What About Socialization? :::groan:::

Socialization. Don't we just HATE that word? What about socialization? What about the prom? Sigh.


I have found that my adult children relate better to older adults than they do people their own age. Correction: Public school people their own age. Sure they did not have the same socialization that the public (and even private) school kids did. Nope not at all. Am I upset by this? Hell no!


Speaking of high school only, since my kids were 13 and 10 when we began homeschooling, my kids had an extremely "weird" social life. They didn't stay out until all hours of the night while that age. I always knew where they were since they were, you know, underage and all. Drinking? Nope, none of that. Drugs? Again, nope. Would I know if they were doing these things? Sure would! I was a pretty wild teenager back in the 70's where the drinking age WAS 18, and we, of course, drank much younger than that. Not proud of it, but what can I say? I am not saying that all public and private school kids do these things either. However, from what my kids saw in college, it seems that a great percentage do. Parents may not know it.


My kids also had no problem talking to adults. We traveled all over the U.S. and Canada with them and they met most of our customers. Talking to adults just was never an issue for them. Once they began their dual enrollment, they had no problem talking to their instructors. My son always talked to them and discussed things with them such as politics and current events. Weird kid, he wasn't hiding in the back of the class trying to nurse a hangover. Neither one of them did that in college, ever.


Am I mom of the year? Hahaha! No. We did the best we could with them and that's all I can say. Were we really strict? Again, no! My daughter actually thought, when she was about 15 or so, that I was totally cool allowing her to see N'Sync concerts and hang at the mall with her friends. Yeah, well, I went to all the N'Sync concerts, too, and I always sat at a table in the mall drinking a cup of coffee waiting for the girls. For some reason this was still pretty cool to her. She actually had a couple of teen friends ask her if she hated her mother. She said no. They thought it was weird because everyone hates their mother. Wow!


So, after homeschooling them until college I can say that they got just the right amount of socialization from other homeschooled kids, neighborhood kids and each other. We traveled all over and they each went to Europe, without us. Heck, I've never been myself, but both kids have gone. My daughter went to a prom with her then boyfriend who is now her husband.


We are an insanely close family even now when the two kids are 22 and 25. My 25 year old daughter is married and she is still close to her brother and to us. We watch each other's backs and we have a great support system. I am not sure this would be the case, at least with my two still being close, had we not homeschooled.

New Year Greetings!

Happy New Year! Here's hoping that 2010 is a great year for everyone!

The school is up and running with all paperwork filed and finished! The old lawyer is gone and a new company is helping with everything! Yippee!

Please take a look at my older posts concerning:

Dual Enrollment

AP Classes

Beginning Homeschooling

Read the posts from the bottom up since that is the way they make sense.

Travel, the Lazy way to Teach Your Kids

Well travel is certainly not exactly a "lazy" activity but it sure gave my kids a better education than anything they could have found in a book! We were extremely fortunate, in our earlier years of homeschooling, to have traveled extensively with my husband. I have talked a bit about our travels before but the sheer magnitude of the traveling in such a short period of time, in hindsight, is mind boggling!

Back in 1998 when we first began our homeschooling career, my husband was in computer installation and training which took him all over North America most of the time. One of the reasons we decided to homeschool, other than the abuse from the Catholic school which, btw, we paid for, was to spend more time with Dad. I missed him, the kids missed him and frankly the kids needed him. He had a trip to Newfoundland planned in April or May of 1998, while the kids were in school, and we couldn't go because the school would not tolerate travel during school days. Sigh. We missed out on that trip and then nearly came to blows when I wanted my kids to miss the last day of school, which is a total waste of time anway, to drive to New Jersey for my grandfather's 100th birthday party. How many kids have a great-grandfather who lives to be 100? (keeping all his marbles as well!) (ok MOST of his marbles, I think he lost a few by then.)

We decided to homeschool after we got back from that trip. What a load off my mind! The first trip we took as a family was in September to Newfoundland! What an adventure that was! We flew to Toronto then had a six hour layover before the flight to St. John's, Newfoundland. The adventure began at the airport when we were detained at immigration because my husband was going there for work. Canadians are funny about Americans working in their country. We learned to tell them that he was employed by an American company paid by American funds. After all of that fun waiting with two little kids, I thought, "why not go in to Toronto while we wait?" After a series of planes, trains, buses and automobiles, we were there in the heart of Toronto with all of our carry-on stuff included! I think my kids may have hated me by that time! We arrived in Newfoundland late at night and proceeded to have a great time! We saw so many neat things there! What would I have done without the internet? Please click on Newfoundland to see what the Avalon area on this nifty Island has to offer! (The photo is of "Bird Rock" and it is awesome! What you may not notice is that you are 400 feet up on a cliff with no fence!) We visited Niagra Falls on our return trip. I remember the falls being larger, but I was only about 9 or 10 when I was there before!

