I don't think that anymore, but of course I wouldn't....that would make me a show off right?!?! But seriously I don't think that anymore because I live it, and trust me sometimes I feel as though maybe I'd love my kids more by sending them back to school cause then I wouldn't have to yell at them for fighting or fidgeting or playing with the dog when they are supposed to be doing their math or my son walking up to me while doing math and saying "mom, what's 8+7?" Hoping that I will be distracted enough to just give him the answer instead of making him figure it out for himself!
As much as I say that, I know I yell because I love them, that they are here because I love them. It does not stop me, on those days, from questioning my sanity and wondering if a 72 hour psych hold may be in order for ever thinking that I could do this!
It's HARD! We started our journey mid year so although we signed up with a home schooling school board, we do not qualify for any funding so I am basically flying by the seat of my pants. I would have ideally liked to have started from the get go with a completely laid out curriculum with there being no way I could mess things up! Well what I wanted did not coincide with our budget! Winter is not a good time for us EVER! hubby is a roofer. Roofing and northern Alberta winters so don't mix, unless I wanted to be a widow. So he's working on a new trade, but that's basically starting from the bottom again, not fun! (I feel terribly bad for him, I know he feels like he's letting us down. He takes being the husband and dad so seriously it doesn't surprise me his grey hair went from next to nothing when we met, coming up on 3 years ago, to visibly noticeable now. lol shhh I always say there's nothing... it's not bad, so don't say anything!)
So no set curriculum means I am forever praising God for google and the internet in general! I now spend every night from 9:30 to roughly 1:30 or 2 AM lesson planning and running my business. Finding work sheets, topics of discussion, puzzles etc to coincide with what we will be learning the next day. Then taking orders, answering questions, checking in with my supplier to make sure the orders I just received have all their items in stock, placing the orders all to people who english is their distant second language...... HOW EXHAUSTING!
Remember playing school? I never liked being the teacher, I don't think I even wanted to play all that often, and to be honest at first it kinda felt like that. We were playing school, and it was fun, but once you've committed to this it's not over in a few hours cause you totally have to do it again tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that! It's endless!
Now on to the explanation that comes with my title to this post. Why I decided to home school......
Well let's start here: December 21 2012 at around maybe 4:30-5 in the afternoon came a knock at my door. Imagine my surprise to find 2 police officers standing there, it was freezing and because my eldest had just told me that they would be coming to talk to me, I asked them into my house. They then proceeded to inform me that there had been an allegation made by my daughter (which was all fabricated) to the school that worried them enough to involve child welfare as well as 2 cities RCMP detachments. The RCMP was under the impression that I was aware of this incident and kept looking at me like I was stupid when I just stood there not knowing what to say. After telling them numerous times this was the first I had heard of it they told me that they had closed the investigation as it was unfounded. Merry friggen Christmas!
I was furious! What the heck was going on that my 12 year old is lying to police officers not once but twice?!?! We'd had issues with her lying before, but nothing like this! I'd taken away her cell phone for lying to me about having a "boyfriend" when the house rule is no boyfriends/girlfriends until they are 17 years old (2 different boys, both I found out about), on the door step of graduating high school. (this was before I even contemplated home schooling. although when mad had threatened them with it if they didn't start acting like they had sense in their head and to stop being boy/girl crazy!) This boyfriend crap always bothered me as I stated before I was a mom and wife at 17! That was not going to happen to my kids, NO WAY, NO HOW!
So after thinking about what just happened for a few moments (and sending that kid as far away from me as possible without leaving the house) I got on the phone with my sister who was a part of the fabricated story and let her know what had happened. Here we are 4 days from our family Christmas dinner our first one with my sister's son and now what? I can't reward her for what she's done. but what do you do? It is Christmas......
We (my sister and I) decided that it wasn't too harsh to take Christmas away from her, and once I had then talked to my husband, and my daughters father (to let them in on what had just happened and what was going to happen) I went to talk to her.
I informed her that due to her lack of concern for her family and other people and the possible repercussions that we could be facing in the next while, that she would not be getting Christmas gifts, she would not be going with her younger siblings to her fathers over the break and that she would be staying in her room for the 2 week break, and get your iPod, stereo and E-reader out here cause it's going to be very boring!!!!!
She didn't say much but I can only imagine what she was thinking, little did I know that I was eventually going to find out EXACTLY what she thought.
On Christmas eve the little 2 and I went to a church service (this was my first day seriously back in a church) I knew by the time I left that walking alone in this life OBVIOUSLY wasn't working anymore and that insisting I could do it alone when I didn't need to was just moronic! So I was going back to church and I haven't missed a Sunday since!
During the holidays I had a lot of time to think, This school......I put my time and energy into that school and those students, not just my own. My kids were all known through out the school with the oldest being an honors student and star athlete, the middle one being the singing super star and the boy being their brother (he's only in grade 2) kids knew me, teachers knew me and we were friendly and yet, not one person thought to send me a heads up with these things having been said by my daughter, not one person saw fit to allow me to be a parent in that situation and I got to find out by police, who couldn't believe that no one had contacted me!
I emailed the principle and the vice principle as my anger was quite high and stated that there needed to be a meeting as soon as their doors were back open and to have the school counsellor on stand by.
