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As Donna Knox reviewed one of the kazillion drafts for the DaySpring High School Handbook, she looked at the section
where home educators shared their experiences and methods, looked at me,
and said "Where's yours???"
I'm sure you've
heard the term "wry expression", and I'm just
as sure that would describe the way I looked at her as I
said, "And what would I write about???
The Damage Control Method?" And if you know Donna,
you know the gleam in her eye as she said, with
enthusiasm, "Yeah. Exactly."
Today, attempting to "psyche myself up" to
facing the difficulty of describing these memories, I
picked up an old article printed in HELM, the first
attempt I made publicly to describe our journey toward
truth. As I read over the article to the end, I
encountered a poem I had written during those dark days
when my daughter Katrina was only six years old. I
found, somewhat to my chagrin, that ten years after it
was written, silent tears were once again making their
way down my face.
Because I know there are others suffering in the same ways,
I tell myself often that I will share more of the
experiences that culminated in my family launching itself
down the home education path. But when I put my fingers
to the keyboard and start the trip down memory lane, waves
of resistance stop me. "It is still too soon,"
I think, and "I can't do this." Indeed, there
is much I cannot yet share freely.
But there are some experiences I can share. Recently, I
ran across this statement in the Timberdoodle home
education catalog:
"If you are grieving that your children speak only
one language, are atrocious spellers, and can't locate
Nigeria to save their lives, then you don't know real
grief. Look around you; troubled families are dealing
with bigger issues than just scholastics, they are dealing
with issues of the heart."
These thoughts are written, then, not for those who are
concerned with scholastics, or looking for answers to
scholastic issues. They are written for those who are
dealing with, and are often still grieving over, issues of
the heart. Those who, like me, have made a decision to
make Healing the priority. For the reality is that even
though home education has recently been described with
that term <shiver> "mainstream alternative",
many parents come not easily to home education, but only
after they have spent years in continuing battles and
constant compromises, attempting to "work with the
system". These parents know the heartbreak of
living with a child who is being torn down year after year,
the pursuing of one avenue after another without really
knowing how to help that child, while knowing deep down
that something is really wrong about the whole situation. The resulting damage in those cases is a fact of life.
Because that damage has often been reality for so long,
the knowledge regarding it may start as only a background
thought. After the child has been removed from the public
school, the months go by and we have the freedom to think
unencumbered by the need for rationalization and frustrated
acceptance of the abuse of the government-school system.
Along with that freedom to think comes a growing and often
heartbreakingly painful understanding of just how much
damage the child has suffered.
I believe that all children are hurt by the government school
system. Some survive -- hardly a point in favor of the
system. And some children are even seen as
"flourishing". This view ignores
"opportunity costs", which cannot be measured.
Under no circumstances can the potential of a child be
realized in the public school system, no matter how many
survival skills they have learned, how many awards they
have won, or how much they enjoy the cheerleading squad,
the band, or the debate team. Those who survive - and
especially those who flourish - do so in spite of the
system, not because of it, and/or because they have
learned how to manipulate and work that system to their
advantage. At best, the results of learning to work the
system place an extremely confusing burden on the young
shoulders of those children.
I also believe that some suffer so greatly by virtue of
their personality, their level of maturity, their personal
experiences, that for some of us, making healing the
priority is an absolute necessity, the most important decision
you can make. For those of you who are confronting this
pain, it is my hope that sharing some of our experiences
may help in some way, or stir some thought in you that will
ease your journey toward peace and truth.
Make the Commitment!
Be prepared for the possibility that it could well get
worse before it gets better. A child damaged by the
system is lost, and as hard as it may have been, it was
comfortable in that the misery was at least predictable
and familiar. The layers of defenses and coping
mechanisms could take months, even years, to fall away.
Because the new home educator is typically at least a
little unsure anyway, the first few months can be rough
enough, or surprising enough, or anxious enough that the
child is returned to public school before the benefits
can even start to be felt.
Be prepared for your child to want to return to the
system. This is probably the most surprising and
unsettling event for those who have witnessed terrible
hurt in their child. Understand some of the underlying
causes, and don't give in to this request without
considering both the possible motivations and the
unintended consequences of giving in. A toddler allergic
to chocolate still reaches for it, but if you previously
had to take emergency care steps due to the allergic
reactions, you would not let that child have chocolate
just because they want it.
