About a month ago I decided to do something I never thought
I’d do. I’m sharing my story in hopes that it helps someone else who feels the
way I do, and who thinks the way I do, and/or who is struggling with a similar situation
but doesn’t know what to do. Heck, I’m not even sure I know what I’m doing, but
what I can tell you is I know I’m doing what is best for the time being, and we
are going to figure it out and everything is going to be just fine.
December 14, 2021 was Atiana’s last day in 2nd
grade at a public school. I pulled her
out abruptly and didn’t have a plan. All
I knew is I was no longer going to tolerate what we had been through. It had gone too far for too long and it was
taking a toll on her emotional wellbeing.
While private school was an option, I also realized there was really
only about 4 months left into the school year and after all she had gone through,
I decided she needed a break. A break
from being in a daycare/school environment since the age of 3 months old. She’s never had a break from that, and she is
one of those kids that rarely gets sick and has only missed school maybe a
handful of times ever. I decided she needed these next few months to build a
strong bond with us and to heal mentally.
We decided to homeschool her for the time being and while the plan is a
temporary plan for now until 3rd grade, I am also open minded to
wherever it takes us.
Now, if you personally know me, and know me well, then you
know I am not a homeschool mom. My patience
tends to run low and Atiana and I butt heads often, but if you also know me
then you know that the day we found out we were having a daughter I was
determined to make sure we had a great relationship. I didn’t want her growing up feeling like my
mom made me feel and I wanted to teach her all the things my mom never took the
time to teach me. It’s always been a
fear of mine that she will grow up hating me for being too strict, or not
having enough time for her, of feeling like I don’t understand her or not
feeling heard etc.. To me, having a daughter meant that I had the chance to
give her something I always wished I had with my mom. So, before you think I’m
crazy for just abruptly pulling her out of school and homeschooling her and
before you form your opinions then please listen…
Only a mother knows what is best for her child. Let no one tell you any different. Sometimes God leads us in the most
unimaginable ways, but I can tell you this, there is a reason for it all. These past two years God has spoken to us so
directly and for once in our lives we have fully surrendered, listened, and
followed his lead. Every time we follow his lead we are blessed in abundance in
the craziest ways. We have had the craziest timeline of events since we have
fully trusted the Lord and listened to what he was telling us, but that’s a
whole other long blog I’ll have to write when I have time.
Atiana had a great 1st grade year. She
transitioned perfectly from school in California to school in Tennessee and we
loved her teacher. As most of you already know, she is my strong-willed child,
she’s stubborn, full of personality (and attitude), always has to be right and
is also very smart (too smart sometimes).
She was bilingual until she was almost 3! She has always excelled
academically and socially but can often be misunderstood because she must have
things done a certain way (OCD tendencies) or she gets extremely frustrated and
often times a simple task can take her hours to complete because she’s easily
distracted. You can often find her doing flips on the soccer field or watching
TV upside down on her head. She’s the
last at the dinner table finishing her food and we have had to use timers
sometimes, so she gets the concept of time.
She won’t back down from a fight and if someone makes her angry/upset/hurts
her then she has no problem expressing how mad it made her. She’s independent,
a true GO getter and won’t stop until she gets what she wants. She also never
holds grudges, is great about saying sorry, loves hard, wants to be included in
everything all the time and has a heart for those who are hurting, sad or alone.
She’s a natural leader and I have no doubt that she’s meant to do big things
one day (she will 100% be her own boss …..Mark.My.Words).
Unfortunately, this year in 2nd grade she was placed
with a teacher that I knew immediately was not a good fit for her. When you have two similar personalities they
tend to clash. I knew within the first
month this teacher was not a good fit and I had gone to the principal about my
concerns. She was very understanding and while I immediately requested a new
teacher for Atiana she talked me into trying to work it out and giving it
another chance, so I did. The teacher and I did not start off on the right foot
to begin with. I don’t need to put all of what happened on blast, but I can say
she made us feel very unwelcomed from day 1.
