Saturday, June 4, 2011

6 months

I haven't written on my blog for six months. It's a record.

If there was a Nonbloggingist Blogger Award, I would win!

Explanation? Facebook. I know, how pathetic and sad.  But it is so much easier to write a small blurb, or quote some famous person on FB once or twice a week than it is to write an epic  blog entry several times a week.

Me? Lazy? You bet your bananas.

Guilt, a potential blog topic, a slow night at home and fear that I will lose all my old posts if I stop writing combined to get me back here.

The thing I'm wrangling with these days is high school. Specifically, homeschooling through high school. My poor ARG, being the oldest, is my experiment, my trial run at seeing if I can do it.

There are two main challenges in being the homeschool mom to a high schooler:

1.) At a time when teenage student should be pulling away, becoming more independent and self-sufficient - I still feel completely responsible for his educational success or failure. It is a tough one to balance.


2.) All the darn bureaucracy! Community College Enrollment / Registration / Waitlists, SAT 2 Subject Tests, AP Tests...etc. What classes to take when? Which tests to take and when?

And everything matters now! It all goes on the high school transcript for college admissions. YIKES! No pressure.

An example of problem 2 (and maybe some of problem 1 as well): ARG just finished the third in a series of JAVA programming classes at the local community classes. The week after his final I realized (duh!) there is an AP test for Java programming. BUT - the last AP test for the year was the weekend before. No more tests until next May. So, if I had been ON TOP of things and known about the darn test, he could've taken when it was all fresh and killed it! But now he'll have to take it next year, and review/ study for the test and hope he remembers enough to do well. I was so bummed.

And then there's the independence thing. I've finally decided that I can not be on top of ARG all day every day to make sure he's doing his work instead of playing Half Life 2 or Supreme Commander. Doing that was just way too stressful for me. I've got to let him take responsibility for his work. So now he manages his own time and gets his work done on his own schedule. For now, this means he will be doing school through summer, because he has not finished three subjects. OK. Is that bad? Is it good? I dont' know.

All I know is that the pressure of being semi? mostly? responsible for getting him through high school with the right courses, the right grades and the right tests is intense.  And I need to learn more and more to let go and let him take it on. But I'm telling you, that is HARD. He is 14, and he doesn't know a lot of things. I have to teach things to him as I let them go. It is weird.

1 comments:

HaynesBE said...

"All I know is that the pressure of being semi? mostly? responsible for getting him through high school with the right courses, the right grades and the right tests is intense."

I used to think my job was to make sure my kids made the right choices. I no longer think that. I think my job is to make sure they are safe while they learn to make the right choices by living life, making choices, and learning from them-- good and bad. Once I realized this, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and my whole relationship with my kids vastly improved. I know a lot of people won't agree with this---that's ok. I don't pretend to have all the answers. It has worked well for me, and I think for my kids as well.
I think that doing everything right the first time through---including parenting---is an illusionary goal. We all just do our best.

PS--glad you blogged again!!Been missing knowing what you are up to.