Under-socialized ...
Yesterday SimonTemplar asked "I think homeschooling can rob kids of adequate socialization with peers. Is that a valid concern?" My short answer is "no" but the question is a serious one and I want to give it a little more attention than that.
Do we actually MEAN socialization? Or do we mean socializing. Because they are two different things. Socialization is the process of learning how to fit into and interact with other members of society. So the question I like to ask back is which is the better representation of "real" life? A classroom with 24 other kids with your same experience and your same age? Or day to day interactions with people of all different ages, interests, attitudes and ideas.
Homeschooled kids are very rarely isolated from interactions. My kids went (and go) with me to shop, pay bills and attend business meetings. They are involved in church, in our family, and with our friends. They have learned to politely address people of all different ages and backgrounds. (Not that they always choose to be polite, but you see what I'm saying?) The thing that my kids' teachers say about them is that they are "independent" thinkers. Because they didn't start off with a group they never developed the group mentality that we adults so bemoan in our kids. Tucker may be a little overly independent, he takes a little too much pride in doing what he wants whether it's the popular thing or not...
Now I also think it's important for kids to get time with other kids to goof off and just hang out. It's important for kids to be able to have friends, to learn how to develop and maintain friendships and how to relate to other kids. But in my opinion, it's a mistake to assume that sending kids off to school is enough to ensure that they will be adequately socialized. Just take a look at the average high school kid. Plucked out of the classroom and put into a situation where the social rules and manners are not determined by the most popular kids in school and how well do they do? Ask any employer who hires teens which she'd rather have and I can almost guarantee you that if she's had experience with both homeschooled and institutionally schooled kids, the homeschooled kids get the vote.
A caveat: My kids are not the best example of the advantages of homeschooling because they have "issues". Michael with his autism and Tucker with his ADHD are not average kids. They are cool kids and I love 'em to death but don't look at them to see what the average homeschooler looks like. On the other hand, I know that as long as they were home with me, they were learning manners, they were learning to speak and interact with people, and they were confident that they had a place in this world.
Since they've been in school, both have had setbacks in their socialization. They don't understand why it is that kids are allowed so much free rein and why the adults seem so helpless. Tucker has especially backslidden because he figured out real quick that he can get away with a lot just because he has the chutzpah to try it. Both of them have had real blows to their confidence and self-esteem as they have had to learn to navigate a system that punishes individualism and forces an artificial conformity of intellect and opinion.
It's not anyone's fault. It's just the way it is. You can't run an institution, ANY institution in a way that nurtures individualism. It's not efficient or effective. And for the middle 60% of the bell curve it's not a problem But the people at either end (and it's actually even more complicated than that) simply don't fit. They are not in a position for optimal learning and they don't learn well. We all know, it's a developmental fact that kids mature at different rates. The first ones out of the gate get going while those who amble a bit slower become more and more discouraged. It's not uncommon to have a kid in second or third grade who is maturing at exactly his or her best pace convinced that he or she is a stupid failure because of the kids who seem to be "getting it" with so much more ease. And to be honest, although there are advantages to "mainstreaming" there are also disadvantages with that comparison element. The faster kids are held back and the slower kids are discouraged. But now I'm into academics and the question was about socialization.
So to come back to that, which makes better sense to you? Tossing a couple dozen uncivilized little heathen together and expecting them to somehow grow up into well socialized citizens? Or integrating them as individuals into a society comprised for the most part of already socialized people who will support them and provide the example of what mature behavior looks like?
Now, because my kids got out of school early today, we're off to visit a museum I found that I know Tucker's gonna love. He just finished a report on being an artist because right now that's his dream for when he's all grown up.
Have a GREAT Friday.
Hugs
Terri
Homeschooling Habits
Lettersat3am commented about my post yesterday, "I'm glad to see you still homeschooling the boys even though they are now in school" (or something like that, I'm not looking at her comment.)
I used to say it, that everyone homeschools. But for some reason over the past year, I had forgotten that. I've been all depressed about having the boys in a public school and "losing" that part of our relationship. But she's right, and I'm thanking her for that reminder. I am still schooling my kids. And it's good.
I'm running late this morning, so I'm stopping here. No fainting in the peanut gallery - I can write a short blog if I want to.
Run, Molly, Run
This is Black History month and the boys and I have been reading and talking about it. About what it means for a people to be oppressed and what it would be like to live with prejudice. As a part of our many talks we also listened to a song recorded by Sweet Honey in the Rock. This group of women perform traditional African American songs. Many of them spiritual but not all. Some are songs from the slave cabins located down at the back side of the place where the trees are thicker and the air doesn't make much breeze.
