Homeschooling, ODD and cutting people some slack

Sometimes, it's very hard in the "trenches". Due to my son's divorce from a woman who willingly gave up custody of a beautiful 4.5 yr old and 13 mo old, I'm in the situation where I have my grandkids from Sun night until either Fri or Sat afternoon. My son works 4-5 days a week from 2pm until 2am and I live two counties away, so for right now, this is the best solution we have. I now find MYSELF back in the trenches. Both children have developmental delays due to neglect and inconsistent access to food. Needless to say, the almost 5 yr old will not be ready for kindergarten and will have to be homeschooled. I'm on disability and at 62 never thought I'd be doing this again. lol But...we do what needs to be done and don't give up on the kids.

Perhaps I should now change the blog name to Nana's Nut House! lol

I'm glad you  have seen and responded to your children's issues. I've known some very good teachers in the local school, but with what is thrown at them, they just can't do all that everyone wants them to do. There just isn't time in the day to do it.

Ultimately, our kids are our responsibility. Sometimes, being our children's advocate means removing them from harmful situations - even if it is the "traditional school" that is the situation. It is a rough road to travel and the older they are, the more effort it takes on everyone's part - parent(s) and child(ren) to recover from the toxicity that has occurred. But "better late than  never" seems to apply here. They can have their self-esteem rebuilt and as the mature, they will appreciate your efforts.

Each child/family is different and what works for one child/family may not work for others. There are kids that will sit down and flourish on doing workbooks and others that it kills them, academically speaking. That's just not the way they learn. As we learn what works for each of our kids, we can better serve their needs. And yes, teaching responsibility to our kids is a VERY important part of our schooling. Again, different methods work for different kids.

We all have to hang in there. Look for the positive and comment on that. The more "atta-boy/girl" they get, the better it is. Accentuate the positive, ignore the negative as much as is humanly possible. (yeah, the constant sound-making of some kids can drive us up the wall and we tell them, repeatedly, to be QUIET! lol)

Personally, I still find it overwhelming as I work with the grands. Speech is not clear, baby-talking needs to be stopped, attention-getting activities in public needs to be stopped, developmental delays need to be addressed. Baby needs PT (at least the therapist comes to the house each week). etc And then there's the constant need to feed and clean up 6 times a day (kids were not feed regularly - to keep them small and infantized. People paid attention to her because the kids were so small and cute.) After 5 months with me, they are finally on the bottom 10% of the WIC chart on height/weight but it's been an uphill work to satiate their hunger with nourishing foods. Thankfully, they are now on a proper growth curve and seem to be catching up, however, the concern is that the 5 year old may have had his growth permanently stunted to a degree.

So...chins up, Faith on, and off we go as the saga continues.

I guess the best thing for all of us to to do what our kids need done. All kids learn differently and the key to successful teaching is to teach to the way that that child learns. Homeschooling allows us to run the gamete from textbooks and workbooks, to unit studies to unschooling. As we use the method that is best for each child, we find the child will flourish. And when we are trying to homeschool multiple kids, it can get tricky, especially when we're trying to use different textbooks for different ages/levels kids. Some kids need strict schedules, others need flexibility, still others it's catch as catch can to prevent meltdowns.

I found that for my kids, 2 of the 3 learned better by hands on. The 3rd LOVED workbooks - something that I missed - probably because there was no money to BUY workbooks. I had a 4 year rotating curriculum that I used as a basis for what we did. I learned to "sneak" school in as that way, the ODD child had less to rebel against. One of the things they still talk about loving was that I'd read to them for hours on end. We read everything from the Scriptures to the Narnia series to Harry Potter. We'd read and watch movies based on the book(s) we'd read and talk about the differences and what we liked and didn't. To this day, my kids LOVE to read.

In the end, we need to learn to let go ourselves and quit comparing OURSELVES and our homeschooling against others. It's not a competition. Some kids are homeschooled because their parents don't want them exposed to the ultra-liberal ideas of socialist teachers that infest some schools. Others have kids in crisis that have been in school, but are failing to thrive because of issues either at school or in their own brains or bodies. Still others feel that the Lord would have them do this for reasons unknown to them. There are many reasons, all of which are valid for parents that have the best interests of their child(ren) in mind (we'll leave out the small number of abusive parents that use it to hide abuse from being caught) All are valid reasons to homeschool. Most all parents have the goal of seeing that their kids are educated to the best of their child's capabilities. For many, that means public/private school. For some it's total homeschool. For others, it's a combination, homeschooled for some years, public schooled for other years.

I once read a blog post from a lady that had a lot of children, some of whom were old enough to be homeschooled. She also had an infant and toddlers that needed tending and would sometimes interrupt "school time". The name of her post was "Sometimes, the baby IS the lesson" and went on to comment that her kids will grow-up to be parents and that as she showed patience and love to the little "disturbers", she was teaching her children how to parent. Our treatment of each other in our family and outside it, IS always the lesson. 

I have heard people comment that there is no such thing as O.D.D. What it is is BRAT and the parents just "need to control" their child. OBVIOUSLY, they've NEVER had to deal with a child that IS trying to behave and wants to be good, but has control issues. And we as their parents DO discipline them. A lot of times these people don't have kids of their own or they have such mild-mannered, laid-back kids that a simple word to them gets results. Or they just beat the crap out of their kids until the kid minds.

Laid-back? WELL...not in MY family we don't have laid-back personalities! 12 hrs after my 9 week-premature daughter was born, she kept trying to turn her head and couldn't because of her CPAP tubing. A nurse kept turning her head back to the side it was on. The 4th time, the nurse held her head down for a few seconds. Her response? She grabbed that tube and with a white fist, tried to pull it out and screamed so loudly she was heard outside the NICU. 3.87 lbs of pure fury. This was the results of "bad parenting"? NOT! lol And yeah, this was the child that got the most attention as keeping her stable (well, as much as possible) kept the household quieter.

We all make mistakes. I used to be a paramedic making life and death decisions everyday. I never second-guessed myself. I know what had to be done and did it. Then I got married and had child #1, the preemie above. And about 3 months into the "project" I told a friend that I had NEVER second-guessed myself like I have as a parent. This mother of 4 said; "Welcome to the club!".

One of the most powerful things we can teach our children is that we all make mistakes. We do the best we can and sometimes, we make mistakes and fail or feel we've failed. How we handle our failures shows our children what to do when they fail. Do we lay there and cry what losers we are? Do we blame others? Or do we pick our selves up, acknowledge our mistakes, ask forgiveness from those we've hurt and then move on, trying to learn from the mistakes we've made?