Children often hold themselves totally responsible for the
events in their life. Because those who suffer the most
in the school system have already seen themselves as
"failing", they may well see the initiation of
home education as proof of their own inability to succeed.
Perhaps even believing, as my daughter did, that even
YOU have given up on them. Often, after the first
flush of relief at being away from school is over, they
will begin to "recall" how "this" or
"that" was "their fault", and as
children always seek approval and success, they will
want to return to the system to prove their self, to
attempt to "conquer" the situation. PLEASE be
aware of this. Your acceptance of the idea of returning
to public school, even your consideration of it as a possibility,
can validate these extremely debilitating ideas in their mind.
Do not look for them to understand that this process is
occurring with them. Indeed, if confronted they may deny
these feelings. Understand that "conflicted" means
just that - an internal conflict between two opposing beliefs,
both of which they "know" to be true.
If you have attempted to raise them to believe in
themselves, that belief in themselves is in constant
conflict with their absolute KNOWLEDGE of their own
"failure", a "knowledge" gained in
day-to-day experience in a damaging situation that we
cannot possibly really know, experiences that occurred
sometimes minute-by-minute, in so many subtle ways that
we may never, and they may never, recognize them all.
Do NOT validate this sense of failure by agreeing to let
them return to public school.
When they ask, you may feel that you have failed.
Don't give in to that. You have not failed. You have
just begun to succeed. For the sake of your child, stick
with the protective instinct that brought on the original
decision to remove them from institutionalized
"public" education. Make the Commitment.
Understanding and Patience
Children who have suffered are not only hurt, but usually
have a great deal of anger. Don't expect it to disappear
just because they are away from the day-to-day hurts.
This does not mean that inappropriate behaviors should be
tolerated, but that you can help your child find
appropriate ways of expressing what they often have very
good reason to feel. Anger is particularly hard to deal
with when there is no denying that they have good reason
for that anger. Redirect energy into positive directions
when possible. Journals can help, and talking, and
listening. But so can physical means of expression, like
punching out pillows or tearing up pieces of paper.
I have seen my daughter punch at a pillow until she was
laughing; I have also seen her punch at a pillow until she
dissolved into deep wrenching sobs.
Talk with them, agree with them, empathize with the
situations they have had to bear. Discussions may get
uncomfortable for you because you will have your own
responsibility demons to face, but facing them with
courage will model behavior for your child. Discuss with
them the traps you have identified with the system. Help
them to understand the hidden secret that other children
who may not have appeared to be unhappy could have been,
often were, suffering also. Examine your own school
experiences for those hurtful episodes probably long
buried, and discuss those with your child.
The unexpressed anger of a child is often self-directed,
and while the release of these feelings can be emotionally
draining, correctly identifying the problems and the
responsibilities for the suffering is tremendously
beneficial to a child who has misplaced responsibilities
and misdirected anger toward themselves.
Sometimes life hurts, we can't take it away, but we can be
there, and acknowledge that the hurts really happened,
that they are legitimate. Sometimes that's all they need.
But DON'T Over-Compensate
It's a pretty big temptation. As you start to understand
the extent of the pain, don't feel so sorry for your
child, for what has happened, for their hurts, that you
are constantly trying to "give" something or "do"
something that makes it "all better" or
"makes up" for it. You can't, and it's not
going to make it go away, and it's not what they need.
By denying this temptation, by staying strong with
consistent boundaries, you are expressing your belief in
them, and your belief in their resilience.
De-Label
If your child has been labeled by the system or in the
system, regardless of how many doctor opinions you've had,
or how many books you have read on the subject, or how
accepted the diagnosis may be, you need to at least start
to consider discarding the label.
In some cases, this is far more difficult than it sounds.
Caring, concerned parents who have been told they must
"accept" that their child is disabled or
disordered have experienced at least some of the steps to
acceptance. They have often grieved. They have researched
and attempted in every way to learn about this
"disorder", and the "approved" methods
for dealing with it. They have sometimes been thoroughly
trained in behavior modification techniques, and thoroughly
coached in the benefits of medication. The problem is
that this process is directed, from the very beginning,
either by those who diagnosed, or those who aimed your
child toward that diagnosis. They have often recommended
books, doctors, therapists, and coping methods. You may
have spent years totally entrenched in the teachings:
you have grieved, you have accepted, you have researched,
and you have learned the approved parenting methods.
