Pet Peeves about HomeSchooling Families

This is a riot as I myself am a homeschool family.  I have met many people in my life and often they can be clumped into one or another subtitle. Such as, Generation Xers are a group of immediate gratification brats, or Baby Boomers are defiant to their hippie parents ideas and create corporate greed and of course the Hippie Generation full of ideas and no real follow through but cave into society demands eventually.  BUT you homeschool families run the gamut of ideas and lifestyles.

There are those who homeschool for their religious freedom. Great folks, I believe in that idea 100% but many focus so much on biblical memorization and studies that they do not approach the core subjects with enough vim and vigor. Their child cannot stand comfortable in a Spelling Bee .

There are those who homeschool because their child has specialized learning needs. This is by far one of the most important reasons to homeschool and you say what pet peeve could you possibly have about this group. Well, many that I have met (not all) never take the time to learn exactly what it is that delays their child's processing of information so they do not learn how deliver to them the tools they need to succeed as they are able to.  Speaking as a mother of a child with language skills deficit, related to an anoxic brain injury, I must applaud the teacher that taught me how to help my daughter and give her the tools to help herself.  The peeve in this group is the fact that I do not see progress in the children I have met, just parents that further delay development thinking that they will grow into it some day.

Homeschoolers are flexible.  You bet your bibby!  It is important to teach them to be to be flexible. Life will give you lots of unexpected surprises and knowing how to land on your feet comes with encouraging and supporting flexibility. BUT, once again I find many, actually very many, homeschool families so flexible that they drop everything rather than learning how to see a task through and have patience to tend to the  next task or situation at hand. An example of this is the "field trip" experience. OH yes, this is the most pet peeve issue I can think of.  No place in this life can you commit to something and then not follow through. I have seen seventeen families respond to a field trip that would be at a local small dairy. That would be 2-7 children in each family.  Only five families show up for the experience. This is not just the free opportunities, but those that would have a fee involved as well.  All of a sudden little Tommy got behind this week so we are not going to attend or we just did not sleep well so the rest of you can just forget we were going to come. UGH!!

Yes, that is my biggest homeschooler pet peeve.  I adore the flexibility but it seems to come at a cost to many.

Then the final one that just ticks me off in a big way would be those who find it acceptable to tell me what I am doing wrong or how I could do it better IF ONLY.... perhaps I am not their kind of Christian, or by taking on what God has asked me to do I am enabling my daughter and her husband, or instead of homeschooling I am schooling at home, or what ever they feel empowered to state.  You see, I would never say such a thing to you just to justify my views or homeschool style. But there are so many pompous, self-righteous, women that I come in contact with only to discover that generally, I do not like women much either. 

OK  I said it!
Now to focus on a review of lessons so that I am prepared for tomorrow.  That's right, tomorrow I am going into the day with a plan. Some days I fly by the seat of my pants and other days I am a different sort. I always have a goal and expected outcomes. Goals are something to reach for and an outcome is a way to measure the effectiveness of the goal. My nurse in me always has a way of showing up in my day.