Friday, September 22, 2017

A Day In The Life Of A Homeschooling Family :: The Fife Family


:: Tell us a little about yourself and your family, as well as how long you have been homeschooling.

I'm a 32 yo SAHM and licensed therapist (LPC), I have a husband who works in the engineering/it field and 3 kids ages 9, 6 and 3.  I am homeschooling my 9 yo and have been since Nov 2014.  My 6 yo is in public school 1st grade and the 3 yo just started preschool at the public school as well.

:: Do you have any "Back To School" traditions?  Do you jump right in, or gradually introduce subjects?

With my homeschooled kid we don't have any schedules or traditions, we learn things as naturally and organically as we can, as questions arise.  There are times when I have to back off of schooling anything altogether bc he is too anxious to learn anything and needs some time to process.

:: What made you decide to homeschool your children?

My oldest has always had some behavioral issues but once he started 1st grade, within 3 months he became completely agoraphobic, refused to wear clothes bc of the sensory issues, could not be in a room alone bc he thought robots/monsters/a giant walking talking dog would eat him, and had horrifying nightmares every night.  he was 6.  he was completely dysfunctional and the school was blaming me... even though he was fine in my care up until that point and all the techniques they were using made him regress further and further.  it was completely insane.  So out of fear of losing him completely, I pulled him out and have been healing him since.  We have since learned he has VERY high functioning autism, so even though he LOOKS like he should be a normal kid he has some delays.

:: What does a typical day look like in your homeschool? Are you a schedule follower or a gentle rhythm type mama? Maybe somewhere in between...

I don't consider myself "gentle rhythm" but I do have to use my intuition to know when he can handle a bit more challenge and when I need to pull back and let him process everything (information, emotions, experiences, etc.).  Schedules actually raise his anxiety, he is afraid he can't meet the expectations, so we are very flexible.

:: Do you have a specific method or philosophy that you follow?

My philosophy is that he is incredibly intelligent (tests off the charts) and has great intuition to know what he can and cannot handle at any given moment.  I have to trust him completely and that helps him trust himself.  

:: We would love to hear what curriculum you are using this year.

For math we have been playing prodigy.com and dragonbox... other than that we mostly unschool.  We read A TON of books together and he is starting to pick up writing on his own after he made me promise to never ask him to write again, and I think the reading is helping with the writing/spelling right now.

Thank you, Miriam, for giving us a peak into your homeschool!

Channon

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