REFLECTION
It was 10 weeks ago that we received the diagnosis about our baby during a routine prenatal ultrasound at 20 weeks. And let me tell you, what and interesting 10 weeks it's been.
Interesting....and
overwhelming,
heavy,
challenging,
terrifying,
prayerful,
full of gratitude, hope, faith, and love.
It's been some of the most life-changing 10 weeks of my existence.
I remember the first meeting we had with the cardiologist when he was going over the results of the fetal echocardiogram. The final diagnosis: Hypoplastic Left heart Syndrome (HLHS), one of the most severe congenital heart defects a person can have. It is fatal without prompt surgical treatment, and an 8 hour open-heart surgery would be required for our newborn only days after birth.
Though I had done some research before hand, the cardiologist discussed things with us in more details. Among the challenges of needing multiple open-heart surgeries throughout his life, he also talked about the longer-term future of our child.
"Many children with this condition," he said, "just start behind the 8-ball, so to speak". He explained to us, because of oxygen deficiencies (due to poor pumping and blood-flow from his heart), extended hospital stays that would require complete sedation at times, and an ever-looming danger of catching infection or sickness that his weakened immune system would have difficulty fighting off, ALL these concerns would most definitely lead to developmental delays for our baby. "Many of these kids' brains are also just wired differently, because they HAD to develop differently," the cardiologist told us. "You're looking at a strong possibility of this child dealing with conditions like ADHD, and other behavioral disorders." (There's a good article about behavior disorders linked to congenital heart disease that you can read here.)
The cardiologist kept using the word "palliative care" and the BIGGEST thing that the he stressed was the fact that our baby "has an incurable condition. He basically has half a heart, and at some day, that right side of the heart will be so tired of doing all the work for both halves, that it will just give out." Then he looked at both me and my husband eye-to-eye and told us "Don't expect that this child will ever outlive you. It will be impressive if he can live through his 20's."
The cardiologist's voice faded away as I got lost in my own thoughts, and I imagined our little boy as he grew and progressed through life. I envisioned what I wanted our life to look like. What would he be doing when he was 2, 5, 8, or 15 years old? How would he spend his days? What memories would our son be able to make with his 5 older siblings and his mom and dad? My heart just hurt, because, if he really was going to have some struggles, and if he was going to experience a third of the time on earth that most people get, I just wanted that third of life to be magical, and full of love and joy and sweet, amazing memories. I wanted to live every moment to the fullest and have each day be the BEST DAY EVER.
INSPIRATION
The thought immediately came into my mind:
"HOMESCHOOL. ... You can enrich his life by homeschooling. He does not need to spend the majority of his days, sitting in a desk at school, being robbed of time when he could instead be EXPERIENCING the grander things in life. You do not want him to be in school, spending more time with his teachers than he does with you or his family. If you want to make EVERY SINGLE MOMENT count for him, you can spend every moment with him and Homeschool."
REALITY
This was not the first time I've thought about homeschooling before. About 2 years ago, I developed this desire to understand the homeschool world when my oldest child was struggling in school. I'm blessed to associate with many amazing families who choose to homeschool. And they do it all with their own twist. I've always admired the closeness that these families seem to have, and how they're just really joyful and adventurous sorts of people. They think about the world differently, and have a different perspective on life. I also admire the love and dedication these mothers have for their children.
I started speaking to my homeschool mom friends about their experiences, how they homeschool, and WHY they chose to homeschool. I was fascinated with how they made it all work, or what they did when it didn't work. I interviewed and even shadowed some of them during a "typical" home school day. Many of their answers as to what drove them to choose this path were the same:
THE RECENT APPEAL OF HOMESCHOOL
We've been very honest with the kids about the baby's health concerns and the possible challenges that it will be for our family. It's something that everyone has had to process and think about. We're all-in and up for the challenge. That doesn't mean that things won't be hard, though.
One night, a couple weeks after receiving news about the baby, my oldest son was talking to me in his bedroom as I was tucking him in for the night. "Mom," he said "When our baby get's here. I don't want to go back to school." He looked at me with a very serious face. "If he might not live very long, I just want to spend every day with him...ALL the time. I don't want to miss out on anything in his life. I want to help take care of him. I want to know my brother."
Those words tugged at my heart. This situation is a heavy thing for an 8-year-old to have to contemplate. But to him, it was no question. He just wanted to be a part of his brother's life, no matter how short or long that life might be. When he spoke those words to me, the same impression came into my mind: "HOMESCHOOL."
