“Mommy, I Want to be a Normal Boy” To Homeschool or Not to Homeschool
A little over two months ago, my 8-year-old son came to me and said, “Mommy, I want to be a normal boy.” So I asked him, “Why aren’t you a normal boy?” and he told me, “Normal boys go to school.”
We’ve been homeschooling both of our boys, currently aged 8 and 9, since August 2020. We chose to homeschool after witnessing how our older son struggled with online learning in the first few months of the pandemic. We knew the proceeding year would be full of schedule changes, weeks of online learning, and lots of disruption. And ya know what, we were right. In our first year of homeschooling, both of my boys thrived as their friends and their families struggled with upheavals at school. After the first year, we left it up to the kids – they chose to homeschool for a second year.
So, now, my 8-year-old wants to be a normal boy who goes to school. The problem is, he’s not a normal boy. He has a learning struggle (or superpower – at least that’s how we choose to look at it) dyslexia.
Before reenrolling the kids in our public schools, we contacted them to have both of our boys evaluated by the child study team. Our older son had an IEP prior to our moving to homeschool but he was due for a reevaluation.
Our younger son was in Kindergarten the last time he attended the public school and, at that point, they gave us no indication that he had a reading struggle. We realized it quite quickly as we began homeschooling and we had been discussing the likelihood we were looking at dyslexia with his pediatrician for over a year.
Now, the school year has officially come to a close. We’ve met with the child study team and we’re armed and empowered with the findings. It’s time to decide, whether to homeschool or not to homeschool.
To hear the full discussion of the options being weighed on both sides, check out the latest episode of Whose Kid is That?!? Val and I go through both options and look at what each might look like for my family.
If you have homeschooled a child with dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia, or sensory processing disorder, I’d love to hear from you. If you have a child with any of those learning differences who attend a public school, I’d love to hear from you too!