Home Schooling..Help?

Question

So, I have a daughter. She will be a year 8 student this year, But she doesn't go to school, She hasn't been since the middle of year 7, The reason for this is that she got bullied terribly. As soon as she got out of school she went a bit crazy and dyed her hair megenta/pink but i'm not too fussed about that. The problem is, is the actual home study, it's prooven harder than we thought So I'm wondering if you have an suggestions, Links to any helpful sites, What i should do, Send her back to school...keep her at home. I have no clue, BUT she also has told me she has been feeling quite...school-phobic and she doesn't want to go to her old school, and doesn't want to be the new kid in school. When she was in school she refused to go most of the time, due to serious bullying and the teachers did nothing atall to help, also i've had a word with the chair of goverment and they said theres no other current places at any other school, apart from her last one. Shall i pay a tutor?Or what else

Answer 1

Your daughter is lucky to have you. I am in year eight, and can't cope with being in school. I've tried to be home schooled, helped my mum out by giving her all the information and it gets me nowhere. She's lucky to have you to understand her.

Ask her if she would go back to ANY school or is it just the school she was in previously. Are you following the school's curriculum or are you doing your own thing? To take the pressure off you, maybe you could hire a tutor for just a couple of lessons or just one. It depends if you have the money to hire a tutor because I know they are very expensive.

Have you looked up different methods of homeschooling? Charlotte Mason, Unschooling, that kind of thing? This has a list of methods and such.

http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/homesc...

You could also make it fun by going to the library to get some educational books and computer games and it would take some stress of you and allow her to work and think on her own and ask you questions when she needs to.

You could go on trips to museums or art galleries or anything like that too. My basic point is that you don't have to stick to how the school teach. You don't have to teach for the same length of time that a school does either. Actually, less than half of the time you spend in school is spent actually learning. There's registers, breaks, general chit chat, the teacher trying to control the class, classes where teachers cant be bothered to teach so they put on a video.

Most of them are completely ignored by the teacher unless it isn't educational but it's actually another idea for you. You could watch educational films, programmes, etc. Maybe ask her what she would like to do at that moment in time or something?

Update me if you figure something out and if you have any questions.

Answer 2

Keep Homeschooling just change curriculum. It may not be a good fit for her. Try Sonlight, Beautiful Feet or Five in A Row.

I disagree with the answer that says she needs counseling. She needs her family and she needs to get involved in lots of actvities where she can meet kids her age.

Take her to church and find some volunteer opportunities for her so she get the focus off of herself

Warm Regards,

Jana

http://www.summerhouseliving.com

http://www.purehomeschooling.com

Answer 3

It sounds like she still has some emotional issues to take care of. Is counselling a possibility?

Other than that, I would not recommend putting her back in school at this point. At her age, it is soo hard and with her emotions where they are, it will be harder than for most. So my recommendation would be to sit with her, talk with her about her education, your fears for her, what she wants, how she sees it, etc. Essentially, have a good heart-to-heart talk with her. You don't have to plan or decide anything with the first talk. Just get it all out. Then  ask her to think about what she thinks would work for her education-wise, while you think out your own things. You should each write out your lists/thoughts. Have a set date/time to meet again. Work out a plan together. Write out potential problems and solutions for those problems.

I'd highly recommend joining an online homeschool support group for your country/area (just do a search for homeschool [yourarea] in Yahoo Groups). There will be more people there who will be able to share what they did at that age, have recommendations of resources that may be available to you, etc.

Answer 4

The hair could have been worse :)

As for the level of difficulty in her schoolwork, the joy of homeschooling is that you can check out different types of curriculum and find what suites her along with her learning style ( many say learning stlye matters very little when in fact it matters a lot ).

If the studied suject seems to difficult, then try teaching it from a different approach or stlye. Many times when frustration arises from not getting anywhere with the subject matter, then take a step away and come back to it at another time.

There are many sites out there that you can get to by simply typeing in what you are looking for in your search bar. Try different combinations of what you need or want and when you find a site that you find interesting or works for you write it down and keep it in a card file ( I do this for my daughter as there are so many sites out there and if the site needs a user-name/password, I simply place it on the back of the card).

Try this site www.ed.com- as it might be of some help and can lead to other sites.

Since my daughter wants to be a Palentologist, she also studies Archeology, Egyptology and all the stuff that goes with it ( if it's ology related we attempt to study it). Since she is only in the 4th grade, we have a while to study yet but we keep up with it all.

The point being is that if she has chosen a particular carreer then you can add that stuff into her study.

Let HER set the pace and if she shows interest in something encourage it, if she struggles slow the pace until she comprehends it.

While many States attempt to dictate subjects learned and hours studied, there is still room for 'off-the-hook' learning and takeing advantage of it is great and done the right way won't break the bank.

I wish I could be of more help and I wish you both the best in the future. If nothing else just remember that the world and life is the best schoolroom and teacher we have but only if you take advantage of it and listen to it's lessons.

Answer 5

I agree with changing the curriculum.  Is she a computer person?  Try Switched on Schoolhouse.  It's affordable and all on the computer without having to be online.

Answer 6

If she's only been out of school half a year that really isn't very long. The benchmark often quoted is to allow 1 month of 'de-schooling' for every year at school and by that measure you shouldn't really expect her to be ready for studying yet. I suggest trying to find a local home ed group so she can start to meet other kids and get involved in activities just to relax and have fun. Forget anything obviously educational until September.

Answer 7

I agree with the above post, putting your daughter back in school would most likely only cause her more hurt.  If she says she is not ready to go back to school I would trust her.  Kids can be mean at any age and forcing her into a scary environment will only harm her.  Let her stay home and make friends where she wants to like dance class, church, your neighborhood, or a sports team.  

As for the hair, shoot, I would have dyed my hair pink at that age if my dad would have let me!  I knkow so many families who have kooky rules like "As long as our kids are wearing belts they are dressed up" and then their kids actually look like slobs.  I know one family who always dresses very nicely, fairly conservative, but the mom lets them wear whatever nail polish color they want and they can do whatever they want with their hair, so while their clothes are always nice, one son has a mohawk, one daughter has about ten different colors in her hair, and another changers her hair color almost monthly.  I wouldn't worry too much about her hair.  Now that I don't have to ask for permission I would still put a hot pink streak in my hair but I own a business where I work with kids and decided that pink hair might drive potential customers away.

I know when things were too advanced for my mom or she just didn't feel comfortable teaching something we would talk to other homeschool parents and find out if anyone was willing to trade teaching duties with our family.  For example, my mom hated teaching science (mostly biology) so we found a mom in our homeschool group who actually had a degree in biology and made a homeschool swap: She would help me with biology and my mom would give her kids art lessons (my mom is an amazing artist.)  My family has never had tons of money to spend on tutors and the like, so we always did the best we could with what we had to offer.  Even if it was mowing someone's lawn or babysitting.

Also, many of my friends and I would get together once or twice a week for study group.  Either we would all bring the same subject or everyone could bring whatever they wanted.  If I needed help with math, so-and-so could help me.  When I was done, I could help someone else with their english essay.  You would be amazed at how much we were able to help and teach each other with our different strengths/weaknesses!  It was also a great time to read essays and present speeches/presentations before our parents graded them.

If hiring a tutor is not a problem, great!  But why spend money when you can benefit from other homeschool families?