People are always curious as to my reasons for homeschooling the children. The reasons are myriad but include my desire for the children to be excellent and not overwhelmed. I want them to excel and develop talents. I don't think anyone came with any natural talent except maybe determination and persistence. The girls could barely do cartwheels last year at this time. We wondered if their recreation teachers would pass them out of level 1. Now here we are, and although they were definitely in the middle to bottom tiers of their teams, not too bad.
Gymnastics adds a wonderful balance to our homeschooling. It gives the girls large blocks of time which they spend with a peer group and other adults. It is a situation which requires discipline and performance. Brent and I have no desire to train them for a future in gymnastics, most likely by the time they are 12 we will have reaped all the benefits of the sport. The rigorous time demands can be very difficult for teammates who spend 7 hours at school. It is a drain on the child and the family. This has become very clear from my conversations with the mothers of their peers. For now, gymnastics is serving an excellent purpose in the health and well being of the girls. And I do have to say, the yogi in me is getting very jealous of their continually improving handstands and flexibility. I can still beat them hands down though in any head stand contest!
1 comment:
Rebecca, I am so glad I found your blog again. I thought you'd deleted your other one; didn't know you just moved. I don't know if you remember me from previous comments, but I followed your blog for a couple years. Anyway, I remembered all your homeschooling posts, but I generally skipped over them because I did not think I would homeschool. Now that my oldest is coming up on school age (would be kindergarten this fall) I'm very much leaning that way (better decide soon). I wished I could see your blog again to get ideas. So I just found it today (someone pointed me there), and your post about your Spanish teacher is awesome. We are in the process of trying to tweak our resources to get someone to teach our children Mandarin. That will probably help me decide if I will or won't homeschool, as I am already pretty overwhelmed, and would need the help. And I really, really want my kids to learn a language. I just started my 5 yo in piano, and he's doing so well. And THIS (this post) is the exact reason I want to homeschool. I've never heard anyone else give this reason! I want them to have SKILLS. School is just too long, and then you have to limit whatever else they do, so they're not burned out and they have time to play with friends. Anyway, just wanted to let you know. Thanks for your blog.
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