Ok, sorry about the delay. C is well, and I am well, and we've both finished antibiotics. Nothing to do with my topic, but softball is also finished for this year. C's team just wasn't a good team this year, and they finished in last place for A league. E's team finished 2nd in C league.
Now, back to home schooling. I left off at the end of C's 2nd grade year, where she continued to do well academically, but was bullied almost daily. C began her 3rd grade school year a little better off. Not only was she still earning the top grades in the entire SCHOOL (not just her grade level), but she was also one of only 2 children in 3rd grade selected to play in her school's violin program, something usually reserved only for the 4th and 5th graders. So, every Monday, for 30 minutes, she got to leave class, and have a violin lesson, and perform in their concerts.
However, as the year progressed, not only did bullying begin anew, we also began having lunch and recess issues. The children are allowed 15 minutes to go through the lunch line, sit down, eat, and dispose of their garbage. They are not allowed to speak a word during this time. So....barely enough time to gulp down anything, and NO time to relax or talk with friends. IF there was ONE WORD spoken in the lunchroom, the lunch ladies punished the children by making them stand still and silently against the wall for the remaining 15 minutes of their lunch "hour". (actually only 30 minutes.) As it was nearly impossible for several classes of elementary children to be able to get through lunch without one, single word spoken by several classes of elementary students, C spent most of her lunch time standing still, facing a wall, with every other child in her class.
I called the principal. She told me, "It might not seem fair, but kids can be pretty LOUD if given the chance, and Mrs. T keeps them in line." So, I wrote a letter to the administration, expressing that I felt the few minutes break each day was IMPORTANT for the children to relax, eat, socialize, and get a few minutes of fresh air and exercise to break up the monotony of sitting still at a desk for 6 hours. I never received any answers, and apparently I was the only parent who thought it weird to force children to not move, and not speak, let alone, PLAY and EXERCISE for 30 minutes each day. The only minor satisfaction I got for C on THAT issue was during Thanksgiving week, when parents are allowed to come eat lunch at the school with their children, and I, and several other mothers, ALL thought the silence rule was ridiculous....so we mothers happily engaged the children in conversations, even daring to make them giggle and laugh, while we ate with them. Mrs. T came out and glared at us, and one time even tried to shush us MOMS! However, *I* am not a subservient person, and no lunch lady would have controlled me when *I* was an elementary student, let alone now that this woman was making the love of my life, my CHILD, miserable, along with hundreds of other children. Children are full of LIFE, and who in the world has their child sit silently at a desk all day, with no break, not even allowed to speak during the 30 minutes they are supposed to eat, play, exercise, and get at least a few minutes of fresh air?
I don't conduct my HOME that way, why in the world was I sending my little girl off 5 days a week to let OTHERS treat her that way?!?
Meanwhile, aside from the half hour every Monday that C got to participate in violin class, she was dreading school more and more. Every morning was a daily battle...she cried, hid under her pillow, begged me to let her stay home. On good days I was able to coax her out of bed 10 minutes before the bell rang, get her to get dressed and go to the bathroom, (she refused to use the school bathrooms, if she didn't go before we left, she wouldn't go until 2:30, when I picked her up.)and actually get in the car. Every morning I watched her walk in those big double doors, and feel guiltier and guiltier. I didn't know what other option I HAD....parents HAVE to send their children to school, don't they? It's illegal NOT to. EVERY child goes to school, and we all survive, right? But I just felt horrible, sometimes crying, myself, at how mean I felt abandoning my girl, forcing her to go somewhere she was afraid of, was bored at, was abused at.
Every night, C woke us up. She suffered from night terrors....screaming, crying, yelling. I would go in her room, attempt to wake her up, sometimes i was able to, sometimes she was so sound asleep she just kept crying and yelling. Sometimes she would become so upset in her sleep she would vomit all over in the bed. Many nights, I would say at least 3 or 4 out of every 7, C would crawl into my bed beside me. I was never one for having my babies co-sleep, but nor was I one to tell a scared, crying child that they had to deal with it alone and to go away, so when she felt the need to get in bed with me, I didn't push her away or discourage her. I would put my arm around her and hold her. And apparently sometimes engage in a sleep-talking conversation with her that I never remembered, but would make her laugh the next day as she told me about it. But that's beside the point...
The point is that my child was growing older and older, yet becoming more and more afraid to even GO to school. She fared far above average academically, yet detested doing the same things over and over. She begged me to teach her multiplication in 3rd grade because she was so TIRED of adding and subtracting. She begged me to buy her books she would like because the ones she was allowed to read at school were too easy, and she finished several of them a day, yet the school said she wasn't "old enough" to read chapter books. The only thing she liked about school was violin 30 minutes a week, and the rare occasions the children were silent enough during lunch to actually get to PLAY on the new play equipment in the school yard. In the evenings, at home, I read her chapter after chapter of the "Little House on the Prairie" series, let her read any books she wanted to, and bought her math workbooks, flashcards, and map workbooks because she ASKED me to teach her. She became fascinated with the presidents of our country, beginning with George Washington, so we read books about presidents, bought biographies, and every night we were doing school....it's just that NEITHER of us realized that's what we were doing.
In December school went on WINTER break....not to be confused with Christmas vacation, because Christmas is offensive to some people, and even though there were only about 3 students in her entire school who celebrated anything else (these 3 celebrated Kwanzaa) we were no longer allowed to have a CHRISTMAS program or CHRISTMAS break, we now had a WINTER program and WINTER break. Either way, C went on break for 2 1/2 weeks, and THAT is when our entire future changed.
To be continued....
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