My baby girl is struggling in school, should I homeschool her?

Hey there, it’s Christina with personalgrowthforall.com. Okay, we are doing a free coaching video for someone who is calling herself Lenae Smith, okay. And here’s what the name writes, I’m having a bit of a West End moment, I’ve been called to homeschool my baby girl. I say this because she’s been going to school every day and just sitting there or doing whatever in class. This is frustrating because she was coming. She was coming home and I was helping her with her homework. And for not not to be doing anything in class to play with Pokemon cards, I want to homeschool so I can keep a closer eye on her. I believe I was led and told to this is not an excuse, but reality. The reality is I’m dealing with depression on and off. And I wouldn’t want to fail her even more than she in the school is now I was in the midst of writing a message to the teacher and the tab cut off. I’m just not sure what to do. Okay. All right. So Lenae. So it sounds like what you are experiencing is like, one a sense of frustration that maybe your daughter isn’t learning everything that she could be learning or that you desire for her to be learning in the traditional and I’m assuming it’s a public school system. And then you when you say you feeling called or led to it sounds like you have a connection with maybe your higher self or your spirit guides or whatever it is that you feel like is leading you to homeschool your daughter or giving you some direction that the way things are right now is not. Okay. And so it sounds like you’re asking me like, should I homeschool her? What are my thoughts on that? And then also, you’re being honest and saying that you deal with depression? And so your fear is? Can you really do this? Like, can you do it and give her the righteous education that she deserves to have. And then maybe there’s some fear in there that you won’t be able to be as consistent in your delivery of her education and the preparation that goes into homeschooling as you feel like she is necessary or that she deserves to have. So one, thank you for writing in and sharing all of that with me. So I want to say first and foremost, I’ll say out of the gate, like I homeschool my son and he’s in like a hybrid homeschool program. And he is in a program what I mean by hybrid homeschooling is on campus two days a week. And then he’s homeschooled three days a week and my mom and I homeschool him together. And the reason I want to say that and I feel like that’s important to say is one you like wrote in and ask the right person on this. And then also, I want to say that that I want to give you just some of this feedback as to like what preparation looks like for homeschooling and giving a righteous education. And I also want to say that homeschool isn’t for every child. You know, I think that there are some children that maybe are not going to excel in a homeschool environment. And without really knowing your daughter or knowing anything about her really you have to ask yourself like, is she somebody who is self motivated? Is she curious about the world? Is she intellectually curious? I don’t mean like, what I mean, let me just explain what I mean by that. When I say Is she intellectually curious? Like if she always wanting to know more about the way the world works? Or about things that go on around her? Is she like, hungry for information and wants to understand why things are the way they are? Or is she not? In not particularly interested in more? And the reason I asked those questions is because a lot of times what’s beneficial about like a homeschool type of arrangement is when children have things they want to learn about or interested in certain subjects are intellectually curious, and they’re not getting that need fed in the traditional public school system. It’s also a really solid solution for children who are like maybe more advanced than what the public school system can provide them, right, because this school is going to teach to kind of the middle, or a little bit lower than the middle right to leave no one behind. And so those that are more advanced, might be bored, they might be tapped out. And then even more importantly, let me give you just my broad brushstroke perspective on on what the public school system sometimes does to our children. And I’m not going to broad brush strokes, that broad brush, stroke this and say, all children, this happens to you. But I’ll give you an idea of my perspective on how the system can rob our children have their ability to think for themselves and know what it is that they want and to find their own spirit. Okay. And so the reason I and my family made the choice, my ex husband and I, we the reason why we pulled our son out of traditional public school was one COVID gave us the perfect opportunity to do that because, you know, COVID struck and now Distance Learning began and he was really thriving in an environment that wasn’t on campus like he was thriving in a distance learning environment. And he had already expressed for a year or so that he was like not happy with school and this when he was in second grade when all this happened. So he was already expressing he was bored and that they go over the same things over and over and over again and he is knows all this stuff. And so we had already started to think like how are we going to keep him engaged because He’s a high thinker, like he’s always thinking, always wanting to know more