That week I talked to my husband about it. Would we be totally crazy to homeschool? How DO you homeschool? What if our kids became totally "weird" and didn't know how to be social? Would homeschooling be a detriment or a benefit for our children? What did WE need to do to make it happen? My husband wasn't convinced. But the biggest desire of my mother's heart was just to keep all my children close and with me, so we could spend more time together and enjoy life more without spending hours apart in different classroom environment and receiving mediocre educations. WE COULD DO THIS. I just needed to find a way.
CURRICULUM
In my research online, within Facebook homeschool groups, and in talking with my friends who homeschool, there were some top contenders for curriculum and teaching methods:
First, the curriculum is pretty risk-free because it is offered as a free download for Grades (or levels) 1-5. That's perfect for us. So I downloaded the curriculum for levels 1 and 3, and printed things out for our boys to work on. I looked at the sample stuff for the Pre-K and Kindergarten items, and it looked really fun and age-level appropriate as well. The curriculum is what people call "open and go." It does not require intensive preparation on the part of the parent. You're just able to open your book, and get going. SIMPLE. You can also trust the quality and "wholesomeness" of the content your kids are learning.
TGTB also has a helpful video about How-To's or getting started. We put together some bins based on this video. The Curriculum also offers some placement assessments so you can have the child start at the appropriate level. There are other support materials available for free or a very comfortable purchase price, but the curriculum for Language Arts & Literature is free. ALSO for fun, there is a limited time free booklist available from TGTB at http://www.jennyphillips.com/good-beautiful-book-list/. This download is good until 11/11/17.
The Good and The Beautiful curriculum DOES NOT, however, have any math focus. We've been using MathSeeds for our math exercises. It is NOT a free program, but not an incredibly expensive one, either. The girls, especially, love it, because it's really just fun educational games that they play on the computer. It's sneaky, because they don't realize they're studying. Every morning, they're so excited to work on their "math homework". MathSeeds also offers a placement test before hand, so each child can start at their appropriate level.
OUR NEW HOMESCHOOL LIFE
I officially withdrew my two older boys from their school on October 23. (The girls are in Preschool, going 2 days a weeks for 2.5 hours at a time, so I keep them attending.) Since withdrawing from school, we've been "decompressing", and doing homeschool stuff, and figuring out what works for us. One service that we DO utilize is an Umbrella School. There is a charter school here that serves our area, and offers "distance education" for students who register with them. I have LOVED getting involved with this school. The boys spend 1 full day in the classroom at a satellite location. Students are broken up into grade levels, and they spend time learning about science, geography, culture and social studies, all while doing hands-on activities. They never come back with homework. It's more like a fun weekly workshop. They still get opportunities to socialize with children their own age, to learn how to work with others and with teachers. They learn fun things without the stress of homework, tests, or grades. The school also offers an optional half-day of extracurricular activities that the children can sign up for. The units are 3-4 weeks long, and once a week, we'll meet and the boys will get to ride a bus to their location for their classes. In the past, these units have been things like bowling, laser tag, dance, martial arts, acting, painting & drawing, ceramics, music classes, and working with local animal shelters. The purpose of these month-long units is to expose the children to all different sorts of wholesome activities that they don't typically get in a regular school setting. The charter school also arranges field trip days for families, and we can enjoy really incredible discounts to places like the Utah Symphony, the zoo, thanksgiving point, the aquarium, and a range of different museums or productions across the Salt Lake and Utah Valley area. The best thing is, since this is THROUGH a charter school, tuition is free, the half-day off-campus classes are also free. Yet, they allow me to use whatever curriculum I like with the kids during the time they are at home. It has eased my burden and the shock from jumping in blind.
Between The Good and The Beautiful, MathSeeds, and the support I've gotten from our distance education charter school, our transition to homeschool has been a really great experience. We're still learning and growing and changing things here and there as we go, but it's a relief to have GREAT resources available to use right from the start.
I also love that we have the flexibility to now go on family "field trips" whenever we want. We can do library time whenever we feel like it, or visit places to where we have memberships. We can foster a different learning environment and help the kids discover and develop their passions. (See the video of our 8-year-old teaching a "Potions Class" on our family YouTube channel. For this video, he wrote and planned the script, created the set design, researched the science experiments, and materials needed. I helped him record and edit the video. It was such a fulfilling project for him that utilized English, Math, Science, the Fine Arts [set/costume design and acting]. He was SO PROUD to see his finished video. He told me "That was the best 7 minutes of my life!" THAT to me is good homeschooling––combining a variety of academic areas and using it all to learn and create something beneficial. If he was in a typical school environment, making that video would not be something he had time to do.)
