Jam is 5 years old.
So Jam is now officially 5 years old and you know what that means- kindergarten time! I'd finally get a few minutes to myself in a day or be able to pick up extra hours at the bookstore or whatever. Endless possibilities!
Except that I knew when we dropped out of preschool way back when that we wouldn't be doing the regular ol' kindergarten thing 'on time'. But still, I like to stay optimistic and informed so I researched options.
Public School
We did that whole IEP thing through our district last fall and that cemented for us what I had already suspected- that we would need to find a better educational match for Jam than our public school system. The class sizes were too big, the available resources too small and Jam wouldn't be able to hack full-time days without amping up his anxiety. And anxious kids already have a hard enough time. Having gone through the public system myself, I knew a major part of his day would be spent fending off sensory chaos and figuring out how to survive until the dismissal bell. And that's a terrible way to spend time.
Which is fine because I'd always wanted to send him to the little private school up the street anyway.
Private School
I fell in love with a neighborhood private school years ago when I tutored some students from there for our library's homework help program. It embodied all of my favorite pedagogical ideas at the time: small multi-age classes, an interdisciplinary approach, differentiated instruction, inquiry-based curriculum. All the right buzzwords. I knew that if I ever had kids, they would be attending this school.
So earlier this year, we went to all the Open Houses and tours and Q and A sessions for the school. We talked to current parents and former parents and teachers. Our OT had even suggested the school as her own son had gone there. I was getting very excited. Sure, we'd have to spend the entire summer prepping a very unprepared Jam for a very long school day. And get his memorization of numbers and letters down pat. And get him writing his name and maybe some sight words. And get the potty-training all finished up. And drop all the therapies at summer's end. There was much to do if I was going to make this work...
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See what was happening there? I was getting way too excited. And way too wrapped up in the idea that I could shove my kid on to a normal schooling timetable and in a normal schooling environment. And then I crashed back to earth and realized that if it was going to take so much work for this to happen, we just weren't ready.
The nail in the coffin? The last Q and A session where the school director, in response to another parent's question, kept repeating that this was 'not a special needs school'. Well, that sucks. Because I have a special needs kid so....
Redshirting
So if Jam wasn't ready for public or private school, another option would be to just hold him back a year, continue with his therapies, and keep working on some of those kinder skills in the hopes that he'd mature into readiness. And hope that his interest in letters and numbers and reading and writing and being told what to do all day magically appeared. Because it hadn't yet.
(Have I mentioned just how strong-willed my son is? And just how uninterested he is in doing uninteresting things?)
Of course, he did just turn 5. Maybe he just needs another year to get some skills and confidence and interest (and compliance) under his belt before heading out into the world of school. Except that I have a feeling another year isn't going to make much difference for what's going to happen to dyspraxic, dysgraphic, SPD, perfectionist, strong-willed Jam once he gets into a schooling environment. I do know it's not going to be pretty for anyone involved...
Homeschooling
So suspecting strongly that a formal schooling environment was not going to be ideal for Jam, I started to freak out. Like, major freaking out. And, of course, when I'm freaking out about something, I arm myself with information. Lots and lots of information. And there the answer suddenly appeared...
Homeschooling.
And I can't believe it took so long to have this epiphany because I wasn't new to the concept of homeschooling. In library school, about ten years ago, whenever we had papers and projects involving a demographic of people using the public library system, I would always use the homeschooling population. I had done tons of research into various homeschooling methods and styles, resources, local groups, pros and cons, everything. And I still had it all.
And I knew right away I had found the best choice for us.
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