Yesterday, we listened to Run, Molly, Run ... this song was a code song. It was a message that the underground railroad was ready to take another passenger to freedom. You came in from the fields, hot, tired, and hungry. Then you grab your cornbread and molasses, settle down in the circle and the singing starts. Your heartbeat picks up when you realize they are starting THAT song. You look around wondering who? Who's it gonna be this time? And then you hear your name.
It's the first warning you've had that your time has come. The faces of the people around you shine with a mixture of emotions. Some of them are envious, some are concerned, all are turned in your direction as the entire community blesses you and pushes you out of the nest all at the same time. The song goes on and you listen close for the other clues, "if you don't come by Saturday night, you need not come at all." Oh, sweet Jesus, Saturday is only two days away. How're you gonna be ready? It's not like you have a lot to pack, but still these things take time, don't they?
As we were listening to the song, my eyes were filled with tears and when the boys asked their questions I had to be excused to get a drink of water before I could talk about it. We talked about being trapped in an impossible situation, and also about what it would feel like to be given a chance for freedom, a way out. No guaranatees in life, then or now. Freedom doesn't mean easy. And sometimes its not a glorious liberty of choice and possibility but the freedom to starve on your own terms. We talked about what your life would have to be like in order to be willing to take that step into the unknown and uncertain future.
We talked about what makes a person free. That's not an easy question to answer. The boys were supremely confident that slavery is dead in this country, but I'm not so sure. We have a system of corporate servitude that has trapped generations of men and women into a subculture of anxiety and subsistence. We have rules that attempt to dictate to the conscience of us all. We have laws and taxes that penalize us for productivity and force us to slip out under the table to make a break for it.
No, it's not the overt cruelty of slavery where fathers are bought and sold on an auction block. But anyone who thinks that families aren't being torn apart by the economic system we have in place now, just isn't paying attention. I know my perspective may be ... skewed a bit. But I believe the statistics support my claim.
And the only ways out that I can see are just as terrifying as it must have been a hundred and fifty years ago to look into the faces of your friends and realize that its your time.
**************
I'm still sick. Probably going to stay home today. Probably. I finally broke down and called Dr. Tom yesterday. I'm on antibiotics and under instruction to rest. I'm not any good at resting. I tried to get an extra hour of sleep this morning, but I picked up the Janet Evanovich book to see what happens next. Happily, the heroine who made me so sick in the first part of the book, suffers through the last half with an unattractive little roll of bellyfat hanging over her jeans. I felt better.
And for those of you who are fans ... skip this part if you haven't read Ten Big Ones.
Stephanie finally sleeps in Ranger's bed. But still no SEX with Ranger. This is about to give me heart palpitations. I mean really! He even tells her that he LOVES her in this book. And she still doesn't do it. Okay, okay, I know she's got this thing with Morelli going on, and really, I LIKE Morelli. Any man who'll do what he does in the shower ... well, she's by no means settling for second best. On the other hand. That Ranger guy ... sigh.
Didn't do a thing for lowering my temperature.
Have a good one.
Terri
Eeeewwwwwww!
Over the years, I've been a little careless about what I eat. I don't mean the consumption of junkfood, although that's certainly true as well, I mean that I don't religiously either eat or toss the leftover within a couple days. Sometimes, I forget how long the leftover has been in the refrigerator.
New Policy Time. On Sunday, I didn't much feel like cooking, so I finished of some leftovers that had been in the refrigerator since the previous Sunday. 
Yesterday I was violently ill. And then I had a second taactical error.
In between bouts of violent illness I thought I'd read. I have the most recent Janet Evanovich book in my stack from the library and I thought it would be great, light entertainment. NO. On EVERY page, these people eat. And they eat gross things that would be hard to take on a healthy day, but on a day when I'ms sick? They don't just eat cake its a huge wedge of chocolate cake with ice cream consumed while the future brother-in-law discussed his sperm motility.
It's not just a dozen doughnuts, they are raspberry jelly filled with jelly glopping everywhere. It's not just a bag of chips, its a chip eating fiend who robs a Frito Lay truck and makes off with a car load of chips which she proceeds to consume with such wild abandon that there's Cheez Doodle dust everywhere.
Eeeeew!
By page 50 my system was well and truly emptied and I was able to put a book mark in place and sleep. I still feel a little like someone punched me in the stomach, but I'm sure I'll recover. And the next time you're ill, if you want to speed it up ... There's Janet.
(And btw, I LOVE Janet's Stephanie Plum character. I think she's clever, entertaining, and I would love to have her kind of man trouble. Okay, maybe not really, but it makes good reading anyway.)