about the world and like how things work. And, you know, when other kids are talking about farts, you know, he’s talking about the universe, and the constellations and the planet and the galaxies, you know. And so he’s just different. He’s in a different in a different space, mature, maturity wise. And so we noticed he was really excelling in a distance learning environment. And then cognitively, like the things that were having to be taught in that rapid, you know, distance learning environment, like weren’t going to be something that would help him to continue advancing, which I know a lot of us parents have felt that same thing with our kids. So we had the opportunity to enroll him in the homeschool program, the hybrid homeschool program, and it was the best decision we made. So before we made that decision, though, some things that I had to think about why now I have to reorganize my life, because, like, what I had planned for what my business was going to look like, and the hours I was going to work dedicated to my business was not going to have to change a little bit, right? Because he was going to be home. And I was going to need to plan for my lessons, and I was gonna have to stick to those plans. And could I be a good teacher? Like, could I teach him to have the patience to do it? Like, as a child, like, I never felt like I was particularly good at math, even though I spent, you know, 17 and a half years in the financial services business, but that felt like a different kind of math to me. I’m talking like the algebra stuff like so I had it in my head that I wasn’t good at it. So I’m like, if I’m not good at it, can I teach him like, can I legitimately be a teacher to him? Can I hold myself accountable to show up every day ready to teach? And with my mom is my co teacher and my partner? Could she commit to really showing up every day? Could we lesson plan together? Could we make the time to plan their lessons, right? Could we show up on our homeschool days and make sure that like, even if we felt like crap, we were still there homeschooling and teaching and he was advancing? And then how would we measure his advancement? Like, how would we know that we’re doing a good job? How would we know if or not like, all of those, like practical tactical questions are ones that you have to ask yourself, if you’re being called to do it, because in my in my mind, and again, I’m gonna say it just from the perspective of my son, and myself, what I believe that the traditional public school model does is it sits kids in a classroom, it says, You must learn what I tell you to learn when I tell you to learn it. And if you can’t, then you’re not smart enough, not gifted enough, not advanced enough. If you if you’re not able to sit, memorize everything that I tell you to memorize and regurgitate it on a test, then you’re not learning, right? And so my perspective on traditional public school is that it creates incredibly, like it gives you knowledge, but it may not necessarily educate you. And so you have to define for yourself and for your family, what do you define education, as I define education as the ability to apply the knowledge, we learn into making the world a better place, making it our own lives a better place? If that knowledge isn’t applicable? If the kids all have all this information, but they never know how to apply it, then is it education? Or is it just knowledge, and is knowledge helpful as they move through life? The other thing about the traditional public school model and the way that it’s oftentimes implemented is it takes the creativity out of a child, right. So they’re not able to learn based on what they’re interested in, they’re able to create or right based on what they feel guided to create and write, you know, they’re told, like, you have to write about this, you have to learn about this, even if it doesn’t feel good to them to learn about that right now. Like, even if they’d rather learn about this concept. Instead, we have to mold them, right? Because there’s, you know, 20 kids, 30 kids in a class, so everyone has to learn the same thing at the same time. So energetically, spiritually, it takes their voice from them, right, it takes their ability to create based on what they are feeling guided by God to create in any given moment. And when I say create, in this sense, I mean, to right to birth, something to give their themselves a voice. And an example of that would be like with my son, right now we’re doing you know, and we follow the same curriculum as school the Common Core standards. But for right now we’re working on like, opinion writing, right? So instead of saying you need to write an opinion on this, or that, I’ll give him like 15 or 20 different prompts, and say, like, okay, like, which one feels really good to you? Or is there something else you want to write your opinion on, and he might come up with something else. And then we start working through the mechanics of how to do that, but based on what he feels guided to explore more about or to learn more about. And then when you’re writing an opinion piece, you want to include facts to substantiate your opinion, sometimes you’re not just spouting off, right? But a real solid opinion piece as some facts that substantiate why your opinion is the way it is. And so then there’s the research component, and where do we research? How do we research? How do we know who’s a good source to get information from how can we trust the information we