We went to Toronto several times and then on to Vancouver, British Columbia. We stayed there a few days and then lived in a condo on the beach on Vancouver Island just north of Nanaimo for two weeks. If you have seen the movie "Twilight" you can see a basket of Nanaimo Bars sitting on the edge of the counter in a scene at a store. Check out the recipe, they are SWEET! It was winter. It was cold. But we went to Mt. Washington (on Vancouver Island) and did some really fun snow tubing! I thought I was gonna die going down the mountain but it was really fun. Did I mention it was COLD? We are Floridians! We traveled to Victoria and went to the Royal British Columbia museum. We saw a salmon farming operation, we went to various Provincial parks, we walked along the beach in the snow and saw different kinds of eagles. It was a blast! We also went to Whistler (In photo above) and took the gondola up to a nice restaurant for lunch. It looked like the photos we've seen of the Alps! We flew in to Seattle and rented a car to drive up to Vancouver because it was so much cheaper so we had a day in Seattle as well. We went to the Woodland Park Zoo which is one of the nicest zoos I have ever seen.

These trips were all within a few months. There were many more trips that I will talk about later. The kids have no idea just how lucky they have been to see the things we have seen!

OK I Lied, Dual Enrollment will be tomorrow...

I just had to write about the book I am reading right now. I would put this book down as one of the most important books to read NOW! Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is probably the most contemporary "old" book (published in 1957, two years before I was born!) that I have read in a long while. I am only 139 pages into it and already I am stunned at her insight into human nature and the nature of people as a group. It also is scaring the crap out of me! What she wrote as a cautionary tale for humankind is actually happening NOW. Damn! Reading passages in the book is like watching the news, today.

"A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free."

This is stated by a university professor of philosophy in the novel while discussing the Equalization of Opportunity Bill, a fictitious bill set in the fictitious future that Ms. Rand developed in her novel. Or is it fictitious?

So far, 139 pages into it, I would place Atlas Shrugged right up there on my list of VERY important books for our young people to read. Others on the list include Animal Farm, 1984 and Brave New World. One day I will come up with a lesson for parents on comparing 1984 to Brave New World and which is more insidious. Naturally I have my own opinion.

Sadly our schools may require this book for summer reading but methinks that they may not be getting the point. Sadly the beginning of the book outlining what is happening in the world may be looked upon as the "good old days" by the education elite. Perhaps the end of the book is seen as what can happen when man is not controlled and forced to compete. I will continue reading the book, all 1069 pages of it, and report back. In a couple weeks. At least.

Unschooling for lazy moms - part 2

Yesterday was all about my son and his unschooling experiences. Obviously he did more than play DiabloII during this time although I am trying to think what else there was....

My husband used to travel a lot for work back during the home school days. What was great about his travel was that having the family tag along was pretty inexpensive. His airfare was paid for as was the rental car and hotel room. If I played my cards right, the hotel breakfast turned into lunch with the help of zip-lock bags and creative use of breakfast items. Many times I would call ahead to be sure we could have a small refrigerator and sometimes we had a nice suite with kitchenette. Frozen dinners were the dinner dejour many nights but we made sure to eat out to sample the local fare at least a few times. My kids have been all over North America and have seen things most people will never see in a lifetime. They were 10 and 13 when we started. Do you think they learned anything watching right whales from a lobster boat in the Bay of Fundy? Maybe they saw some new stuff while living in a condo on the beach on Vancouver Island, in the winter. (remember, these are Florida kids) Sigh. They have no idea just how lucky they were to have these experiences. We could write a book about our travels and some of the interesting things we saw!

Unschooling. That's right, the lazy way to home school. My daughter was 13 when we pulled her out of Catholic school and it was just in time! I could see that she was turning away from us, being more secretive and less open. What's funny though is that SHE asked US to home school! It was June and we had missed a trip to Newfoundland a month or two earlier when my husband had to go. Why didn't we go? The school threatened parents who wanted to take kids out of school for a trip. How nice. And we paid tuition. I am so glad we did get to go the following September! My daughter was a bright child who always seemed older than she was. I guess maybe she is an old soul.

Once home, we pretty much de-schooled for a while to get school out of their systems. Did they watch a lot of TV? You betcha! Did they get tired of it after a while? They sure did! During that first summer my daughter heard about the new boy band (at that time) called N'Sync and simply went crazy for them. I joke that we did the all N'Sync curriculum for a few years. Living in Orlando, we had the opportunity to see the band fairly often and I actually made her cry when I told her I saw one of the band members in Petco with his new puppy. Poor girl. We were always on the "find an N'Sync member" mission and our hairdresser actually had some of them come into the salon quite often. Pretty intense stuff when you are 13 and really into a band. I saw more N'Sync concerts than I want to admit to and we did a "meet and greet" one day where we got to shake hands with the band members. Heady stuff!

Now you ask, when was she learning anything? Luckily she learned about "fan fiction" writing and a fan fiction website where you can read and post your fiction. This girl spent HOURS and HOURS writing about N'Sync. I did not pry and I did not make her show me her writing. I knew she was editing it herself and doing rewrites. One day she asked me if I wanted to read one of them. Of course I said "yes!" I was stunned to find that the writing was not only good, but near-perfect technically and extremely well thought-out. Was her time going crazy over N'Sync a waste of time? HELL NO! Some of her best memories have to do with that time and the memories have me in them as well! We were together in our N'Sync sightings and concerts. I never made her feel that going band crazy was anything other than exciting.

I forgot to mention all the reading my kids did as well as DiabloII and N'Sync. They always had a book and they STILL are always in the midst of reading a book.

Reading, traveling, doing stuff you love. What else is there?