On January 7th my kids went back to school me still not thinking home school, me thinking I'm gonna rip them apart when I go in there, when they finally call me back to set it up that is.......
The vice principle contacted me that day and set up a time on Wednesday for a sit down.
On Tuesday I had decided that in my desire to have a closer walk with God and to change my life and my families foundation to one firmly planted in Christ and his word I was going to start attending the Women's bible study, the first one back since the holidays and we were starting a new series so I wouldn't be behind! SOLD! I was the only one other than the host who showed up LOL I felt kinda dumb at first! To my surprise I was truly blessed by the time we spent together and I told her of my troubles. I had asked her about the "christian" school here and what that denomination truly believed as I was considering changing their school because of all the things that had happened up until that point, and was thinking "depending on how this meeting goes, they may need a new school right away!" and I voiced these concerns. After speaking with her (my new adopted grandma) and a trusted childhood pseudo dad I decided that the "christian" school was not where I wanted my children to be going to school! I said well what am I going to do home school them? I don't think I can do that, I am not smart enough! She took my hand and said "Kate the Lord will give you the wisdom for the things you need to know and the people to surround you for the things you don't know, who will help you." My decision was made.
I knew that if I didn't do something now that the road my kids went down could be a very slippery slope in no time flat. I felt like I was starting behind the eight ball because I had been so selfish in not wanting to straighten out my life and get right with God and they were now suffering because even though I raised them to "believe in God" they had no true knowledge of Him, no foundation in Him.
I had to do something drastic, and I believe that the Lord spoke to me through this woman who was a stranger to me, and I knew in my heart it was a done deal. I needed to Trust the Lord to take care of the details, and I was just going to obey what he truly wanted for my family.
I went home after bible study and I talked to hubby. I explained how I felt, and why I wanted to do this and he, being very angry himself and the #1 fan of locking up his daughters, was 100% in support of the decision. I explained that there was no way I could send them out into the world that hates Christ and Christians for 6.5 hours a day and think that I was going to make up any of the lost ground I needed to make up with my 3-4 hours a day with them and weekends. Then came the BOMB!!
I had sent hubby down with the Christmas decorations which go under the stairs which to gain access to you must go through the big girls room. On his way back upstairs he noticed a notebook lying open on her bed with a quote about thong underwear and how sexually free women who wear them are?!?!? WHAT THE !@#$%&^&^%$#@#!^%^*. I snatched that book like a fat kid would snatch up the last piece of fried chicken! and now I was on a mission.
I read every blurb, studied every doodle and got confirmation that once again there was a "boyfriend", That she HATED me, That I was an (expletive)(expletive) she just wanted to run away and that I have ruined her life (because of Christmas, which by the way I did not follow through with one single thing I had said to her because I couldn't know that my eldest daughter, the child who made me a mother, was sitting in her room while her siblings and parents were opening presents, I could not have lived with myself.) Oh the mind of a child, not mature enough to see that the punishment they received was in response to something they did and had they not done said thing there would be no need for said response! DUH!!! Imagine if you will reading that.......I wasn't angry, I had spent my whole adult life and some of my childhood putting them first in everything I did, doing anything and everything I could to give them a better life, and for 4 years did that alone with minimal support from anyone. I just sat there, and handed the book back to hubby.......
She wants to hate me, for nothing, may as well give her a reason right? There will be no difference in how she feels about me when she finds out that they are going to be home schooled. So into the meeting I went.....
I walked in and told them "look I'll save you your breath, whatever you're going to say....it doesn't matter. Friday will be their last day as students of "insert school name here" school. I will be home schooling them" The room was silent at first followed by an quick and curt "oh". The thing is People of the world, they never know a good thing when they see it.....they're always looking for more and are completely famous for sabotaging themselves......and that's what they did. THEY were off the hook!! I was ready to leave it be at that and walk away keeping my anger and betrayal buried for them not to see.....but lets talk about why we were supposed to be here anyway.....STUPID!!!!!
I have since sent an email to the Superintendent of schools for the public school board, and am hoping to be able to stop something like this from happening again in the future. If the safety of my child, the honors student sports star could be so flagrantly dismissed, imagine the other kids who don't have someone to fight for them.
It says in Proverbs 22:6 Teach a child the way he should go, and he will not stray from it, even when he is old. This is Is ME! I was taught better and always knew better and ultimately came right back to where I started. My oldest may not be young and impressionable as much as she would have been had she been younger when I came back but it is NOT too late to teach her, or the other 2, the way they should go!
At the end of the day I AM their mother. God trusted me with the rearing of this, his gift to me. Not the public school system who doesn't allow a Christian child to speak of Christ in a school but will allow any other religion their freedom to worship (this won't ever sit well with me, and will probably end up in a fist fight over it eventually) These 3 beautiful children grew inside my body for 9 months where I kept them safe and loved and nourished. Who is more invested in seeing them succeed than me? Who is willing to sacrifice more for their well being, me? or a stranger paid to do so? Who is going to continue to nourish their soul long into their old age? ME, because I am their mother and because They are the gift I could never quite earn, but I won't give up trying to and won't ever take that gift for granted!
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