cord, my daughter is going to have low self-esteem, no sense of self direction, anxiety, depression, lack of motivation. :

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good thought there, Joan!

So anyway, I'm bookmarking all your responses so I have something to read when I'm feeling swayed. Now I realize that comments about homeschooling my daughter are just as personal as my decision to attachment parent my kids. I have to follow my instinct for my daughter. I went to the open house for the progressive public school with an amazing reputation to boot and it just didn't feel right. I also asked to see the work the first graders were doing and it's just not the way Kaya learns. Kaya is very hands on and only learns what she is curious about at the time. She will not thrive in a force-fed school....I just need to remind myself that! The pressure to institutionalize our kids is so strong... :

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These two points are part of what really keeps me certain about homeschooling. I was a volunteer teacher in the Arctic and two things kept me away from wanting to ever certify. One was justr how disrespectfully the teachers talk about their students in the staff room. It was awful. This was an elementary school and teachers were always gossiping about the kids and their families and complaining about kids they deemed stupid - in grade 2. Nice. They all swore that this never carried ove rin to how they treat the kids and they're just venting, but I don't believe that's true. How can you participate in such negativity and not have it effect how you see people and treat them. And they were also the most judgemental group of people I have ever met. A ton of non-Northerners (mostly white) taking shops int he exoctic North and sitting in judgement of a people and culture they weren't really involved in.

The other thing was how much of the teaching around me was about power and control. I was filling in for the librarian one day it was library period for a grade two class. The teacher brought them down and asked them to sit on the reading mat. I was all ready to take over but this teacher wasted 15 minutes of a 30 min class trying to make sure they were all sitted cross legged with their hands in their laps. Half the period! Not even her period - that was her prep time. Who cares if they're sitting cross legged or not? Who cares if their hands are in their laps? What was it all about other than control? Drove me batty. And that was common. What a waste of time.

After seeing kids bullied on a daily basis (and not by each other) I decided that I couldn't be a part of a system like that. And as DS has gotten closer and closer to school age (he'd be in kindegarten in the fall)I've known I could not submit my child anything resembling that. The gossip and judgement of families and kids they know very little of - and the delight in it icks me right out. And DP and I really want to treat DS with the respect we all deserve so ulimately sending him to school seemed the worst way to give him that.

Edited to add: Re: comments. I find it hard not to get defensive (I'm still new to this and hoping I will get better at that), but I just remember what I experienced up north and as a child listening to my parents' teacher friends after a drink or two and I know this is right.

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I agree with these.

I also agree with Joan, that it is a lifestyle choice. Why do children need to go off to a different, often sterile, building to 'learn'? Can't they learn and explore best in their own home and own environment? I think kids are people and life is about a heck of a lot more than desks, book reports and multiplication tables.

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I have times when I feel vulnerable to crappy comments, but for the most part I don't *want* approval from the type of people that would make such comments, kwim? Their disapproval is a mark of my success.

Do you have homeschooling friends that you can turn to for support? When I feel isolated and alone it's easier for me to doubt myself, but when I've got people propping me up it's a lot easier.

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I do but I have not been to the meetings/get togethers because I just had a new baby and also because I wasn't so sure I would stick to my gut.

The more I think about what my neighbor said...the more I remember...such as her describing how her daughter (in 1st grade this year at the public school Kaya would go to if not hs'ed)...came home with a note in her lunchbox that said "I HATE LINA". If that happened to Kaya, she would be heartbroken. Again, there's that darn article poking at me suggesting that "over-protecting" ultimately leads to "anxiety, low self-esteem" etc. Blah blah blah.

I need to get my butt to the hsing meetings and officially connect before I get pulled up mainstream.