get? How is it applied to the receiver who’s reading your piece? So all of these different things I get to work with him with right, but that’s because I’m really intellectually curious. He’s really intellectually curious and so we have a lot of fun doing this kind of investigation. And during the process of building a curriculum, and he gets to stay in this vibration of inspired, because he’s really kind of dictating the kinds of information that he’s learning and the type of the style of it, as well as also being guided on how to apply that knowledge into an education like into a piece that you can write and then write more of as you continue to grow and get older and build solid opinions that are based in fact that are based on information that are coming from reliable sources, like all these different things and learning experiences that go into it that he maybe wouldn’t get in school, because there isn’t the time to do that, right in a traditional public school. And there isn’t that like framework to be able to do that to say, Okay, kids, whatever everybody wants to write about, go ahead. And I’m gonna work with each of you individually to learn these different things. Like it’s not possible in a public school environment. But it takes the educator having the desire to be able to guide them in all of this, rather than just saying, hey, you know, go and write a paper or go and sit in front of a computer and learn a lesson, right? I mean, there’s definitely homeschool programs out there that if you wanted to outsource it, you could, and people will do it. However, you can find ones that resonate with your style, you can find online like tutorial things, I don’t know what the laws are in your state. Each state has different laws, by the way, and homeschool and like how the state monitors it, like our state in California monitors our progress. And we are because the school we are part of is a public charter school. We have to like submit work, evidence of like what we’re working on and the hours we spend and what we work on each hour, because the school monitors it to make sure that we’re actually doing what we say we’re going to do with our kids. And so that’s the like practical component of it. And then that’s also kind of what happens with from a spiritual perspective. And what you see oftentimes is kids that will be really successful, let’s say in school, like all the way through high school, but graduate and don’t know who they are, as like human beings don’t know what lights them up don’t know what they want to do with that information that they accumulated throughout the course of their schooling. Because throughout that course of their schooling, although they were although they were accumulating information, they were also like losing parts of themselves in their own voice. They were like the, the spirit gets dampened. When it’s not allowed to thrive or rise at the times that it’s ready to show itself and rise like that light starts to kind of dim. When you have something you really excited on a class and you want to share it with everyone and you have a project you really want to work on that you’re really inspired by and you’re told, like, no, I’m sorry, that’s not the appropriate behavior right now. Right now we’re reading. And so please turn to page 151. And read from this chapter. Right? In that moment, spiritually, what happens is the child begins to get programmed to say that exciting feeling of information bubbling up excitement, like I want to learn something new, there’s something I want to go, and now’s not the right time, so stuck it down. And if you can’t step it down, then you’re judged or characterized as a problem child, right? Who isn’t able to control themselves in class. And all of these different characteristics are like things that we assign to children who aren’t able to sit still. And the time that they’re told to sit still, or learn the way that everyone else is supposed to learn in that setting, okay. So you have to know your daughter and know whether her spirit is being dampened in this environment, or whether they’re doing better than you could do at maintaining her spirit at whatever level is possible, right? Because again, not every family is capable of homeschooling in a way that’s going to help their children soar. So if you’re not the kind of parent who’s going to be able to put yourself into this and get excited about it with her and engage it with her, then ask yourself and be honest with yourself, is the school environment, public school environment going to be better for her than the alternative? Which would be me doing it? And then also ask yourself like, why are you wanting to homeschool? Or like what’s coming up for you? I know that you said in your email that you feel like maybe she’s, you didn’t say, she’s not being honored, you didn’t use those words. But that like something is amiss, that she’s like, not learning. So you have to get to the bottom of that and figure out whether it’s the style of the teacher, whether she’s overlooked or the teacher just isn’t, you know, engaging, or whether, you know, whether your daughter is just in an environment where she’s tuning out, you know, if she’s got gifts, also, like she may be a big daydreamer. And so her ability to be present in that moment might be jeopardized. Maybe she really is super curious about the world. And so like learning in the way that the school wants her to learn isn’t something that’s like, Oh, I gotta