When Public School Doesn’t Work

JANUARY 22, 2019 / RACHEL / EDIT

We pulled our 14 year old out of school today.
There were many reasons for this. He was failing all of his core subjects and very likely going to have to repeat 8th grade(this is not new, he has struggled with school since kindergarten). That is not an option. The 504 Plan/Chapter 15 that we had put in place for him a year ago, was not being used. His work only started being modified this past week. They believe that his academic problems stemmed from a lack of effort. I knew they were going to say that.

He has a lot of anxiety about school because any time someone did something, he was being questioned about it. Yes he has done some stupid things and he owned those things and faced the consequences. Now he’s being called a liar because he denied involvement in an incident at school last week. He’s not wrong because what he is trying to be blamed for didn’t happen regardless of what other students are trying to say. He would much rather talk to us before talking to the school. Kind of like, “I’d like to speak to my lawyer.”. So he told them nothing, talked to us and we talked to them on his behalf.

They want so badly to prove his involvement that they’re failing to consider that other students are lying or they are misunderstanding exactly what happened. Showing a disrespectful meme in a private chat to a friend after school hours is not against any laws or policies, while it may be against better judgement or social etiquette. We informed them he was well within his rights and he knows that. What others do after that point is on them.

Do you have any idea how many times we’ve tried to talk to them about his academics and have gotten nowhere? Just about every single time! Including three phone calls this month that were never returned.

I don’t intend to send him back there.

I’ll quickly pull my other two kids out if issues arise.

I need to do some deep breathing after the morning we’ve had.
After the condescending remarks about homeschooling and insinuations that we are not capable people.

I don’t always WANT to homeschool, not having time to myself, spending lots of money on resources and books,  dealing with judgement and rudeness from others; breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, elevensies, lunch, snack….. and so on.
But I’m a parent and I’ll do anything for my kids.

Imperfect Mothering

JANUARY 1, 2019 / RACHEL / EDIT

For whatever reason I couldn’t fall asleep a couple nights ago and instead my brain wanted to remind me of all the ways I haven’t been a good mother over the years. No matter how hard I tried to push the memories back more kept flooding in.

I don’t know why. I was simply trying to remember a house I lived in when my son was a baby. But instead I was reminded of all my failures.

I have been a far from perfect parent. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I’m trying my best but the truth is it might not be good enough.

I look back and I remember being so exhausted and touched out that I sometimes had to let my babies cry it out while I cried it out in the next room. I let people into our lives that were toxic and had no business in our lives. There were times when I honestly had no idea what I was doing but I was doing my best. My children have gone too long between baths sometimes. I was a heavy sleeper and a single parent most of the time when my kids were all babies, I was always so worried that I wouldn’t wake at night when they were crying.

I overreacted when I should have just taken a breath. I ruined Christmas one year when I was up wrapping presents until 4am and my kids woke up at 6am and didn’t wake me up and just tore into presents. I was heartbroken…. I was also really depressed and stressed at the time so my reaction was much worse I think. I yelled at them and cried. It’s hard to look back on now and find any humor because I seriously lost my shit that day. The day went on, we played with their new toys, went and visited family and had a nice Christmas dinner. But all I can really remember is my kids faces when I yelled at them on Christmas morning for opening presents without me.

I was often made to believe that everything that was going on was a direct result of my parenting. It was my fault. As a result my children went far longer than they should have before being properly diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. I wrongly believed that my son’s ADHD and outbursts were because I was in some way screwing him up. That’s what people told me anyway. My daughter’s autism was hard too because our pediatrician said “no way” and made me feel like I was crazy. Everyone was in such denial that there was anything different that it took years to get the diagnosis she needed, because I didn’t listen to my instincts.

I listened to the wrong advice.
I was too stern and I was also too soft.
Which means I was also inconsistent.
I was so damn imperfect.

Not my favorite kind of reminiscing at all.

Maybe I need to work on forgiving myself.