A Red, Red Rose
My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melody
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Thou' it were ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns
Happy Valentine's Day
Literary Seduction
It's the title of the book I'm currently reading, Literary Seduction. I was wandering around the library the other day, looking for something "Valentinesish" to read. I know I could have gone for the latest work of my favorite romance author, or a book of poetry, but this one caught my eye.
"I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart, and I love you too ..." this line from the first of thousands of letters exchanged between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is the beginning of a love affair that began with a good read between a still unknown poet of New Cross and an internationally celebrated poet. In the myth that has developed around the couple's courtship by epistle, secret marriage and escape to Italy much of the focus is on their clandestine meetings, her mysterious illness and imprisonment in her bedroom, and the puzzling psychology of her father. The thing that few have commented upon is the strangeness of their encounter. Yet the most striking aspect of the tale of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett is not that she was ill or that her father was tyrannical, but that before he met Elizabeth Barrett, the celibate Robert Browing fell in love with her poems.
Words distilled to paper. Words boiled down to the thick essence of a life and presented in a bottle of perfume that once unstoppered, overtakes the senses of the reader. Words intended to seduce. Elizabeth intended to seduce Robert, she included in her two-volume collection "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" a passage where a love-sick poet called Bertram reads to Lady Geraldine some contemporary poetry, and Browning, who was still obscure outside the tightest literary circles, is praised alonside poets of established stature and reputation.
"... a modern volume, -- Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl, Howitt's ballad verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie, --
Or from Browning some 'Pomegranate' which if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity."
Given that all writing strives to ensnare the reader, it is remarkable how few are ensnared. For as all writers know, writing must be alluring adn intoxicating or they have achieved nothing. Whether writing a poem, a postcard, or a novel the writer's drive is to captivate the reader. Roland Barthes says that no writing is without the love-me element.
Beyond the love-me element there is what I belive to be the core of writing's appeal to the writer and that is the see-me element. I wonder, have wondered aloud via this website more than once, just how much of me is revealed, seen, understood and appreciated by those who read. Its a very narcissistic thing. I'm holding up a magic mirror, writing in a way that I hope is accessible by which I mean that other people will identify with the writing and see themselves. But the magic is when the mirror is held in a certain light and the reader is no longer looking into glass, but looking into me.
It's a frightening game. And for many the conclusion is that the game isn't real. How can my Internet friends (and I have several people I do consider friends who know me only through this window) be assured that what they know is real? And for that matter, if all writing is designed to appeal and seduce, how is it that so many readers tend to be so unmoved by what they read? Why are literary seductions so rare?
I believe its because of the metaphor I employed above. Writing isn't a perfect snapshot of a person's thoughts, feelings, and values it is a distillation. And perhaps the strength of the brew makes it palatable only from a distance. But I think there is a second reason that parallels the mystery of relationship in every arena. You can only know as much as you are willing to be known. You can only reveal to the extent that you trust.
I know people who have fallen in love through the writing they exchanged across the Internet. Here in the Xanga community there are people who met, courted, and are now married because they saw something in each other's words. There are others who found themselves deceived and betrayed by false images and faithless words.
For Valentine's Day this year, I celebrate my friends Jason and Maria. I applaud the commitment of Morganna and Stephen. I'm enchanted by their stories and others. They are following in the line of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. And I will end this by quoting the most famous offspring of that marriage ...
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the Passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Respite
Thank you for caring about me even in my whining and pitiable state. I started off the day very unhappy with myself because I yelled at Tucker last night. It's weighing heavy on me that the teacher said that my relationship with these kids is the area of their greatest strength. I'm only too aware of my weaknesses, and I have been terrified that I'll let them down. So when I was overwhelmed and snapping last night, I was also ashamed of myself immediately and scared that I'd damaged that relationship they are counting on to get them through.
I helped the kids with their Valentines this morning. (We just wrote - "From Tucker" on 28 cards for him to hand out at random.)
I got into their room with a trashbag and cleared away enough stuff that you can see inch upon square inch of carpeting. 
Tucker asked, "Mom are you deleting those toys permanently?" (short answer - yes)
I also contacted the insurance and got the name of a psychiatrist who will see the boys. When I called I was told that they would mail me some forms to fill out then I could mail them back and then they would make the appointment. Um, no. I went there and filled out the forms in person and got my appointment. The kids will be seen on March 10.
What else ... I talked with my family. And as I type this I realize that I have actually spoken with the entire hee haw gang except for my father and including my ex-husband. Both of the men are sending me money. My Dad is helping to restore my budget following the four flat tires saga of earlier this week, and Tim is contributing so the boys and I can do something enjoyable together for Valentine's Day.
So with help in sight, I paid my bills. Including the library fine I owed for keeping The Secret Life of Bees three days past the due date. 
