Homeschooling - Is it better?

If the truth be told, I was am an anxious mother. When The Girl began to approach school age, I began to worry about this tiny, delicate child being subjected to schoolbus rides and playground injuries and every other conceivable risk of leaving the home. After all, she had been cared for by my mother for four tender years, how could she cope?

But for me, homeschooling was not an option. I had to work and so the child had to be sent to the public schools. In the beginning, once my fears wore off a bit, it seemed a good thing. But now that she is older and facing more difficult tasks, I see that homeschooling might well have been more successful for her and the trade-off in socializing experience was not enough to make up for the deficiencies of a public school education.

The statistics bear this out. Homeschooled children fare at least as well as children in public school on standardized tests and in some cases far exceed their scores. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal in February 2000, homeschooled kids scored better than average on both SAT and ACT college entrance tests.

For those who can manage to be home and are interested in homeschooling their children, there are now some really excellent resources that can help.  For parents who want to homeschool, there are programs that can be a great asset. 

Homeschooled kids do not become socially inept flops, but confident and well-educated adults whose success has been proved over and over.

The Sad Tale of Mr. Lion

Sometimes we are told that children don't develop long term memory until they are about 4 years of age. This may or may not be true. Although I think I have some spotty memories from before that age, I don't have a really good day-to-day recollection of life as a baby.

However, The Boy, probably because he spent most of his pre-school days as a superhero, has an unfailing memory. It may be one of his super powers.

When we moved into our present abode, The Boy was still in a crib. One room was already decorated with boyish things - brown walls and a wallpaper border depicting leopards frolicking (if, indeed, leopards can be said to frolic). It was quite fitting that someone gifted him a large, stuffed lion for Christmas. The lion was well-loved and had to accompany him to bed each night. I don't remember if he was christened with a name, he was probably called Mr. Lion, or something equally brilliant.

However, as time went on The Boy became dissatisfied with the lion and suddenly concerned about being surrounded by big jungle cats. Although the lion had a friendly face, a certain distrust of the lion's intentions crept into his thinking. He had obviously noticed that the lion was a bit taller than he, and had friends in the room. Honestly, I myself might have been concerned about falling asleep with a giant lion lying in the bed next to me, caged in by crib bars and rails.

The lion fell into disfavor and The Boy started to reject him at bedtime. As the months and years went by the lion was shifted from corner to corner in his room but never accepted into close friendship again. I don't know what eventually became of the lion. I believe he ceased to reside at this address years ago.

I was left without a response then, when suddenly, the other day, the Boy inquired as to the whereabouts of the lion. I thought of lots of ways to explain the animal's absence, some of which left me blameless (who wants to take the rap for animal abduction?). Perhaps I could say he ran away back to the jungle? I knew those stories wouldn't wash, The Boy is older now and he's not going to buy any such flimsy excuse.

In the end, I decided to face it. Steely-eyed and set in my purpose, I briefly explained to him that he had one day decided the lion was untrustworthy, and after a time it was decided that the lion must go. Therefore, the lion no longer lived at our house.

I waited for the accusations, the tears, the anguished cry of "how could you?" and braced myself to take on the full responsibility and guilt for my actions.

The Boy looked at me and said "Oh", then went about his business, unconcerned.

I had prepared for the worst and gotten no reaction whatsoever. All that guilt I was feeling was completely unnecessary.

Children are hardly ever emotionally scarred for life by the little things we think we have done wrong, or the small mistakes we have made. In the end, it's much simpler to just lay the truth out before them and let them deal with it.

I had to laugh though when later, after some reflection, I realized that the truth was even more exculpatory than I had thought. For it occurred to me that it was The Boy himself, engaged in the hated task of cleaning his room, who had carried that lion out to the trash one day.

Of New and Old

I am very proud of my new car, although it is new only to me, having been what is now termed "pre-owned". Car dealers believe that the word "used" carries negative connotations as does the term "used car salesman" so they tend to have only "program vehicles" (used rental cars) and "quality pre-owned vehicles" (used cars) on their lots.

The car is a little hungrier for gas than my last vehicle and quite a lot larger than any other car I have owned - which means my days of zipping into tight parking spaces is over. However, it was time to accept the fact that I had two children in the back seat who, for the sake of undistracted driving, should sit as far away from each other as possible.

I would be inclined, however, to believe anyone who told me that my car was driven only on Sundays by a little old lady who used it to go to church.

You see, yesterday was the first day it was hot enough to turn on the air conditioning in the car. Until now, we have used the heat, the defroster, and played endlessly with the electric windows until the perfect air flow and temperature were achieved in the car's interior.

We pushed the little button with frosty snowflake on it, eagerlyawaiting the first blast of cool air. Next we chose the button that limits air circulation to inside the vehicle, excluding the stiff, hot air from outside. With the fan setting at medium, a wonderful thing then occurred.

Emanating from the vents in the dash was air that was not only cooled and conditioned, but air which filled the vehicle with something that the car had lacked up until that moment.

This is why I believe the former owner must have been a little old lady who rarely drove it. Little old ladies are rarely too warm, and so the AC was likely rarely, if ever, employed.