sneeze. Sorry, oh, live video app, like learning in the way that she wants her. The school wants her to learn. Is it something that is like, inspiring to her? And I’ll give you like, another example with my son with math. And we were going through like our Common Core on fractions, and we’re still actually doing fractions, but, um, but also like decimal points and stuff like that. So he’s really into baseball, like baseball is his jam. And so to teach the lesson on like, fractions and decimals Like I got a bunch of baseball cards right. And so we started doing batting averages and like looking at the batting averages of all these baseball players and calculating those batting averages and like runs earned and run times on base, and like all these different statistics that are part of baseball that are part of our learning, but it didn’t have to be like just some worksheets and like, fill out this, this is how you do it. Step one, step two, but it became clickable, something he’s really passionate about. And then we went to the batting cages, because that’s the field trip, right? Went to the batting cages. And then how many times did he hit the ball versus how many balls came in him because we wanted to calculate his batting average, right? So it can become this really expansive experience. And when I first started that journey, I was terrified, because I didn’t know if I could be that mom, like that person who’s like that stuff. But it turns out I am and I love every flippin second of it, it is such an honor and a privilege to learn with him and to watch him learn and to, to learn to like sit there and learn math with him, you know, and to see that, hey, I actually not just remember some of this, but I’m actually kind of good at it. So it’s a really fun journey that I want you to also know it can be a really solid bonding experience for you and your daughter, if you feel guided to go that journey with her. But it is a commitment. You know, and it means that like, if you had a vision of like, what your work schedule was gonna look like or like what your day was going to look like, you have to modify that vision to realize that that now becomes a part of your equation of what takes up your day in your life. And ideally, it’s something that brings you joy. Like I make a list of everything that brings me joy in life. And I add to that list, as I learned new things that I love doing and homeschooling my son, it’s one of the things that brings me so much joy. So I build my life and my other responsibilities in my work around the fact that there’s a couple days a week that I’m like homeschool mom. And in the mornings, that’s my priority, like that is my pleasure, my priority. And I dedicate that time to him in that space. And so that’s something that I want you to think about. And then you had mentioned in your email that like you when you’re sending an email to the teacher. And like the tab went away, or something in which I’m guessing sounds like like the computer like would be synonymous or analogous to like the computer froze or like the email was deleted before you get to send it. So the one thing I want to caution you on, is, if you’re feeling like your daughter’s not learning, be careful about wanting to blame it on somebody else, or shaming somebody else for what you feel the fear in you about, okay, because until you understand whether there really is like a tactical practical issue in the way your daughter’s being taught, versus just your fear that something is not right, or your your concern, be careful about throwing that energy at somebody else, you know, especially a teacher that is under immense amounts of pressure right now. And always having to, you know, build a curriculum, want to make forget even the COVID in certain times, just build a curriculum to the middle, or to the slightly below middle, right, because we don’t want to leave any kids behind. So be really careful about throwing judgment or shame energy at somebody else. And especially if it’s because you’re being invited to explore some more things about you and your dynamic as a parent, and if your daughter’s even in the right kind of program, or whether there’s a program that’s better suited for her like a homeschool program. So I just want make sure I say that. And when you do communicate, if you do find that it’s time to communicate with the teacher do it from a very compassionate and curious place. So curious to understand like, what is your daughter like in the classroom to your teacher? What are some things that the teacher notices is patterns that inhibit development or growth? What are some things that, you know, the teacher thinks that they could do differently, or things that are happening in the classroom that are inhibiting them from being able to do things differently? Right, so be curious as like a curious investigator of things going on, rather than somebody who’s accusing somebody of doing wrong and without having been in the classroom yourself? And then also ask your daughter, like, my son was very interested in homeschool, like, he was like, Yes, I want to learn what I want to learn when I want to learn it. And I’m like, okay, like, I love that you want to learn what you want to learn when you want to learn it. But like, here’s the thing, kiddo, like, we’re gonna have a schedule, and we’re gonna have to follow certain criteria. And we commit to doing this a certain number of hours a day, and we got to do it, you know, it won’t feel like it. We