After going to the principal my husband and I scheduled a
meeting with the teacher, principal, and school counselor to address some of
our concerns via Zoom. This was the
first time we met her teacher and not just communicated via e-mail/Remind so we
were able to feel out her personality a little bit more. Sometimes texts and e-mail can come across differently,
so this was good for us all. Some of the
concerns I wanted to address regarding Atiana’s first month of school were: Tons
of unfinished work being sent home (like over an hour worth of work we would
have to finish at home with her on top of homework) and constant notes about behavioral
issues she was having in class. I
reached out to her teacher multiple times asking why her work was not getting
done and every answer was very vague making it hard to pinpoint and fix the
problem. The only response I would get
was “there are multiple opportunities for her to finish work throughout the day.”
Some of the questions I asked the teacher were: What is
causing Atiana to not finish her work?
Is she talking too much? Is she
just sitting there? Do you think she has
some sort of learning disability? Does
she not understand what she’s supposed to be doing? Do I need to request a full
educational evaluation on her to see if she needs an IEP? Are you checking up
on her to make sure she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing and encouraging
her to get her work done? I got 0
answers to any of this. She literally
had no idea why her work wasn’t getting done.
She just told me she sits there and twirls her hair and then asked that
I basically keep her hair out of her face so It doesn’t distract her. (This was
the first of many requests on what to not allow Atiana to have or wear at
school).
I also told the teacher she is only 7 and most 7 year olds cannot be trusted to just sit there and do their work quietly without getting
distracted or someone reminding them to focus and get it done. Not all kids work the same and I understand
that she can get distracted easily and I also wanted her to know that I was not
opposed to having her have consequences for not finishing her work such as
maybe moving her closer to her desk (I found out this same day she had already
moved Atiana closer to her desk, but I’ll go into detail about that here
shortly) so she can monitor her further or having her skip recess occasionally to
finish her work, but that I could not have her come home with hours of work on
a nightly or even weekly basis.
I was told by her teacher that unfinished work was supposed
to be sent home on Fridays and returned Monday which is understandable because
then we could have her do it over the weekend, but this was not happening for
us. Atiana was being sent home with tons of unfinished work on Monday/Wednesday
with no further instructions on when to return it and what pages needed to be
done. It was literally so much work that
we were questioning what the heck she was doing in class all day. It didn’t even make sense to us.
Another concern we had was that Atiana expressed that her
feelings had been hurt by the teacher and that she was afraid to raise her hand
and ask questions because she would get in trouble. She said the teacher would crumble and throw
away the work she worked hard on. I
think what Atiana meant is that she tossed it in a recycle bin, but in Atiana’s
mind it felt like her work didn’t mean anything to the teacher because it was
being tossed. The teacher denied all of
this and I still don’t know exactly what happened, but regardless if a teacher
even made her feel like her work wasn’t important that alone was a red flag for
me. I’m still not sure what to believe.
We discussed all of this and after the meeting something
still didn’t sit right with Josh. I
should have listened to him, but I believe in second chances, and I gave it a
second chance. I decided I was going to force this teacher to overcommunicate
with me since communication seemed to be a problem, and I was on top of
everything. What her teacher didn’t
realize is I have all the time in the world to fight for my child, to check in
and to show up to EVERYTHING. I decided
instead of being angry about the situation I would try and understand the
situation and be as supportive as a I could to the teacher in hopes she would
better understand Atiana and in hopes that she understood we were trying to
work through whatever issues she was having with her.
Shortly after our ZOOM meeting we had parent teacher
conferences. This time we met the
teacher in person, talked for a good 45 minutes. Saw where Atiana was sitting (at a desk alone
in front of the teacher while everyone else got to sit in groups of 5). We were ok with that if that’s what needed to
happen for the time being, but it was not supposed to be long term. We were a
bit upset that she didn’t tell us she had decided to seat her alone until we
met that day via Zoom. Atiana never once
mentioned it to us, probably because she thought we would be upset with her, so
we had no idea. But again, we went with it and figured the teacher knew
best. She went over all her work with us
and Atiana seemed to be doing fine academically. The stuff she was struggling with she assured
us was normal. So, we were happy with
that. We decided to make sure Atiana knew we were working together as a team
because it would really help keep her inline, and for the most part it did.