I know we're still learning, changing, adjusting, and figuring things out as we go, but I am grateful that I followed the calling to homeschool. I want our children to see the world as being good and beautiful...because it really IS. And with the different challenges our family will face in the future, I want to make every moment full of joy. I want every day to count for something great. I know that at this time in our lives, homeschool is what's right for our family.
It was 10 weeks ago that we received the diagnosis about our baby during a routine prenatal ultrasound at 20 weeks. And let me tell you, what and interesting 10 weeks it's been.
Interesting....and
overwhelming,
heavy,
terrifying,
prayerful,
full of gratitude, hope, faith, and love.
It's been some of the most life-changing 10 weeks of my existence.
 | |
|
Though I had done some research before hand, the cardiologist discussed things with us in more details. Among the challenges of needing multiple open-heart surgeries throughout his life, he also talked about the longer-term future of our child.
"Many children with this condition," he said, "just start behind the 8-ball, so to speak". He explained to us, because of oxygen deficiencies (due to poor pumping and blood-flow from his heart), extended hospital stays that would require complete sedation at times, and an ever-looming danger of catching infection or sickness that his weakened immune system would have difficulty fighting off, ALL these concerns would most definitely lead to developmental delays for our baby. "Many of these kids' brains are also just wired differently, because they HAD to develop differently," the cardiologist told us. "You're looking at a strong possibility of this child dealing with conditions like ADHD, and other behavioral disorders." (There's a good article about behavior disorders linked to congenital heart disease that you can read here.)
The cardiologist kept using the word "palliative care" and the BIGGEST thing that the he stressed was the fact that our baby "has an incurable condition. He basically has half a heart, and at some day, that right side of the heart will be so tired of doing all the work for both halves, that it will just give out." Then he looked at both me and my husband eye-to-eye and told us "Don't expect that this child will ever outlive you. It will be impressive if he can live through his 20's."
The cardiologist's voice faded away as I got lost in my own thoughts, and I imagined our little boy as he grew and progressed through life. I envisioned what I wanted our life to look like. What would he be doing when he was 2, 5, 8, or 15 years old? How would he spend his days? What memories would our son be able to make with his 5 older siblings and his mom and dad? My heart just hurt, because, if he really was going to have some struggles, and if he was going to experience a third of the time on earth that most people get, I just wanted that third of life to be magical, and full of love and joy and sweet, amazing memories. I wanted to live every moment to the fullest and have each day be the BEST DAY EVER.
INSPIRATION
The thought immediately came into my mind:
"HOMESCHOOL. ... You can enrich his life by homeschooling. He does not need to spend the majority of his days, sitting in a desk at school, being robbed of time when he could instead be EXPERIENCING the grander things in life. You do not want him to be in school, spending more time with his teachers than he does with you or his family. If you want to make EVERY SINGLE MOMENT count for him, you can spend every moment with him and Homeschool."
REALITY
This was not the first time I've thought about homeschooling before. About 2 years ago, I developed this desire to understand the homeschool world when my oldest child was struggling in school. I'm blessed to associate with many amazing families who choose to homeschool. And they do it all with their own twist. I've always admired the closeness that these families seem to have, and how they're just really joyful and adventurous sorts of people. They think about the world differently, and have a different perspective on life. I also admire the love and dedication these mothers have for their children.
I started speaking to my homeschool mom friends about their experiences, how they homeschool, and WHY they chose to homeschool. I was fascinated with how they made it all work, or what they did when it didn't work. I interviewed and even shadowed some of them during a "typical" home school day. Many of their answers as to what drove them to choose this path were the same:
- They felt CALLED to do it.
- They wanted to spend more time as a family.
- They wanted to protect their children from a broken public education system.
- They wanted to be more involved in their children's education.
- They wanted to provide their children (some of them with special needs, learning disabilities, or restrictions) the opportunity to THRIVE, despite what other's told them about their children's "capabilities".
THE RECENT APPEAL OF HOMESCHOOL
We've been very honest with the kids about the baby's health concerns and the possible challenges that it will be for our family. It's something that everyone has had to process and think about. We're all-in and up for the challenge. That doesn't mean that things won't be hard, though.
One night, a couple weeks after receiving news about the baby, my oldest son was talking to me in his bedroom as I was tucking him in for the night. "Mom," he said "When our baby get's here. I don't want to go back to school." He looked at me with a very serious face. "If he might not live very long, I just want to spend every day with him...ALL the time. I don't want to miss out on anything in his life. I want to help take care of him. I want to know my brother."
