Search Results for: blog bullying may be a good reason to homeschool

Ready, Set, School: Bullying

Now that my daughter knows that she will be getting the teacher she prayed for (and by pray, I mean saying a healthy dose of novenas and lighting enough candles to burn down a Cathedral) she is happy to be heading back to school. Me, not so much. I am a bit concerned about the bullying problem that surfaced last year. I am hoping that the school has come up with a new approach to addressing the issue rather than simply putting a band-aid over it. We’ll see. School starts in two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been consulting with … Continue reading →

Can Good Parenting Prevent Teen Violence

There is a reason that we talk so much about discipline, and child behavior so much. This is because it is important to do as good a job in parenting as possible in hoped that it will keep our children on the straight and narrow through childhood and into adulthood. But can all the parenting in the world prevent some of the bad teen issues we are seeing in the news right now. News of gang rapes, rapes in middle schools, setting children on fire, and girl on girl beatings are the extreme in bad teenage behavior. Whenever I see … Continue reading →

Reasons I am Glad We Homeschool: School Bus Incidents

For the last couple of days an instance of school bus violence has dominated education news and blogs. Basically, a white student got on the school bus and no one would allow him to sit down next to them. (There where both white and black kids on the bus refusing him.) The driver yelled for the kids to sit down so he moved the book bag of a black kid and sat down. Other students began to instigate and the black boy who he sat next to attacked him. A few minutes later it appeared that the first attacker had … Continue reading →

Bullying may be a good reason to homeschool

If you have been following the news, you are aware that two 12 year old boys killed themselves in the past two weeks in separate incidents of bullying. According to an Oprah Winfrey show on the subject, the boys were hit, pushed, and called names, most specifically, they were called gay slurs. According to experts, harassment based on sexuality is the worst kind of torment for middle school students. I have my own personal history with bullying. It started in the third grade with girls who had previously been friendly becoming distant and cold. In the fourth grade it escalated … Continue reading →

Traveling Single Parent, is Homeschooling a Good Idea?

Salena asked the following. I have a question, I am a full time auditor Mystery Shopper. I make between 2000-4000 a month and it’s not about Money, at all BUT I am always on the computer or traveling. My daughter is simply failing the 7th grade in Private school. When I travel, I need to take my Daughter with me because I have no support. My sister is a Full time teacher and is willing to oversee. Is homeschooling a good idea for my daughter as she wants to travel with me when I go. No father, he is dead. … Continue reading →

Transgender Girl Denied Access to Female Bathroom

If you opened up CNN today like I always do, you probably saw a beautiful, smiling little girl with purple hair wearing a pink dress as one of the main headlines. The only problem is this isn’t a sunny story about Barbies and butterflies.  The story was about how the transgendered little first grader living in Colorado was told by the school system that she could no longer use the girl’s bathroom at school. Coy Mathis, according to her mother, was born with male genitalia, but has always identified with being a girl.  She dresses as a girl and her … Continue reading →

The BFF

My daughter has a wonderful BFF. Make that 20 BFFs. At the end of each school day she tells me about all the fun she had playing with her BFF… du jour. My kid is an equal opportunity playmate and sees everyone as a potential best friend. She’s seven. At first I thought it was sweet that she rotated BFFs amongst the gaggle of girls and boys in her grade. Then, I wondered if she was the only kid in the class without a true blue pal. However, after reading a new report about bullying and the social ostracization of … Continue reading →

Dread

Four words you never want to hear your 6-year-old utter: “Mommy, what’s Dr. Phil?” I wish the question had been prompted by a random commercial for the daytime talk show, but alas, that would be too easy. No, my daughter’s query about the man, who implores millions of people to “get real,” had nothing to do with an errant encounter with a TV ad and everything to do with a run-in with a socially “mature” 7-year-old on the school playground. “Where did you hear about Dr. Phil?” I asked, trying hard to hide the panic in my voice. “Ella,” my … Continue reading →

Turning Your Child into a Self-Advocate

How does your child do when you turn her loose? In school, kids have to self-advocate. In fact, in all groups children have to self-advocate to a large degree, especially if you are not around all of the time. Self-advocacy is a good skill to learn, but it’s one that is hard for young children. In fact, it’s one of the reasons that I’m tentative about letting my daughter loose into the school system. She’ll have to navigate large groups of children on her own. As an introvert, she doesn’t have the natural inclination to introduce herself to many other … Continue reading →

“Hey, Stupid!”

“Mommy, am I stupid?” When those words came out of my five-year-old daughter’s mouth the other day while I preparing lunch, I almost dropped the knife I was using to cut strawberries. “Stupid” is a banned word in our home, so I knew my daughter’s query was not joke. “Stupid?” I repeated, partially hoping that I had misunderstood her. “Yeah… am I stupid?” “Absolutely not!” I responded. “Why would you ask such as thing?” “Today two first graders called me stupid.” Oh really, I thought, trying to disguise my anger while simultaneously squashing thoughts of doing something, well, stupid, to … Continue reading →