After all that, unfinished work stopped coming home and
behavioral issue sheets stopped coming home for the most part, but I would get
little Remind messages letting me know that Atiana had a face mask, piece of
jewelry, hair ties, water bottle etc…that distracted her and not to send her
back to school with it. It was something new and different all the time. It was
annoying, but we complied.
Another month went by (remember here the kids start school
in August so all those initial complaints we had were within that first month
and then parent teacher conferences were in September) and there was a
Halloween event we attended at her school. Her classroom had a party and both
Josh and I attended. At this time, we
realized Atiana was still sitting alone (so she had started in August and now
we are at the end of October) and it broke our hearts. All the kids were participating in games
together and enjoying chatting amongst each other and even during a fun event
like this her teacher had her sitting along and separated from everyone. I
think we both had tears in our eyes because we both knew this wasn’t right, but
again we let it go. We both left that
day with a sour taste in our mouth, but we were determined to show up to
EVERYTHING. I was not going to let a
teacher bully us or our child in any way.
November came and we started dealing with new behavioral issues
with Atiana. Apparently, she started
saying bad words at school in the lunchroom, getting in trouble on the bus and
then she started making up these elaborate lies about a girl at school that was
bullying her not too long ago. If you
know Atiana then one thing you know about her is she is very honest, like too
honest to where sometimes I have to let her know it could possibly hurt
someone’s feelings. So, this new lying
thing/making up stories was very odd behavior and one day she called me from
the nurse’s office saying she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to come home. She came home and was just fine, but she told
me this story about a bully at school, so I was immediately concerned that she
came home because of this bully not because she was sick, and I contacted the
principal immediately. Come to find out, after some more questioning, and
digging, and after involving multiple people from school we found out the story
she told was completely made up (parts of the story were true, but it was stuff
that had happened weeks prior). I was so angry with Atiana. I made her apologize to everyone involved the
next day at school. I got a call about ½
way through the day from her teacher saying Atiana was refusing to do work, crying,
ignoring her teacher, and just overall not complying because I was making her
apologize to everyone at school. I spoke to Atiana on the phone briefly and
told her she needed to change her attitude, or she was in big trouble when she
returned home from school. She came home and we put her in her room and made
her think about her behavior.
About a week later I received yet another e-mail from her
teacher about Atiana’s foul language in the lunchroom and at recess. She said whoever
monitors the lunchroom/recess had informed her that Atiana was saying the F
word and the B word and as a consequence they decided to give her an “assigned”
lunch seat in the lunchroom. Again, I
told her this is new behavior and not something we have ever had to deal with, so
I had no idea where it was coming from. Apparently,
she was using the bad words towards friends when she was upset, but no one
could tell me exactly why she was upset or how she would even know to use words
like B*tch and F*ck You. Atiana got home from school that day and was in a
really good mood which isn’t normal if she knows she’s going to get in
trouble. I was fuming inside about her
behavior at school, but before I spoke, I listened to her speak about her day
which seemed to be a really great day.
After I listened, I told her that her teacher had e-mailed me about her
language at school and I told her to go to her room for the night because I was
so disappointed in her. She immediately
broke down in tears confused and upset and said “mom I promise I didn’t use bad
words at lunch/recess today. I sit alone
at lunch, so I don’t even have anyone to talk to.” Wait, you sit ALONE at
lunch? What??? How long have you been
sitting alone???? She said that day was
her first day sitting alone and she was so emotional over it. I immediately
e-mailed her teacher for clarification…
I e-mailed the teacher and found out Atiana did not use foul
language the day she e-mailed me. It had
happened days before, however, she was just made aware of it (probably because
she just found some time to gossip with the lunchroom lady) and decided to
punish her days after the incident which is so wrong because kids live in the
moment so you cannot punish them days after something they did and expect them
to understand fully and be ok with it. Secondly who gave you permission to sit
my kid ALONE at lunch and is this true? Because last we spoke you said she had
a “assigned” seat. Clearly you said
“assigned” because you know what you did was WRONG. Well, it was true and from
that moment on Josh and I decided we were not going to allow our child to sit
ALONE. I was watching our niece so Josh showed up for lunch at Atiana’s school unannounced
the next day. What he saw was
heartbreaking. He watched Atiana go into
the lunchroom with her class, go to the end of the table and sit and then the
rest of her classmates sat down and scooted to the other end of the table as
far away as they could from her. Josh
said she sat there alone with her head down.