Hidden deep within my car's ventilation system were the last remaining whiffs new car scent. As it wafted past my nostrils, I inhaled hard and long, sucking in its delicious fragrance. I realized also, that for my generation, that new car smell symbolizes so much more than the age of the vehicle. It brings up memories of prosperous family times, sibling squabbles, the excitement of accompanying dad to the dealership to pick out the new family car and stirs up nostalgia in an unsettling blend of warmth and sadness.

It also reminded me, as I endured the kids in the back seat having ridiculous arguments, giggling for no reason or making noise for the sheer pleasure of making noise, that I was once sitting exactly where they were. And in the natural course of time, they will one day be sitting where I am now. Then it will be that these days which now seem so ordinary and unremarkable will have become part of them, sealed into memory, only to be suddenly awakened by a chance sensory experience.

Cleaning Up With TV

I wrote about my favorite TV show over at one of my other blogs. The show is from the BBC and it is, I am ashamed to say, a reality show. But instead of cramming a bunch of strangers into a house and watching sparks fly, this show takes two women who are cleaning experts to some of the dirtiest homes in the UK and let's us watch as they perform their cleaning magic.

I must confess, cleaning is not my life. In fact, my life is a bit untidy, which I like to believe is a result of my creativity. I have gone so far as to bookmark and refer people to a NY Times article that basically concluded that creative people are disorganized by nature. It's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Mostly, I like this show because it makes me feel better about the state of my own house and allows me to say "well, at least my house doesn't look as bad as THAT". But the strangest thing is that the chidren now watch it with me, The Boy opining that we should call in Kim and Aggie to show us (and him) how to be tidier and The Girl wanting to try out all the cleaning tips.

After viewing two episodes yesterday, The Girl decided to vacuum and dust the ceiling fans, while The Boy busily began cleaning drawers and organizing them. I sat and watched in amazement until I finally had to call a halt to the cleaning fest after The Girl ran the vacuum so long she overheated the motor.

Who says TV isn't educational?

Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

The children have a week off from school, which they face with great joy and I face with great trepidation. Keeping two children happy and occupied with something constructive for 9 days in a row is not an easy task. Especially since, in the time-honored tradition of siblings, their preferred occupation is bickering with each other.

A little fighting and arguing between siblings is to be expected, even more so because their age difference has always been a part of it. Teen girls basically view 8 year old boys as a disease. I expected this 9 days to seem like 9 years.

But so far they have surprised me. The Girl decided to play school with The Boy. I even heard her reading a book to him - and he was actually listening! The Boy never allowed me to read to him until he found a Goosebumps book about garden gnomes that come alive and do mischievous things. That sounded scary enough to interest him, and scary enough to require my presence while it was read.

After the reading, it went quiet for a while, then for a while more. Finally, the silence was too much - I burst into the room to check on them. Appears it was nap time at school and I interrupted.

That's a key lesson, however. I have decided that children make bloodcurdling noises and scream over nothing in order to reassure mothers that they are still alive and well. It's when it all goes quiet that you wonder what could possibly be wrong. You can't really ignore it, because they might be doing something dangerous. If they are not, then it becomes obvious to them that you have noticed how quiet they are and feel that they aren't living up to their potential.

Equally inadvisable is to notice how good they are behaving and compliment them on it. It sounds like the right thing to do - reinforcing good behavior and rewarding it with praise - but again, children realize they have been lax in their duties and will redouble their efforts to make noise and fight.

I am trying to re-educate myself and work on changing my instinctive reactions. Even now, as The Boy decides to clean the refrigerator, I am smiling and being totally non-reactive to his assurances that "only three eggs broke" even though I desperately want to know how they got broken.

It's going to be a long 9 days.

We are Not Amused

I am not often in favor of more governmental regulation, for as we know, it usually makes things more expensive and increases red tape, but I was amazed to find out that there is almost no regulation when it comes to amusement park rides. Even those amazing rides at Disney World do not have to meet any government regulations for safety and in fact, the government cannot inspect them or even come into the amusement park unless invited to do so.

An average of four deaths and thousands of injuries take place on amusement park rides every year. Faulty rides are often disassembled after an injury, before any inspector gets there to conduct an investigation.

But a bill to set federal standards on safety and inspections of these rides has been waylaid in the House of Representatives and may not be voted on before the holiday recess. Lobbying by the powerful amusement park industry seeks to prevent it from passing.

People go to amusement parks to have fun. We expect to be thrilled, excited, maybe even scared - not to suffer serious injury or be killed. I have always thought there were some kind of standards that regulated what rides could operate. Apparently, there aren't any federal regulations whatsoever, and federal regulations are necessary because of the number of carnivals that travel state to state each summer.

I think everyone should contact their representatives in Congress and tell them that this bill needs to be addressed as quickly as possible and not shoved off the calendar. Now that it is winter, the flurry of stories of ride injuries and deaths is over and people forget. Let's tell them to act now to avoid another case like 13-year-old Kaitlyn Lassiter who had both feet severed by a loose cable on the Tower of Power at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. Tell them that we won't forget. Our kids are too important for us to forget.