Homeschool World Forum

DS was at school for 2 1/2 years, we removed him due to bullying AND failure. Let me elaborate:

Bullying: I'm proud that we have taught our children that a toxic environment where bad treatment of others is condoned is not an environment one should stay in. If you have done what you can to fix the problem and the problem persists then best get out I say.
Would you stay in a work environment where one of the employees was bullying you and management would not do anything about it? No, you would look for another job with a happier environment.

Failure: My son is not stupid, he has learning disabilities. He is a clever kid who sits in the 97th percentile for some skills and much lower in others. If he is taught with due consideration to his strengths and weaknesses he learns very quickly.
He had decided after 2 years in the system that he was "dumb" I spent the first 10 weeks undoing the damage the school had done, everything I asked him to do it was "I can't" "I don't know how" "It's too hard" "I don't understand" etc.........Now he is whizzing ahead with his work and proud of his acheivements, you don't hear defeatest talk coming out of his mouth any more because he knows he can do it. If that's avoidance, bring it on!

Lastly I would like to mention that he hated school with a passion, getting him out the door each day was a battle of wills. Every afternoon I was met with an unhappy, very angry kid who made everyone in the family miserable.

After a particularly awful week I decided that we had both had enough and he quite simply didn't go back the next day. You should have seen the change in him! Our angry sad little boy opened up and became a joy to be around. I have already said how much his learning improved and he streaked ahead with his reading which he had really struggled with at school.

I read an article a few months ago that sent my blood boiling. It was about "school refusers," kids like mine who hated school and didn't want to be there. It was written by a psycologist and it suggested counselling, behaviour therapy, family therapy and last and (to me) most appallingly DRUGS. It didn't suggest that the school might be at fault, it laid the blame squarely on the child, suggested you drug them and send them on back. THAT is avoidance!! Homeschool parents face the issue and solve it, it may not be the solution that society deems best, but it is the solution best for our children and they are the ones that count.