Homeschooling RAD

Why we homeschool our kids with RAD.  I wanted to share how we chose  fell into  were nudged into  were forced to  tried not to  accidentally started homeschooling our kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder (and our one without). 
The short version: We did "nothing" and it was better than school.
Let me explain with the long version:  We never planned to homeschool. There are schools; kids go to them; we simply never thought beyond that.  So when our Attachment Therapist suggested what would really help Em heal was to be homeschooled, we said Um, no.
She said she really needs time alone with just me because she never gets that, being in school all day and with her siblings in the evening.  Still, no.
She said both boys had time with just their mom to attach and do all the things moms and babies do naturally.  Well, with Mr is wasn't naturally, but from age 3 to 6, thanks to a lot of attachment therapy and baby-focused play, and his siblings being in school all day, he did learn to love and trust.  Cj was only 20 months and (ironically) seemed very attached straight from an orphanage.  Of course he was with me all day doing those mom and baby things. Oh, dear.
Our AT was right, Em needed that.  Shoot.  How could we not?  Um, okay.
She suggested we simply give her one year.  She said ideally, she just needs mom time, not education.  But since she and Cj are the same age, it would be rough for her to be a grade behind him next year. She'd always have to explain that, which wouldn't help her self-esteem.  So we figured we'd keep an eye on Cj's homework and try to keep her on pace.  She wasn't doing well in school anyway, with low grades, high stress, behavior struggles, and days of "checking out" in her teacher's words. 
So in 2008, Em started grade 3 at home. We went to the pool, went shopping, ran errands, cooked, baked, cleaned, read, played with dolls, played computer games, played inside, played outside, and played some more.  That's it. All year.  And while she began the year far behind Cj, she ended the year far ahead of him. What?!  We didn't teach.  She didn't learn.  But somehow we did, and she did, on accident.
Obviously, that personal attention helped her esteem and confidence.  Obviously, she picked up some math skills playing with the calculator in the grocery store.  Obviously, she was absorbing history and science from her games and books.  Obviously, we couldn't send her back to school.  Oh, dear.
Obviously, if her year of "nothing" was better then their year full of stressful school, we couldn't send the boys back either.  Oh, dear. 
So, while we planned to spend a year attaching (which was very effective, I add almost as a side note), we accidentally spent a year learning.  And then another and another...

Most people have goals, plans, ideals, convictions, and strong feelings about why they want to homeschool.  We simply couldn't not do it after seeing the results of doing nothing, at home, together.  

inventions and blueprints

em was bored and being encouraged to "use her brain" which she hates to do, but does well when she gives in. she came down with an invention she built, complete with the plans she drew up to create it! it's called an antiseeonator. according to her, it enables you to see things up close AND when you hold it up to the sun, it shines a light so you can see them better. so there you have it. patent pending. :)

school closed early today due to a brain meltdown

today was definitely a day where public school couldn't have done em a lick of good. not that we did any at home either! her brain just shut down today and we realized she wasn't going to learn a thing, so we didn't fight it and gave her a day off. i figure it's from a board game she lost last night, she took that pretty hard. it was a trivia game, so not a game of chance, and she couldn't be perfect, so we probably won't love her anymore. what horrible pressure in that little brain of hers!!
but she was confused, forgetting things, going the wrong direction, everything was so painfully hard (and it so wasn't), she couldn't remember that when you get to the end of a line you read down to the next one, etc. so she got to play. not productive of course, but school wouldn't be either on her days like this. and it’s so frustrating because no amount of love, nurturing, understanding, encouragement, support, does a bit of good. you can see it coming, understand why it happens, but do nothing about it. my logical brain hates that!
one funny conversation dad tried to have with her. i can't remember the details, but it was basically "your brain is not able to focus on this thing and i'm trying to teach you how to" and she cuts him off and asks "what's your real name? i mean what's on your birth certificate?" it was so sad it was almost funny! probably as close to the opposite as her brain could get from whatever it was supposed to be focusing on...

Coffee Cup Cake

A friend sent a fun recipe and since all three kids were home (yet another power outage from the storm), and since CJ was begging to experience a little homeschool too, I thought we'd try it. The kids loved it! They did addition and multiplication with all the ingredients, made a huge mess, and drove me insane. So then they were sent outside for a long, long, recess. : ) I guess we could also have done a history lesson about the leaning tower of cake. : )

MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
1 coffee mug
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
1 small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla and mix again. Put mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

art class: make a hat out of nature

em's homeschooling has been going unbelievably well! she's loving it and learning at a much faster pace than we expected. and not hating spending all the time with us either! but today was one of THOSE days. you've had them i'm sure. she was just out of sorts, resistant, asking dumb questions, purposefully annoying, just not at all open to anything. so to get her out of my hair for a bit (sorry, being honest!) i told her to make a hat out of nature, but that she could only use things she found outside. no glue or string or anything from inside. she went out for 2 minutes and came back in whining and i said no, you need to spend about an hour, just look around, get ideas, i'm sure you'll figure it out. dad said you know she won't even try right? i said yep, but she's outside, that's good enough for me right now. (hey, i gotta work sometime!) so, no expectations, no worries!
we hear her singing away out there and are glad she's at least cheering up and enjoying it. after a while she comes in and we're both shocked to see her looking like a cute little fairy from a movie with a very creative hat! she'd found a huge leaf for a visor and carefully tied the stem and sticks all together with blades of grass. it was very well done! i said wow em, if only you got grades at homeschool, you'd get an A+ for sure!
just amazing that one of THOSE days actually didn't end up so bad afterall! of course maybe it's just her awesome teacher?? nah! :)

child #1 is off to school, child #2 has started homeschool, and child #3 keeps pooping...

