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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

torn....

My heart tells me to homeschool but yet I went to register Sierra for kindergarten this am. It feels awful. You fill out the registration form and they ask you about any other information to help asses the "needs of your child".

I am honest...Sierra is hard work! She is my "spirited" child and although that is wonderful and no one will ever do her wrong, she has a regulatory emotional disorder and although she is as sweet as pie, and too smart for her own good, with a memory of an elephant! She also can not regulate the emotions in which she is feeling so when she is excited, or scared or happy it all comes out in a whirlwind of excess energy, with bouts of yelling and buzzing around like a bee who was high on too much sugar. She can not be easily calmed down. She has to almost explode before she can be reined back in.

At preschool she has a supported childcare worker to help her work through her emotions and deal with the outburst when they happen so as to not disturb the rest of the class. I inform the school of this, and that I feel Sierra will need extra support in the classroom to help her manage throughout the day. To help her succeed and also be less of a disturbance to the class. The secretary says to me, "but kindergarten is all day next year!" Yes I know and it scares me silly. Will Sierra thrive in school or will she be lost in the mix of over crowded classes with long days. Full day kindergarten! Oh my! Am I setting her up for failure?

My family believes I should give her the chance to succeed at school (my mom is a teacher). That I can always pull her out and homeschool if I need to. I am torn...

Can I really homeschool Sierra? I wish I could easily say yes. I read so many blogs of wonderful families who homeschool. They can do it...why can't I? Because I am scared to...I want to but I don't have faith in my abilities to do a good job. My back ground is Early Childhood Education so I know I can "teach" but homeschooling is more then that. Can I follow her lead? Can I let go of my plans for the day and allow her to guide her learning? Will she learn enough from me? Does her temperament need to be lead and taught or does she need more freedom of choice? If only children came with manuals at birth...it would make things so much easier!

I wish I had the courage to try homeschooling right from the beginning, but I am afraid I would be holding her back...how will she fare in the real world after being homeschooled all her life? I am scared of the unknown, chicken to try it and stuck being torn...

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry that you're feeling torn.

    I think the important thing to remember is that you can switch things up if you need to. Kindergarten is technically optional. I actually didn't attend kindergarten myself, and I graduated at the top of my class from high school. So if you want to try homeschooling for a year and see how it goes, you're not really dooming Sierra to anything. And if you want to try school for a year, you can do that.

    No decision that you make has to be final.

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  2. I'm also having some stress surrounding the option of homeschooling right now, so I completely understand.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog :).

    Jaimie

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  3. Full day kindergarten is working. Based on international test scores and evaluation, Ontario has one of the top 10 education systems in the world. Ontario’s education progress report has just been released. See it here: http://bit.ly/mLFvFx

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