Is It Naptime Yet

A while back a friend from one of my home schooling groups mentioned a co-op she’s a part of. I decided to look it up and it looked rather interesting, so we’re giving it a try and today was the first day.

Each mom is suppose to volunteer about two hours during the day, or 4 classes. I’m assisting in two of Lilah’s classes and one of Eden’s and teaching one of Eden’s classes.  Lilah will be learning how to play the recorder so this will be a lesson on patience for me. Lilah’s classes are Book Club,  Art, Recorder, and P.E. They also teach Zoology, but since this particular class is based on creationism we’ve taken her out of that class and instead she joins the other group her age and takes Recitation.

Eden has Art, Storytime/lesson, which I teach, Snack, Recitaton and free play, but one of the moms is looking at doing a P.E. type class for that age group because the nursery is rather small and it gets rather loud when we’re in there with the other littler kids during free play.

Their age group is there for just the first half of the day, whereas they have the older groups there till four. Some of those classes include Latin, Spanish, Chemistry, Free reading and Art, among other things.  They also have a paid Orchestra and Choir instructor come in to teach, though that costs those parents a little extra.

Everyone pays a small fee since we have the co-op at a private school and need to pay rent. They don’t use the building on Mondays so it works well for us.

Lilah seemed to really enjoy today. There are a lot of boys in her age group, but that doesn’t faze her. Eden was very quiet and very reserved, especially when I was the teacher. I’m hoping she gets over this as time goes on, but only time will tell.

As I was talking with my MIL this afternoon about home schooling one of her primary concerns was socialization, which is most people’s concern. She related a story of a family who had their children go to school for just the P.E. portion. One of their children was painfully shy and wouldn’t even look other children or adults in the eye. All of a sudden I had a realization and shared it with her.

We diagnose adults with social anxiety, why can’t children have that too? Who’s to say he’s painfully shy just because he’s home schooled? A child can be painfully shy even while attending public school, they just have to deal with it on a daily basis, and the parents can say they’re just shy and no one thinks twice, but if you have a shy child that is home schooled they’re shy because they’re home schooled.  Recently someone told us about their painfully shy child and only recently while he’s been tutoring other children in math has he become more interactive with others, and he’s in public school.

I guess I worry about this because Eden has a tendency to be very shy with other people and even when I’m around, I dare say she’s even shyer when I’m around. I wouldn’t home school her just because she’s shy, but I know that she’s more interactive with me at home, one on one, then she is in a classroom setting. I hope she grows out of this, but I also hope other people can respect my decision to home school my child and not blame any anti-social behavior on the fact that they are home schooled. They may not be spending 6 hours a day with other peers, buy we do try to have them in social settings with other children and people, because I want my girls to relate to people, not just their peers.  Eden might “grow out of it” sooner if in a public school setting, but as a parent I don’t really care how fast she grows out of it. My goal is to create an enriching environment where my children can be themselves and to bring them to other environments where they have me to lean on and where they don’t. As time goes on I hope she doesn’t avoid situations just because she’s shy, but I can encourage her to try new things and overcome it. Right now I love her and her shy ways and hope she knows I don’t want her to be anyone but herself.