But you may have to accept the very difficult fact that in
following the recommendations of those who directed your
research, in putting forth your very best efforts to help
your child, you are now "invested" in a label
that may have no validity whatsoever.
"In 26 years of teaching rich
kids and poor, I almost never met a 'learning disabled' child;
hardly every met a 'gifted and talented' one, either. Like
all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by
the human imagination. They derive from questionable
values we never examine because they preserve the temple
of schooling."
~~ John Taylor Gatto
"It's clear to me after fifteen years
of research and practice in the field of education that
our schools are largely to blame for the failure and
boredom that millions of children face as they trudge off
unwillingly to their six-hour fate every weekday morning
from September to June. Children categorized as learning
disabled are the most visible casualties of this process,
but they're not the only victims."
~~ Thomas
Armstrong, In Their Own Way
"Testing ... boxes children in with convenient
labels couched in scientific-sounding educational
jargon ... the child who is not
paying attention ... suffers from 'attention deficit
disorder.' The child who has difficulty remembering
test instructions has 'poor auditory sequential skills.'
Children get saddled with diagnostic terms such as
dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and the like, making
it sound as if they suffer from very rare and exotic
diseases. Yet the word dyslexia is just Latin
bafflegab, or jargon, for 'trouble with words.' "
~~ Thomas Armstrong, In Their Own Way
Find alternative opinions. Read and read and read. Any
diagnosis made from subjective criteria - and this
includes any and all "mental" diagnoses -- should
be highly suspect, and in many, many cases, children
brought home will eventually be label-free.
For century upon century, mankind existed and related one
to another without the aid of stratified classification
systems for the differences in personality types and the
differing abilities of human beings. Individuals are
unique, and uniqueness defies classification strategies.
"Normal" has never been adequately defined, and
the attempt to define it by default by stamping large
segments of society with labels has wreaked havoc not
only in the public school situation, but also throughout
American society. Concentrate on your child's strengths,
and remember that you are your child's mirror. How you
see them will greatly affect how they see themselves.
You Are Responsible
Oh yeah. The hard one. I had to face the fact that it
was me, and me alone, who was ultimately responsible for
the mistake of putting my child in public school, and for
leaving her there even when the damage being inflicted
and the suffering were blatantly obvious. Nobody held a
gun to my head. No one said drug this child or else. I
listened to the "experts" and I ignored my heart,
but it was Cathy who made that decision. Casting around
to blame others, even the more idiotic of school personnel
involved, wasn't going to help, and wasn't going to change
anything.
Don't buy the popular psyche trend that guilt is an
overwhelming burden that none should bear, only a tool
that authoritarian figures use to manipulate. Guilt is an
instinctive reaction to mistakes, it serves a purpose, and
should lead to corrective action. You can't undo the
mistakes of the past, but those ignored are the most
likely to be repeated.
Guilt does not have to devastate you, it can teach you.
Confront the fact that you made mistakes, but don't wallow
in it. Those who make no mistakes aren't accomplishing
much. You don't have to engage in ongoing Beat Up Self
Again Today sessions, but the guilt is there and examining
the mistakes and what led to them is an aid to moving on
quickly, taking advantage of today's opportunities rather
than dwelling on yesterday's pain. You must admit and
face the guilt before you can forgive yourself, and
forgiving yourself is necessary to your own healing.
But the most important reason for accepting responsibility
for the past mistakes is that until you do, you cannot
embrace responsibility now, for what happens today. The
grief and the guilt over the past are a small price to pay
for the freedom to exercise your parenting rights without
doubts, the freedom to embrace fully and eagerly the
responsibility for the decisions made in your child's life.
Until you can accept responsibility for decisions made
yesterday, you cannot accept it for decisions made today.
But You are NOT Responsible
As I worked - and continue to work -- through these
issues, I became aware that not only was I accepting
responsibility for my own actions, I had a distinct
tendency to take on responsibility for the actions of
others. Whoa. Don't go there, it's a trap. Unless
others are responsible for what they do, you can't be
responsible for what you yourself do. If you make excuses
for the behavior of others, even when making excuses is
due to the fact that ultimately you were the
decision-maker, you will undermine your efforts to be
personally responsible for your own behavior by
generalizing the excuses made for others into excuses
made for yourself.
I was responsible for placing my daughter into the care of
strangers. But that did not make me responsible for their
direct and abusive actions. Yes, I do have reason to be
angry at their mistreatment of her and their manipulation
of our daily life. Understanding this has helped me stand
strong and committed to insisting on being treated with
respect in daily social interactions, and to model this
behavior for my daughter.