He walked over and tapped her on the shoulder, and she was so excited to
see him and they sat at ate lunch together.
He told her she will NEVER have to sit alone for lunch again and we
would make sure of that.
After that whole incident I once again e-mailed the
principal and told her how disgusted I was with her teacher. How what she was doing with my child was
bullying and that we would be showing up every day for lunch that week to make
sure Atiana did not sit alone. The principal had no idea that her teacher was
even making her sit alone so this was all new news to her too. As the day went
on and I got responses from both the teacher and principal I started getting
more and more angry. I found out that
Atiana was not only sitting alone in the classroom for over 3 months, but was
also kept in for weeks from recess to finish work and then was being forced to
sit alone in the lunchroom. And they
wondered why my kid who never had issues with other kids before was suddenly lashing
out at them? Because she was being made to look and feel different than
everyone else and she was being made fun of it for it too. What kind of teacher does that to an 8 year
old? I agreed to her sitting alone
temporarily to get her back on track, not for 3+ months and keeping her in at
recess occasionally was fine, but I found out from multiple friends of Atiana’s
that they hadn’t seen her on the playground in weeks and then she had to sit
alone at lunch too. I could not believe
what I was hearing. I was so disgusted. I suddenly felt this overwhelming message
from God that I needed to pull her out of school and worry about what I was
going to do later. So that’s what I did.
The principal offered to put her in another class, but at
this point it was too late. She has so
my friends at school, and everyone had already been making fun of her for
sitting alone and I decided the best thing to do was to work on her self-esteem
and rebuild her spirit. She had turned
into a whole different kid because of everything she was silently going through. She went from my overly confident social kid
to a kid that felt like she constantly needed to defend herself because she was
made to feel different. And because the
teacher was a horrible communicator, I had no idea what was fully going on so
when she would get in trouble at school, we would send her to her room and
isolate her even more and now I feel terrible about that because I didn’t know
what she was going through.
I should also mention that within the week of this going on
we decided to have Atiana evaluated through the school. We are pretty sure she has ADHD and may be
dyslexic too. We couldn’t get an appointment until the end of January, but I
couldn’t let her continue to go through school that way, so we pulled her
immediately. Thankfully we are still
eligible for the evaluation, but in the meantime at least I get to work on her
overall wellbeing rather than have someone else damage her spirit.
Our first thought was to put her in private school, but God
has placed some of the most amazing friends in my life since moving here and
they have guided me and have helped me step outside of my comfort zone in so
many ways. When I told them what was going on they gave me the confidence to do
something I never thought I’d do, homeschool. It has never been clearer that
that’s what I’m supposed to be doing with Atiana at this time. So after pulling her from school I immediately
registered under an umbrella school for homeschool and we started our
journey. I knew, in order for me to
commit, I had to sign her up and pay for everything immediately so that I
wouldn’t change my mind. So that’s
exactly what I did.
I think I forgot to mention that once I told the teacher I
wanted her evaluated she went on to tell me she was also concerned because
Atiana wasn’t comprehending what she was supposed to be doing in class. This blew my mind because if you personally
know Atiana you know how incredibly smart that kid is. If anything, she was bored in that class
because she already knows how to do all of it.
And guess what, since we have started homeschooling, she has continued
to show me she is still just as smart as she has always been. She comprehends
things that I can’t even comprehend sometimes.
How does a teacher not see that?!?!
What frustrates me about all of this is I tried to be on teacher’s
team, and I told her on multiple occasions that I understood Atiana was a hard
personality to deal with, in the past Atiana has struggled with talking too
much in class and being overly social, but all these new things she was doing
didn’t make sense to me. It took me
forever to get to the bottom of what was really going on all because the teacher
could never really give me any real answers or figure out that maybe isolating
my child was causing bigger problems. It
truly made me question what she was doing with her students all day.
