Trying to find the balance between mother and stalker has proved to be interesting...my plight began at the beginning of this school year.
With the birth of baby #5 looming, I was not the least bit prepared for the home school year and my efforts to find fitting classes or co-ops seemed to come up short, too. We practically blind-sided the school-agers with public school "just until I could get it all together." They entered school reluctantly but with the assurance that it was short-lived.
All have done well academically, and socially ;-) While the younger ones are poised on the ready for homeschooling again, my oldest wants to continue @New Tech Institute. That is about as close as you can get to a private-like, small school experience in the EVSC, but, alas, it is still a regimen of classes mixed with wasted time... and supervised by people who are paid to educate children according to government standards and influence them according to their own personal baggage and beliefs. (Wonderful teachers exist , no doubt, but they don't know and love my children like I do.) More and more I have discovered that most people think we all have the same moral compass...but we don't. I'm sure teachers have some stories that would make your hair curl, only to be topped by police officers who have stories that would make you cringe at the notion you even live in the same town with people like that.
Yikes! I know, I know...that's life. Here's the dilemma...there have to be good people in a school(or world) to counter balance the idiots (excuse my crudeness) and preserve some kind of normal . Can good kids influence others for good, or do they just get diluted by the status quot? This is what is playing out in real life right now. My son is experiencing success in school and with peers because he has had positive educational experiences and positive peer interaction up until this point. He enjoys school, he is motivated to achieve. He is also being confronted with many issues that have not crossed his path up until this point...drug use, promiscuity, kids who "hate God." And I am not exactly sure how that is impacting him emotionally, it's as if talking about those issues is embarrassing for him.
His life is still in the pliable stage, clay that can be molded...but he also makes many decisions for himself that are proper training for adulthood. I can just hear my critics saying..."you can't shelter them from everything" no, but I can shelter them from some things, and isn't that part of my job? Is this his opportunity to be salt and light to the world, or is this opening him up to potential harm? Hmmmm...I'm not sure.