Those words tugged at my heart. This situation is a heavy thing for an 8-year-old to have to contemplate. But to him, it was no question. He just wanted to be a part of his brother's life, no matter how short or long that life might be. When he spoke those words to me, the same impression came into my mind: "HOMESCHOOL."
That week I talked to my husband about it. Would we be totally crazy to homeschool? How DO you homeschool? What if our kids became totally "weird" and didn't know how to be social? Would homeschooling be a detriment or a benefit for our children? What did WE need to do to make it happen? My husband wasn't convinced. But the biggest desire of my mother's heart was just to keep all my children close and with me, so we could spend more time together and enjoy life more without spending hours apart in different classroom environment and receiving mediocre educations. WE COULD DO THIS. I just needed to find a way.
CURRICULUM
In my research online, within Facebook homeschool groups, and in talking with my friends who homeschool, there were some top contenders for curriculum and teaching methods:
- Charlotte Mason style education
- Thomas Jefferson Education (TJed)
- The Good and The Beautiful
- A Well Educated Heart / Libraries of Hope
- MathSeeds & ReadingEggs
Since we were just starting out, I needed something that was just easy to use from the beginning. I wanted something well-rounded (that incorporated other disciplines like geography, history, science, social studies, etc.) and that offered age-appropriate resources for ALL the 4 older kids (Pre-K, 1st grade, and 3rd grade). After looking at each of the websites and methods, I really felt drawn to The Good and The Beautiful (TGTB).
First, the curriculum is pretty risk-free because it is offered as a free download for Grades (or levels) 1-5. That's perfect for us. So I downloaded the curriculum for levels 1 and 3, and printed things out for our boys to work on. I looked at the sample stuff for the Pre-K and Kindergarten items, and it looked really fun and age-level appropriate as well. The curriculum is what people call "open and go." It does not require intensive preparation on the part of the parent. You're just able to open your book, and get going. SIMPLE. You can also trust the quality and "wholesomeness" of the content your kids are learning.
 |
| An example of our school bins. |
The Good and The Beautiful curriculum DOES NOT, however, have any math focus. We've been using MathSeeds for our math exercises. It is NOT a free program, but not an incredibly expensive one, either. The girls, especially, love it, because it's really just fun educational games that they play on the computer. It's sneaky, because they don't realize they're studying. Every morning, they're so excited to work on their "math homework". MathSeeds also offers a placement test before hand, so each child can start at their appropriate level.
OUR NEW HOMESCHOOL LIFE
I officially withdrew my two older boys from their school on October 23. (The girls are in Preschool, going 2 days a weeks for 2.5 hours at a time, so I keep them attending.) Since withdrawing from school, we've been "decompressing", and doing homeschool stuff, and figuring out what works for us. One service that we DO utilize is an Umbrella School. There is a charter school here that serves our area, and offers "distance education" for students who register with them. I have LOVED getting involved with this school. The boys spend 1 full day in the classroom at a satellite location. Students are broken up into grade levels, and they spend time learning about science, geography, culture and social studies, all while doing hands-on activities. They never come back with homework. It's more like a fun weekly workshop. They still get opportunities to socialize with children their own age, to learn how to work with others and with teachers. They learn fun things without the stress of homework, tests, or grades. The school also offers an optional half-day of extracurricular activities that the children can sign up for. The units are 3-4 weeks long, and once a week, we'll meet and the boys will get to ride a bus to their location for their classes. In the past, these units have been things like bowling, laser tag, dance, martial arts, acting, painting & drawing, ceramics, music classes, and working with local animal shelters. The purpose of these month-long units is to expose the children to all different sorts of wholesome activities that they don't typically get in a regular school setting. The charter school also arranges field trip days for families, and we can enjoy really incredible discounts to places like the Utah Symphony, the zoo, thanksgiving point, the aquarium, and a range of different museums or productions across the Salt Lake and Utah Valley area. The best thing is, since this is THROUGH a charter school, tuition is free, the half-day off-campus classes are also free. Yet, they allow me to use whatever curriculum I like with the kids during the time they are at home. It has eased my burden and the shock from jumping in blind.
Between The Good and The Beautiful, MathSeeds, and the support I've gotten from our distance education charter school, our transition to homeschool has been a really great experience. We're still learning and growing and changing things here and there as we go, but it's a relief to have GREAT resources available to use right from the start.
I know we're still learning, changing, adjusting, and figuring things out as we go, but I am grateful that I followed the calling to homeschool. I want our children to see the world as being good and beautiful...because it really IS. And with the different challenges our family will face in the future, I want to make every moment full of joy. I want every day to count for something great. I know that at this time in our lives, homeschool is what's right for our family.
You go girl!
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