Today I made my calls to the office instead of from the office. But I got done what needed to be done there for my job. And starting on Monday, I will have my own office with a door and everything from which I can do my happy little thing. I'm ornery though, it will take more than giving me my own office, my own computer, and phone, and desk and chair and happy little calendar on the wall to make me feel the love. But I'm willing to give it a chance. I've been looking around here to see what little personal touch I'd want to take with me ...
See when in doubt - get busy. It makes me feel better.
Then when I picked up the kids, I told Michael's teacher that I had an appointment for the kids to be evaluated. She had done some research this week as well and brought me the name of the best Child Psych person in Colorado Springs. And it turns out to be the same guy that I found and got the appointment with. So I felt better about that. In fact, I felt downright competent.
She also talked with me about Respite Care. I've heard of it before and never seriously considered it because I figured that it's the equivalent of admitting to being an abusive parent, like saying, "someone needs to take these kids for a couple hours or I'm going to hurt them." But she was really positive about it and encouraged me to use the service to get a break. Her exact line was, "You should be able to go to the store without having the heathen tag along." I like the sound of that. NOW it remains to be seen whether I'll overcome my fear of being seen as a lousy Mom to make that call.
You know, one way or another, I'm going to make this work.
And thank you all for your kind words and cyber hugs. For your prayers and wisdom. Thank you for being my friends.
Terri
She's B-A-A-A-C-K
She left here a little over a year ago because of severe nastiness that was creeping across from the cyberworld to the point that it was impacting her real life and family. So you'll understand that when I refer to her as "she who must not be named" it isn't because she's evil, it's to protect her from evil. But some of you are aware enough of what happened a year ago that you know already who I'm talking about. You've asked me about her, how she's doing, what's going on in her life, and whether that trademark sense of humor had been dimished by her experience. Well, take a look at the comment she left on my whining-self-pitying-I'm-too-tired-to-face-the-world-so-I-won't blog (below).
In her new incarnation, she's a sharc - a loansharc. But you can't hide soul. You know?
So whether you know who I'm talking about or not, please stop in and say "hi" and welcome back. If you were one of the over 300 people who used to read her regularly and comment, you'll know who she is.
Overwhelmed
I've been holding it together pretty well for a while now. Apparently, I've reached my limit. For absolutely no reason that I can point to and say - that's the straw - I have reached my limit tonight.
It's all stupid stuff. The list of classmates for Tucker's Valentine's exchange, which was supposed to be on my desk, is NOT on my desk. I showed him where to put it and asked him to leave it alone so that when we needed it (tonight) we could find it. It's gone. He remembers "showing it to Michael" but he can't remember anything else. I've turned their room upside down, it's not to be found.
I've had two days of business meetings that show a lot of promise in terms of helping me to develop future leads. But I'm disappointed because two meetings that I had high hopes for were cancelled at the last minute. And in some of the meetings from earlier this week, I learned that people I've been developing as leads for mortgage lending, aren't MY leads. They are company leads. So any business they call in with, doesn't go to me it goes ... well, the bottom line is that it goes to my boss. It seems that unless I tattoo my name on their forehead or something else to mark them as mine, the assumption is that they belong to "the company." And you know the thing that I feel the worst about regarding that whole episode? I naively thought that *I* was a part of the company. But hey, I'm not bitter. I'm too tired to be bitter.
I had to have four new tires put on my car this week. It seems that my front end has been out of alignment for a good long while. I'm guessing since the wreck in October. And all my tires were ruined as a result. I had one flat and when I went to get a new one, I got the bad news.
I'm tired.
There was one very bright note that I must report. Someone I've been worried about is now in recovery from a painful injury so (yes, it's all about ME) I don't have to worry QUITE so much.
And although there was a threat of a storm today, it did not materialize. Thank God.
But all in all, I just want to go crawl in my bed and pull the covers over my head, and stay there for a week. Or more.
Okay, in truth - I think I do know the moment that put me over the edge. I've been holding off the breakdown for a couple days, but it started when I had a conversation with Michael's teacher earlier this week about some issues my kids are having in school. I don't know how to help them any more than I'm doing already and I feel like a total failure as a mom. Kelly reassured me that it's "not my fault" and really I know that, sort of. Okay, no I don't. I keep thinking that if I were a better mom, I could figure out a way to fix it.
I called another child psychologist this week, who sounded perfect, until we got down to the discussion of insurance. He doesn't take the kind that my kids have. (He did say that he would try to help me figure out who does take their insurance and also works on their particular kind of needs.)
Did I mention that I'm tired?
I feel inadequate to handle the responsibility I have for the boys. I feel disappointed that my job is going in this direction. And I'm tired. I'm tired of straws that pile up, and I'm ... just ... tired.
I'm sure I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. But thanks for listening tonight.
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