We just finished watching the PBS American Experience episode, Freedom Riders. Ezra fell asleep around ten fifteen, but he was riveted until he could no longer keep his eyes open. Zach made it all the way ’till eleven, shaking his head in disbelief the whole time. As I watched, all of my anxiety about recent diagnoses for the boys just melted away. I looked over them, curled up with pillow pets and blankies, and knew with absolute clarity that what... Read more
Stop the presses! This just in: Children need big mommas. I had started a post on my conflicted feelings about assigning labels to my kids. But then I heard this, from a good friend about another friend, who is rather rotund: ….. She said that she wasn’t going to lose any weight because it would be bad for the kids. She said that children need mothers who are big enough to feel like home. Mothers where they can nestle in... Read more
“Daddy?” “Yeah?” “You know how you took the whole day off on Zach’s birthday?” “Yeah?” “I expect you to do EXACTLY the same thing on my birthday!” “Okay, Ez.” “No, Daddy. I’m serious. THE ENTIRE DAY.” “Okay, Ez. I won’t work on your birthday.” “That’s what I’m totally expecting.” This kind of talk would normally sound disrespectful to me. But we do birthday’s big in our family. We don’t get each other gifts on Christmas, and we explain this to... Read more
Last week, I started a series on Social Stories and how we are using them to help the boys process typical social interactions. In the first post, I included a sample story about making mistakes. If you read it, you may have noticed that it contains no second person statements. No directives either. No good guys or bad guys. Just people living on Planet Earth. This is intentional. (It would be hard to write such a boring story without intentionally... Read more
What if I give up completely on my objectives and curriculum? What would happen if we un-schooled? If you’re not familiar with un-schooling, it’s a homeschooling philosophy first described in the 1970s. Un-schoolers believe that through normal play, household chores, projects, friendships and family, children will grow, learn, and develop – all at their own pace and based on their own curiosity, talents, and desires. Un-schoolers believe that children are motivated to learn and learn best in natural contexts, not... Read more
I write every day, Monday through Friday. The discipline of writing every weekday means I don’t have to question whether anything blog-worthy happened. I just write. Kind of like homeschooling. Whether I have it all planned out or not, we do something – and then we call it homeschool. Tonight, when I can’t keep my eyes open, and when the only thing I can think of to write would require me to go down two flights of stairs to grab... Read more
Day 3 of a Series on Social Stories Click here to read Day 1 and one of the Social Stories, “What is a mistake?” When I first read through the list of stories, I was disappointed. One because they all seemed so simple, and two because so many people thought they would be good for the boys. Here are a few of the titles: Why are gifts important? How to shake hands When it’s my turn to listen Three gum manners... Read more
Day 2 of a Series on Social Stories: Click here to read Day 1, and the Social Story “What is a mistake?” After reading the social story aloud, Wendy asked us to name some mistakes we had made in the past. The boys didn’t immediately volunteer any. I mentioned spilling coffee all over the car on Easter. Wendy reminded them that she had misspelled a word in front of them the week before, a word Zach had to tell her... Read more
Several people working with the boys over the years suggested that I read “social stories” to them. I always assumed this meant that I should find books about a boy lying to his father, or a girl left out of a recess game, stories that show how we should react in common social situations. But a girl can only follow up on so many suggestions thrown at her by helpful professionals. And ‘social stories’ never made the cut. When a... Read more
Being socially clueless has its benefits. Like today, when we told the boys that Kathiana would be returning to Costa Rica in September. Both boys were upset and asked her a lot questions about why she needed to leave and if there wasn’t some way that she could stay. After it was clear that she could neither stay nor return, Zach tried to console us all with, “Well, we can get another au pair, right?” “But we’ll never find one... Read more
The Homeschool Chronicles
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