cj went off to the 3rd grade today (sniff), while em started her homeschooling, and mr had a meeting with his teacher (the poor guy).
em enjoyed her day. it was very relaxed and fun and we just introduced her to a bit of what she'll be doing (which isn't much!) yesterday she was grilling me with nonsense questions about a bird in the yard (refer to RAD list), so today she interviewed said bird and wrote its life story in her journal. later after she gets used to me being her teacher (and loving her even if she makes a mistake), i'll tell her that twila is not spelled twilla and leaves isn't spelled levse. :) she also helped at the store by using the calculator to add or multiply prices.
we met mr's teacher and gave him a brief warning/intro to RAD. thanks to laura for this great, short fact sheet! he hadn't heard of RAD, but was willing to work with us. i was hoping to save him the frustration of dealing with a child who's smart one minute and dumb the next, but how can a non-RAD exposed human really get it?? you RADical moms know it seems like it's on purpose, like they want to be in trouble (i used to believe that), but it's a fear reaction. he really can't think under stress, he'd love to be able to! anyway, mr's first full day (they go all day, every other day) is friday. i think he's more stressed than we realize because he's pooped his pants twice in two days! he never does that and said it was an accident, but it's one of those questionable accidents. he's still in diapers, only at night (where i swear he pees all night long! he's a deep sleeper.) but we've not had any kind of potty issues forever. so that and other random odd behavior makes me think he's a bit nervous, though he won't admit that. probably doesn't even realize it. he has a hard time with sad and mad, not sure he understands nervous!
while at school, we visited cj at lunch where many of the girls begged me to let em come back to school and keep cj home! :) she was really happy to see her friends again though, and very sad when we got home. did ya catch that????? em was sad! (only a RADical mom would say yay!) so as a good mom, i helped her "feel her feeling" (which appears almost rubbing it in, but isn't) and then we celebrated that she had a feeling.
tonight as i was tucking her in, she said mom i want to go back to school. so i said sure, of course you will, next year for 4th grade. she said no, i want to go now. i said well honey, you can when you're ready, but you need to be good at this. and i rubbed noses with her, to which she got nervous and did her crazy giggle. i said you need to get used to having a good mommy and be able to relax on my lap and when i do this. and rubbed her cheek gently, to more uncomfortable giggling. and i ended with a positive, but i'm sure you'll get there. you can do it! of course, i guarantee she'll be sleepwalking down here soon. it's every night lately, but always, always after any hard night.
so, a pretty good first day of school at our house, except for the poop. :)

open house

look closely, this is the deceivingly sweet face of a boy who will be driving his kindergarten teacher mad! we had open house tonight and they had a ball seeing old friends. i chose to just meet n greet his teacher (i hadn't met him yet) and i'll fill him in a little more tomorrow. i heard him tell another parent, (who just said she's afraid her son won't sit down) oh that's fine, they'll all get used to it and be just fine. i'm thinking, well maybe not *quite* all of them! i do know he's (usually) good at church, although his teachers there are aware of his background and are just amazingly sweet. i'm hoping school goes well, but i know he'll be frustrated because he won't get all the concepts or be able to do everything, which will lead to acting out. so i figure i'll lower my expectations so i'm not disappointed. :) he was in sensory overload tonight with so many people and noises all around, i'm sure it'll be an issue for a while during the school days. i had to pick him up and rub his back to help, he was just flopping around acting all nuts. i hope he'll get used to it!
em was surprisingly happy, even bragging a little to her friends that she was homeschooling. i think it helped that today i told her more fun activities we could do. for her first math, we'll bake cupcakes (measuring, adding, temperature), put on icing (maybe patterns or textures), then add and subtract with the sprinkles. :) so she was happy to see friends, and sad to leave them, but still seems excited to be home, so that's good. hopefully it'll be a smooth start to the year. oh, i said lower my expectations. then hopefully we'll just survive the beginning and see how it goes. :)

i'm officially a homeschooling mom!

ack! i sent off the notification to the school so now i guess i'm officially em's homeschool teacher. we're going to try this for a year and really focus on her attachment. since mr was home with me all day every day for 2 years, he has MUCH improved and is now pretty "normally" attached. with help from his attachment therapist, i went back and did the baby steps that he missed, bottle feeding, baby talk, nursery rhymes, cuddling, checking in (eye contact) every few minutes, and a few hundred other (honestly quite mentally draining - but effective) activities throughout each day. but it's given him a good base to feel what having a good mom feels like and he's quite cuddly and likes to give and receive love now!
anyway, em's never had that time because by the time she gets home from school, i'm exhausted. plus all three are then fighting for attention (or just fighting) so she doesn't get quality one-on-one time. plus she avoids that like the plague!
so now that mr's headed to kindergarten, we're going to keep em at home and do the nurturing activities. hopefully she'll blossom like mr did! i'll do enough teaching to keep her up to par, but it'll be fun, non-threatening learning. she can't handle me helping her with homework (because of her perfectionism isuses), so i'll be making sure it's low-pressure and fun. instead of history books, we'll visit a historical park. instead of math workbooks, she'll use a calculator at the store, measure ingredients for dinner, etc. since i know i'll be able to keep her attention (she used to "check out" at school and miss entire days!) i have a feeling she'll learn much more at home than she ever would at school. hopefully as she learns to attach, she'll also gain confidence, and the ability to concentrate so she can learn at school later.
she'll be choosing her areas of study and i'll just be guiding her and making sure the lessons are there to be discovered. the first thing she wants to study is the monarch butterfly. :)