I share all of this with you guys in hopes it might help
someone else. Sometimes kids hide things
from us in fear that we might get upset so please make sure you question your
children when they come home from school and are acting different or if their
behavior has suddenly changed. I had no idea Atiana was being isolated at
school and once I finally figured it out all these new behavior issues made
sense. When I initially went to the principal it was not only regarding her
teacher, but also regarding a little girl that was bullying her at school. I
had made it very clear to her both verbally and in writing that depression and
anxiety run on both sides of our family so bullying was something I was not
going to let go or tolerate. The bullying got resolved for the most part, but what
her teacher was doing to her was also a form of bullying by isolating her and
by making her look/feel different in front of other students. She was setting Atiana up for failure
emotionally in every way and I was not going to allow that to happen.
Here's the thing about kids.
Each kid is different. There is
no one size fits all and some kids learn differently than others. What might
work for one kid wont always work for another kid. You can think you’re doing everything right
by sending them off to school every day and hope that they are learning what
they should be and that their emotional wellbeing is ok, but you just never
know until you take the time to sit down and figure them out outside of all of
that. And most of the time we are so
busy with work and sports that we don’t really take the time to figure out our
kids outside of that small window we get with them from the time school gets
out and their bedtime. Next thing you know our kids are grown and they have all
these issues (depression, anxiety, fear) that they have to deal with on their
own because we never really took the time to help them figure it out, or because
we never realized what they had been battling all along silently. Or maybe we did take the time to help them
figure it out, but it still wasn’t enough. We live in a world now where money
is valued as everything so we work work work and try to make ends meet and at
the end of the day our children get very little of us (especially now with TV
and social media being such huge distractions).
We are now two weeks into our homeschool journey (I pulled
Atiana out of school during Winter break so we had some time to decompress) and
we have noticed a HUGE change in Atiana’s overall wellbeing. I have never felt so close to her. I don’t think I would have ever had the
chance to figure her out the way I have these last few weeks had I not pulled
her out of school. I fully see her struggles and I fully see what she excels in
and I’m able to teach her how to work through it all. She needs encouragement
and one and one time and for the most part she powers through her work starting
at 9:00 a.m. and is finished by Noon. After
her schoolwork she spends time doing music, learning to cook, learning to do laundry
and dishes and or Artsy stuff. Once 3:00pm
rolls around she gets free time until dinner and she usually spends it playing
with another little girl down the street that is also homeschooled. She has
dinner around 5:30 and then takes a bath/shower, has a snack and some family
time and then is usually in bed by 8:30/9.
We keep her on a schedule like this because she thrives on a schedule and
is very routine with everything. Since we are only doing pretty much 4 months
of homeschooling (the schools here get out in May and with Spring Break and random
school days they get off here it comes out to about 4 months if that) we are primarily
focusing on math and reading, writing, grammar etc (for those that have asked
we are doing Kumon and Abeka for reading and math and then a few other books
too to further advance her grammar and reading). Atiana used to love reading, but
the teacher she had made her not like it anymore, so we are working on her
regaining that love. Every morning we
meet as a family at the fireplace and read our daily devotionals together to
help set the tone for our day. Right now, Atiana is doing a month-long study on
the moon and its phases and she’s loving looking at the moon each night and describing
what phase it’s in and explaining it through writing and then reading it to us. The beauty of homeschooling is the options of
what you choose to teach your child/children are endless. It can be overwhelming because there is literally
so much GOOD to teach our children that’s not being taught in schools.
I’m not going to lie, when God made it loud and clear that
homeschooling was what I needed to do for Atiana I freaked out a bit. Josh and I were at a point where we finally
had two days a week to focus on just each other while both kids were in school. We had gym dates and lunch dates and had
adult conversations about our goals/dreams.
I was finally finding a good balance and was finally getting some much-needed
alone time to catch up around the house and do the things I love with no interruptions,
but God had different plans and I listened because clearly, he knew Atiana
needed us in that moment more than we need our alone time.