got to get out of pajamas and get dressed different morning and brush your teeth, like we’re going to school that we’re showing up for something important. Right? So are you committing and able to commit to doing that regularly and never trying to talk me out of it? And like, are you willing to do that commitment on son, you know, and he was like, yes, yes, yes. Like, this is what I want. Like, I want to learn how I want to learn and when I want to learn and what I want to learn, like I want to feel free mommy to follow what feels good to me to learn about. And it has been, like I said, the most remarkable experience, because I get to introduce him to a whole world of information. he’d never learned in school. And then I get to contour the way that the information is shared with him in a way that’s going to make sense for him to understand or in a way that the story makes sense for me to tell it. Right rather than somebody else, the way the story makes sense for them to tell educating my children, especially on sensitive or, or topics that are best taught, I think from you know, perhaps a parent, if you will, right. So, all that to say, your instinct I think is guiding you to exploring something more. It may not be that you end up going into homeschool. But the ask that came up in you that bubbled up of should I homeschool my daughter? Is the invitation of you exploring all of the dynamics at play that are giving you the feeling that something isn’t right, because that’s what’s really coming up for you is the feeling that something isn’t right. And until and before you settle on what you think it is, isn’t right. Do some more self work, do some more reflection, ask yourself, Could you really be the person that would be a good solid person for her. I’ve known other families that homeschool that it doesn’t work out well for their kids, like they don’t either like being home or neither person is motivated. So there’s a lot of sleeping in lay, there’s a lot of not that we’ll do it tomorrow and it not getting done. Like there’s a lot of failure of the child. And I don’t mean failure of the child like the child fails, I mean, a lot of failure of the child like the like the educator fails to follow through, and a pattern in the relationship or the dynamic that makes it become really normal for both of them to feel each other and the whole arrangement. So you have to figure out with you and your daughter, if you’re the kind of person who is susceptible to not showing up consistently for the things that are important to you. And then if your daughter also has that characteristic, then this may not be a pattern, or an arrangement that will help you to set a new healthy pattern, right? If y’all can easily, like get taken out of your pattern, taking care of yourself healthy self care, healthy, like choices, all of those things. Like if that isn’t something you guys naturally do and do well together, then you might want to rethink or consider like, you need to get your house in order first, like your personal inner like body, house, mental health, all of that in order first, until you can be that strong, like stable source to be able to then help your daughter find her way as she begins to develop more and more into her voice into her light into her gifts into her her desires for her life and like what she wants to do and what lights are up in this world. And so those would be my pieces of advice for you on that. But do know that you are being invited to explore something more with her what that more looks like or feels like I don’t know yet. And it’s part of the journey of you discovering and figuring it out. If you have the picture that you’ve been given of like homeschool, know that sometimes we’re given a picture of the end result. But that doesn’t mean that that’s what it is, it means that there’s steps we need to take along the journey to figuring out that end result that are going to give us more information are going to help us to learn heal, grow. There’s something and then you get to the end. And then you get to decide again, like is this still the route? Or have I just learned everything I needed to learn through the process of discovery? And and like self analysis and self investigation? Like can I be that person, oh, gosh, I have this habit or Oh, my mental health is this like I don’t know if I can be the strong source for her. Like going through the process of healing all of that may be all that you’re being asked to do. And then and then the school situation ends up being perfect, just the way that it is, if that makes any sense to you. So thank you for writing in thank you for your generous question. And for sharing also about your own struggle with depression and things like that. I love that you felt like you could share that with me. And I wish you the very best in that aspect as well. And I love by the way, I love, love love that you are exploring the idea of giving your daughter a different kind of education than she may receive or is receiving. Now, I think that says a lot about your willingness to confront the reality. Right? Sometimes confronting that for parents is too hard. Because they think like, Well, gosh, both of us have to work. And both of us have to work like I can’t even I can’t even go there. I have to just settle with what is for my child. Because I don’t know that there’s another option. And so I give you compliments and kudos for saying like this is confronting me and I have to I have to look