Parenting is full of hard decisions. We are constantly faced with opportunities for our children, for our family and for ourselves. It can be so hard to know what is the best decision, the one with the fewest regrets or the one with the biggest payoff for our family.
Currently on my mind is education for our girls. Sammi is going into 2nd grade and Elli is a Kindergartener. We loved their public school experience last year. But the schedule was long and wearing on us all. Poor Elli got sick so much during the fall and then finally had tubes put in her ears and her adenoids removed. The thought of her school day becoming 2 hours longer is worrisome.
Then there’s Sammi. Once she got the swing of test taking and worksheets, her learning exploded. She reads at a fourth grade level now and told me her favorite subjects are math and science. She’s very good at both of them. She’s literal and full of problem solving. She is our child of the third option. She always has an alternative solution to every choice we offer her. It’s infuriating sometimes, but helpful other times. She can see solutions that I am often blind to.
Since we’re talking about education, I have to bring Brent into this discussion, too. This year is his final year of medical school! Fourth year is full of opportunities to make long term connections, finalize your choice of specialty and seize all your opportunities to make a successful residency match. That means he will be traveling this fall, interviewing and doing rotations with the Air Force. If there’s anything we’ve learned about our family through medical school it’s that we do better when we are together.
One month he has the opportunity to choose where he goes. We talked about going to Utah for the month as a family so we could reconnect and introduce Ben to our family there. But, to be able to go, we need to homeschool. We enjoyed homeschooling Sammi during her kindergarten year. And she’s actually been asking to homeschool again this year. But with Brent being gone for the two months preceding the month in Utah, I’m worried about how well we will do.
I’m stuck. I’ve been on the fence all summer. We’ve done some homeschooling days and things are going relatively well, but I have Brent to help with dinner and to get the kids in bed. We missed the back to school night tonight. School starts Monday. And I keep wondering what we should do.
Why, oh, why is this so hard? any thoughts?
I am not the best person, since I don’t have children that age, but I think that I would be overwhelmed in attempting to do two different curriculum with two children and a husband who was gone. I can see the difficulty in your dilemma.
I think that’s where I get worried: being overwhelmed. But I managed to put together a curriculum that allows for a lot of overlap for the girls so that math and reading are the only ones that are separate.
Having so much together would be extremely helpful.
I wish I was there to help out some. I don’t think I personally could do it with 2 younger kiddos that needed lots of my attention too all while I’m trying to teach Kindergarten and 2nd grade material. I know you are awesome and could probably pull it off, but pulling it off may be very stressful at times. Then, with not homeschooling things will be stressful too. You really just have to see which one has more pros for you and your family. It seems they both have lots of pros and cons.
They do both have so many pros and cons. I’ve been going over them all summer long. And here I am, one weekend away from the final decision and I still don’t feel that one is more right than the other.
Just a thought, could you send them for the first part of the year and home school the rest? You are incredible and could pull off whichever you decide. 4 th year is tough when the husband/father is gone. Good luck! Hugs Rebecca Sloan
That’s a thought. I had thought about doing it in reverse, homeschooling fall and then putting them back in in January.
Such a hard decision. It’s difficult doing more than one grade at the same time but with them all being younger I think it would be a little easier. You could still do stuff like history and even science together. The reading, writing and math would be a little harder but you could always have Sammi help Elli with her reading and counting. I agree with the other comments that it could be stressful but I also think of all the people I know, you could do it. Study and prayer is really all I can suggest! Love ya!