When a homeschooled kid asks to go to school...

I was talking with some other homeschooling moms this afternoon. One mom has homeschooled all of her children but also sent each of them to school for a while; she explained sending them to school because they asked to go. This isn't the first time I've heard of parents doing that, but I just don't get it.



When my oldest was about 6 years old, he begged for days to get to go to school "like the other kids." My husband and I had decided, for a multitude of reasons--including how terrible the local schools are, that we did not want to send our children to school as long as we had any other choice. And this isn't the sort of thing where a child gets a vote--at least not in our family. But that doesn't mean that we don't listen to our children. Rather, I spent time trying to get down to the nitty-gritty of why he was asking to go to school. I finally got him to admit that he really, really wanted to ride a school bus.



Once I figured out the reason behind his request, we were able to deal with it. I explained to him that we live so close to the nearest elementary school that they wouldn't let him ride a bus; he'd have to walk if he went to school. And then I took care of his real desire: We took a bus trip.



We walked to a public bus stop and got on public transportation. I chose a destination that involved having to transfer to another bus, with a long wait in the hot Florida sun, and when he complained about the wait and the heat and the noise on the bus that made it hard to hear each other, I cheerfully said, "But this is all part of riding a bus." Later, we talked about the kids who do ride a bus to school and have to wait for it in the heat, the cold, the rain, and whatever other weather comes their way. The kids who have to get up early every morning and gulp down their breakfast to get out to the bus stop in time, while we get to enjoy a leisurely morning routine, watching cartoons before Dad leaves for work, doing lessons in the family room (or on the patio, or in the car, or wherever we feel like it), having a snack when needed, getting to go on lots more field trips, being able to stay in if the weather is lousy, and so on.



The requests to go to school faded away....