at it app to address it. If I have to make changes elsewhere in my life to accommodate this like I’m I’m going to make those changes if they seem like they make sense. And so kudos to you. I know it’s not easy to confront, especially something like that, because then we have to confront all our own demons associated with like, are we good enough to do this? Like, are we good enough to do this for our kids? Like Are we just going to be one more person that like fails them in the course of their life? And I will say like my first six months of homeschooling like oh my gosh, like I, like I knew on the inside of me that he was growing and I knew that he was advancing. Because I could see it like, I could see it in his writing, I could see it in his like, in his constant yearning still for more information. So I knew that it was working. But because in homeschool, you don’t necessarily have like the standardized tests in the same way that like demonstrated banishment of concepts like standard concepts, core curriculum. Like there was some times that the school had to just like, I had to reach out to the teachers there and just say, like, Hey, I’m like, Am I doing okay? Like, am I doing an okay job, like, I don’t know how to measure this. Because all my life I’ve been taught that our intelligence is measured, based on a grade that you get or score that you get and how that score is applied in relationship to other people around the same age. That’s how we measure have been measured our whole lives as to like, our frickin value, our intellectual capacity and capabilities. And so the first six months, were hard for me without having those measurements to be like, Am I doing right by my son, right. And there were times that he’s like, I’m up mommy that like, every day like, is just a fun day. Like, he doesn’t even realize he’s learning because he’s doing things that he’s naturally enjoying doing. And so it doesn’t feel like work, right? Like, that’s what I teach everybody in my practice, and everything I do that like, if we can just always do the things that feel really good to us, and learn all the things we need to learn in the in the in the process of like investigating the things that are interesting and feel good to us like what an amazing world we live in, right and what amazing life we’d have. If we always just focused on an understanding the things that we are naturally inherently guided to learn more about. I mean, granted, there’s things that we don’t feel guided to learn about, that we have to learn about in order to be good stewards of humanity. But those things will naturally come to us as we’re continuously lit up with the things that we actually really are interested in. So that’s food for thought for you. I hope that this video has been super helpful. I know I spent more time than I expected to on it. But I again, applaud you for confronting the reality. And considering that there might be another option. And knowing that that option has a lot of self work involved with it, that you would need to commit to and get ready to commit to and then hold yourself to, so that you could be the strongest teacher for your daughter that you could be. And by the way, when I say teacher, when you become a homeschool teacher, it’s not just a teacher of curriculum, and educational stuff, because there’s a ton of tools out there that you’ll that will help you that will guide you that will give you like, the curriculum stuff and like, you’ll be able to teach it a lot of YouTube videos that you can sit and learn together about concepts and like grammar, and like all this stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of resources that are there to help you. And then a lot of the resources are free. So you don’t have to worry about that. But Teacher meaning like a model for her of what it looks like when we do hard things, when we make decisions that maybe aren’t as popular, but maybe a lot of people wish they could do, right, but they don’t feel like they have the flexibility in their life to be able to do it, or they don’t have the flexibility to make the sacrifices necessary. Like we have to pay the mortgage. So we both have to work. And maybe they don’t realize that, like maybe we get a smaller house because this is more important to us now. And that there’s this ability to change aspects of our life, to accommodate things that become more important as what becomes important changes. So like this nimbleness of being able to listen to that intuitive voice when it hits you and be like, Okay, I don’t know if homeschool is the right answer in the end. But I do know, I’m being invited to investigate it further, for some reason, right, and being open to all the reasons and all the healing that you might go through in that process of discovery as well. So I commend you, and I applaud you for doing the process of investigation. And I am excited to see like whatever it is that you come up with throughout that journey. And so write it back into me if you have more questions, you know, let me know how it goes. If anybody else watching this video has questions just go to personalgrowthforall.com Feel free to write in and tell me what’s going on with you. If something I said like prompted something that you want to talk about and you like feel free to write in. If you have your own struggle you’re going through I would love to help you as well. So with that, I wish you an amazing rest of the day. And I hope this video was helpful. Bye