TeachMeSpeechMe

This was the question we were faced with daily. Homeschooling is not for everyone nor is it always the right answer but sometimes worth a try. My name is Krystal and I am a proud mom of two little boys, one who is 18 months old and one about to be 5. Both of my kids for some strange reason wanted to make their appearances very early into this world and were born premature. My youngest, Cooper, was born 5 weeks early and my oldest , Carter, was born 6 weeks early. Although we have yet to see if Cooper has any learning delays we have battled for years with delayed speech with my oldest. After ruling out any other delays we decided to take our family physicians’ advice and look into the early education programs through our local schooling in Peoria, Arizona. We were thrilled when we found out that Carter could start preschool at 3 years old free of cost for us through the state. There were a few evaluations that needed to be done by the local school district in which we lived, but overall it was a very easy process that I highly recommend to any parent who may think their child is behind with their speech.

I have been very fortunate with being able to primarily be a stay at home mom with my children. My husband and I got a bit of a later start having kids and were able to put a little aside for me to only have to work part time and with alternating schedules we never had to put our children in daycare. It was rough all around when we finally decided to put Carter into Preschool because I was not even 6 weeks postpartum with my second son and struggling with the difficulties of being a mom of two under the age of four.

The family had a huge adjustment period where Carter first loved going to preschool and then hated the thought of being away from his mommy and little brother no matter what the bribing method was.   We survived the first year with a bunch of great firsts, but didn’t notice a huge change with speech that we were hoping for.   It was the second year of preschool that we really noticed a big leap in speech and what his personal interests were but with great leaps came a few setbacks.  First we noticed a select few bad words start to sneak their way in to his vocabulary but what little kid doesn’t do that right?   Then we noticed a few lies and fights start, but we chalked that up to a bit of jealousy with having a new little brother.  It was when I started noticing him go from wanting to go to school to starting to cry the night before about how he hated school.   We reached out to the teacher only to find answers that didn’t match the stories he would say.   There were huge behavioral issues that would start yet the teachers would say he was a great kid in school so I would take it personal like maybe I’m doing something wrong at home.  So like any parent I decided to test a few theories out and noticed that I would get a worn out 4 year old with temper tantrums at the beginning of breaks and a well behaved happy kid who was excited to “learn” the new things I would teach him by the end of the week.  He would get to sleep in on his own schedule and not be rushed to eat breakfast and get out the door to make it somewhere on time.  He was happy when he woke up and was always wanting to know how and what I was going to teach him that day.   Then our break would come to an end and he would resort right back to the hard to manage version of himself.   

My husband sparked the interest in me to think about homeschooling but I was so against it.   It was after we had a parent teacher conference about kindergarten that went oh so wrong leaving me with this horrible feeling in my gut that my child was going to loose the best part of himself and his childhood.   They said that my 5 year old was going to be going to school 5 full days a week with education being “drilled” into him till he got it.   I was told their days were very “structured” leaving little downtime for play.  Now to some that is great, but that’s not how I see my children wanting to be raised.  He doesn’t learn by having things drilled into him.  I also don’t like experiencing asking my children how school is just to get a 4 year old already saying the normal responses of “It was fine,” or “I don’t feel like talking about it.”

• DIFFERENT STRUCTURE AND SCHEDULE

We had Carter placed in preschool as soon as he turned 3 because we wanted to give him the best opportunity to become more social and also because the state of Arizona has a great program for kids behind with speech to jump start their education for free.   Now my oldest is a complete morning person but as for the rest of the family we seem to have a hard time getting the ball rolling which creates nothing but chaos in the morning.  I look forward to adjusting our schedule to what works best for my kids.   Someone had a rough night… no problem we will just start a little later.    No motivation at first… that’s fine let’s do something different and fun to jump start a lesson.   Have plans for later on in the day? Great let’s start and finish early.   That’s what I always look forward to.  

• CREATING CORE MEMORIES

Growing up my father worked a lot.  It was a treat when he would get to show up to one of my sports events.   Sundays were my favorite days because that meant we got to spend the day with both parents singing to the oldies and playing around.   My dad made a lot of things fun that a lot of other people would have complained about.   The world has changed so much.  I have witnessed my child being picked on and told to leave his personality at the door when he enters into preschool.   I want him to be a kid and to have so many fond memories of his childhood.  I want him to be a kid for as long as possible.  Being home allows him to have structure, but also the ability to be able to keep his childlike personality.  We are able to travel and visit family when we want.   We can slow down and really smell the roses while creating a fun and less stressful learning environment. 

• ADJUSTING LEARNING TO WHAT MY CHILDREN ARE INTERESTS ARE

My son was very delayed in speech for such a long time so he had to learn other ways of communication when words were not understood.  A lot of hand gestures were used or pointing at objects.   A few sounds were used for  communicating, but the most interesting thing that my child used was drawing and arts and crafts.    He has found such a fondness of arts and crafts at such a young age that we have started to use it to teach him things way beyond just communication.  

• THEY AREN’T FORCED TO GROW UP FAST

How soon our childhood flies by and we are left with so many responsibilities. I don’t know about you but my parents always told me to stay a child for as long as I could because once you grow up their was no going back. My child is only 5 years old, I don’t want him growing up to soon. I want him to be able to look at life as something fun and look at learning new things as a positive experience. I want him to find what truly makes him happy in life not look at things as an obligation. Too many people around me look at their marriage, job or family status as a burden. I want to not only teach my child that he isn’t always forced to grow up so quickly but also I would like to find my inner child along the way as well.

• SECURITY FOR BOTH PARENT AND CHILD

There have been numerous times I have dropped my son off at preschool just to find that a police officer was parked outside the school. It wouldn’t concern me if it were consistent but it’s so random with an email following up at the end of the day about a bomb scare or cyber scare. We were never informed prior to the event to give us the opportunity on whether we felt comfortable sending our child to school that day. There have also been a lot of issues of fear when leaving my child with a substitute. Carter would take one look and not understand why I would leave him with someone he wasn’t familiar with. I wanted to tell him I felt the same and take him home with me. I have witnessed numerous other teachers in older grades yell at children to stay in line and shut their mouth when they weren’t even doing anything out of line.