Homeschooling, it has its ups and downs.

 I love the homeschooling concept especially after we tried the school here and he had 2 years of public school (PS) in Virginia Beach.  I love that I can go at his pace whether  fast or slow.  I love that on beautiful day we can do school outside.  I love that we can take day off when we want.  I love that I am responsible for his education and not some stranger who doesn't care about his education as much as I do.  I love that we can home school in the barn.  I love that I can pick the curriculum.

With all the things that I love, I have and a few problems with homeschooling.  I dislike the fact that my son "hates" school!  Unfortunately, he never really liked it.  In kinder he did OK, 1st not so OK.  He basically refused to do his work on most days so, it all would get sent home and I would have to sit with him and do it at home.  This went on all year no matter what the teacher or my husband and I did.  I was an exhausting year for us all.  He passed the year but he struggles in reading because he "hates" that too.  I was hoping that he would change over the summer and with moving and a new school, he would forget that he "hates" school.  Well after a week or two in, I hated the new school and so did he.  We didn't like it for different reasons.  I didn't like that their 2nd grade curriculum was a repeat on his first grade.  I didn't want him to fall behind in the subject he excelled in.  They also only do 6 weeks of science the whole year, same goes for history.  He had already slipped back in the habit of not doing his work even though it was easy.  So, the only things left to do was take him out and home school.  I got a curriculum based on some recommendation of a few people I met that home schooled and boy did i dislike it.  Not all, but most. 


This year, we have some new curriculum for Language Arts which I love!  Ryan doesn't like it because it requires a lot more reading that last year.  I see improvement in his reading already.  We also have a new History curriculum which is great, I am learning right along with him.  Even with the great new curriculum, we are not having fun!  There is whining, crying, fits, and tantrums everyday!  Most from Ryan but, not all.  We started out the year with a bit of a schedule but now we have a strict one as of this week.  This week I laid down the law, Tues-Thur. were still bad but today was amazing.  I hope he finally has given up the fighting and complaining and will actually do the work.  I will keep my fingers crossed.  I let him know that the strict schedule will remain in place until he can do school with out all of the issues.  Privileges will slowly come back as his behavior improves.  Today we covered every subject in 3 1/2 hours.  Before it was 2 subjects in 6hrs.  Oh please let today not be a fluke!