Uncovering Homeschool Myth #3

    

  

   

    1 . Our kids are unsocialized 

    2. You have to be patient, organized & crafty 

    3. We breed like rabbits

    4.  We all wear glasses and live to be on the “Geek Squad”

    5. We keep our kids in a bubble so they won’t see or hear   evil

I could use this space to talk about my sex life.

Or, argue the cons to birth control…

But I’m not.

Instead, I’d like to uncover the underlying reason why this is a common home-school myth. Deep down inside all of us lay a funny little quirk we like to do in our spare time: Categorize people. Like filing away papers to be stored in a cabinet for tax season, we file people away into their proper folder. It sounds something like this:

Just to be with You

I’ve had a long standing rule in my house that “wake up” time is at 7:00 a.m. I need my sleep and space in the morning so everyone is to stay in their room till then. Before my oldest son turned three, I had a clock in his room with stars marking the 7 and 12. I followed this timely gift with a conversation about when the little hand points to the 7 and the big hand points to the 12, that means it’s 7:00 and you can wake up! For the most part it worked. At times, even now, one of the kids will push the envelope and crack open the living room door at 6:55, just to check the validity of this invisible boundary. I usually let it slide, but then in a couple days, 6:55 turns to 6:50 and then to 6:45. Before I realize it, kids are jumping in my bed at 6:30 and I’m ready to blow my top. We re-establish this un-movable boundary because I am just a person who has to wake up slowly and calmly, without dealing with “I’m hungry” and “She touched me!” right out of the starting gate.

Uncovering Homeschool Myth #2

   

1. Our kids are unsocialized(click HERE to go to this page)

    2. You have to be patient, organized & crafty 

    3. We breed like rabbits

    4.  We all wear glasses and live to be on the “Geek Squad”

    5. We keep our kids in a bubble so they won’t see or hear   evil

“I don’t know how you do it. I just don’t have the patience to homeschool.”

When the Alarm Clock Fails

 Before turning out the lights to end the day, I had Adam set the alarm for 7 a.m. My parents are in town and my dad wanted to go jogging with me in the morning. Being able to hear the birds sing rather than dodging two way traffic is my preference, so getting out the earlier, the better. At 5:30 my body jolted up, peering through blurred, squinty eyes to see what time the clock said. “In case the alarm forgets to go off,” I thought, “I need to wake myself up.” I did it again at 6…and again at 6:30…finally at 6:45 I thought, “The alarm is set, just trust that it will work.” Sure enough at 7:00, the alarm rang!

When you Find Yourself Waiting in Line...

Standing at the checkout line at my local grocery store, I realized I, again, picked the wrong line. Wrong line, that is, if my goal was speed. Right line, if I wanted to watch the crowd of people I passed in the isles now wave goodbye to their friends.