Oddly enough having Atiana home and doing things the way we
are now has brought me so much peace and has relieved so much stress from us
all. I no longer have to worry about what
she got in trouble for at school each day, we no longer have to stress over
homework and rushing through dinner so we can get to gymnastics/soccer, no one
feels rushed and irritated in the morning, it’s taught us all to slow down, we
have learned to be more patient, we are able to see exactly where she’s
struggling and help her directly in those areas, Josh and I have found a good
balance of taking turns with teaching her and having our own time. It’s amazing what God does in your life when
you fully surrender yourself to him. I
can’t even explain what it does to you and your family as a whole.
Since having her home we have also realized we have taken a
lot of stress off her. She is my child
that has always anxiously awoken at the crack of dawn. Since having her home she sleeps in daily
until 8/8:30 a.m. This is unheard of with
Atiana. We started realizing that the pressure of school was likely causing lack
of sleep for her because of her Type A personality. She would always wake up super early and be
irritable and grumpy on school days and this would always make for a bad day at
school. Funny story. I made a sign for her room the night before
our official day of homeschool. The sign
told her what she needed to do before she came downstairs in the morning. It said: Make your bed, brush your teeth,
brush your hair, get dressed for the day and read your daily devotional. Well at 2:00 a.m. that next morning Josh saw
lights flickering downstairs in the kitchen.
He went downstairs to see what was going on and found Atiana sitting at
the kitchen table fully dresses (shoes and all) teeth brushed, hair brushed,
and she was reading her daily devotional.
I about died when he told me LOL, but all of a sudden I realized something. Atiana is ME!
Atiana is Type A and the stress of the world weighs on her
shoulders. The fact that I put a sign in
her room telling her what needed to happen in the morning before she started
her day stressed her out and she couldn’t sleep that night because she couldn't
stop thinking about what she needed to do in the morning. That’s 100% me and
that’s 100% why I have sleeping issues! My poor child. Who knows how many nights this happened while
she was in school and we didn’t know about it because we were in a deep sleep
and didn’t realize she woke up way earlier than she should have. She typically gets up on the morning, heads straight downstairs into the living room, and always wakes up before
her 7:00 a.m. alarm. She was always
awake before us when she was in school and we always questioned what time she
got up. Looking back now we are
realizing a good night of sleep during the school week was likely not happening
for her because of the way her brain functions.
It’s crazy witnessing her sleeping in until 8/8:30 daily now, but at the
same time I feel like she needs this rest so bad and I’m so thankful she’s
getting the sleep/rest she needs for her overall wellbeing.
This is getting way too long. I feel like I still have so much to say. I want to close by saying, if any of you are
on the fence about homeschooling and are worried about not being able to fit it
in your schedule, take it from me that it is 100% possible! If you want to just test it out to see if
maybe it’s something you can handle, then I suggest trying it ½ way through the
year so that you’re basically doing maintenance work with them and figuring out
where your child possibly needs help. Once
you start, you’ll be amazed at how creative you can get teaching your own child
and if what your doing is too easy for them then you can take it up a notch. The options are literally endless.
I guess this is also God’s way of answering my prayers about
striving for a different relationship with my daughter then I had with my own
mom. He’s doing work in both my daughter and I to make sure we build a close bond,
but never ever did I imagine it happening this way. God is so good friends.
Lastly, don’t’ fear what others think or say. There’s no one
size fits all in children and if anyone thinks that the way they are doing
something is SO much better than everyone else then they are wrong. Not
everyone will understand the choices you have made, but that’s because not
everyone has the same story. We all have
a different story, and we are all made differently. That’s the beautiful thing
about life. We all have a unique
story. When you become confident in who God
made you to be, and what he’s calling you to do, then you no longer worry about
what others think and that’s a beautiful thing.
I can 100% say my trust in God has allowed me to soar in the most unimaginable
ways and even when I hear people may not agree with a decision, I have chosen
in life, I smile to myself, maybe vent a little to my husband (lol) and pray
that one day they will experience the same kind of trust in God that we have.
We are having her evaluated at the end of this month so I
will keep you all posted on what her official diagnosis is.
Okay friends, that’s all for now.
Love you all and as always thank you for all your support.
Stephani