Expose the Experts
What may sound like a pessimistic, negative approach to
life is actually a process you need to undertake in order
to reveal, in all its glory, the extent to which the
individuals, the building blocks of society, have
misplaced authority. Choose areas you have never really
examined, areas you have just accepted on so deep a level
it never occurred to you to question. Some examples:
Vaccinations are responsible for the low incidence of
childhood diseases. State-of-the-art childbirth methods
are responsible for low infant mortality and traditional
midwifery is dangerous for child and mother. Fluoride in
water and toothpaste is safe and beneficial. The minimum
wage raises the standard of living for the low income.
The subject matter of your research is not as important
as an objective process. Seek Out Opposing
Opinions. Ignore what sounds like raving conspiracy
theory, but seek out intelligent, researched opinions
that contradict the norm.
The goal of this research is not to re-engineer your
thinking until you are plugged into some opposite pole,
but to give you another side of an issue so thoroughly
presented that you begin to understand how influential
"accepted teachings" can be when only one side
is presented. Research both deep and wide, and you will
reap untold benefit, learn once again how to listen to
your own heart and mind, and to trust your own instincts.
De-Program
Both you and your child have definitions and specific
understandings of education constantly playing through your
mind. Your child has been effectively programmed with
responses to educational "settings". Without
a conscious effort to avoid the triggers, those predefined
understandings and responses will undermine your efforts.
Presented with "standard" educational activities
- workbooks and textbooks - I could see the responses in
my daughter. She suffered not so much from what she had
not learned in school, but from what she had learned.
In her mind, regardless of what reassuring words I could
find to use, she was stupid; she didn't just think she
might fail, she knew she would fail. After struggling
with this as a constant for almost two years, there had
been very little progress toward changing those
pre-programmed responses. Was she learning? Well yes.
But she wasn't enjoying it, and neither was I.
So after daily struggling with traditional
"education" and traditional curriculum, we
took a long, long, LONG break from all academics. We
didn't talk school, or walk school, or think about school.
I told my daughter very frankly what we were doing, and
why; depending on the maturity of the child and the
particular circumstances, that may or may not work for
you. It was something that I needed to do because my
daughter's sense of failure and inability ran so deeply
that without this information, she would have assumed I
had totally "given up" on her. Reassuring words
I had, but nothing I said was getting past the years of
experiences in public school.
Was it scary? You bet. Those who, like me, are dealing
with a child subjected to damaging experiences are typically
dealing also with a child who has been struggling with
academic activities, often labeled as "behind".
And we are often too anxious, too afraid that "doing
nothing" will inflict more damage academically.
During this phase, I realized that I had not grasped how
fully I had been indoctrinated with the idea that
"school" equaled education, and that
"learning" was a small and separate compartment
of "real" life, taking place during set hours
with set activities following set routines dealing with
proscribed facts, that elusive "necessary" body
of knowledge that the experts have laid out for us.
As I began to de-program myself, I shared much of what I
was reading and learning and researching with my daughter.
I shared my thoughts, and sometimes my own insecurities
and concerns about our academic vacation. Frankly, I
don't know how much she took in, how much she understood.
I do know that she began to share with me on a deeper level
the hurts, the everyday horror of some of her experiences.
And that this break from academics was far more beneficial
than continuing to struggle.
I know that both of us, not just my daughter, but myself
also, began to feel real healing take place.
But but but … Academics!
I am not what most people refer to as an unschooler, and
I do direct in a decisive manner the education of my
daughter. Even taking the complete break from academics
was a decision, not a default. We slowly resumed some of
the more traditional "educational" activities,
and use some carefully selected curriculum, but we do it
with our own timetable and based on what we decide she
needs to learn, not on a scope and sequence or the
requirements of the construct called "school".
She is learning that ultimately, she is responsible for
her education; I believe that since no one can do the
learning for anyone else, all children are independent
learners. Although she is given a great deal of latitude
in choosing areas of study, and shares in the decisions,
she is not left totally free to make those decisions, as
I do not believe she has the experience or knowledge
needed.
Daily struggles over learning will never take place in our
home again. A struggling, frustrating learning experience
means there is something somewhere that needs to be
re-evaluated. Healing is still and will remain the
priority in our home, and it is only because it has been
given priority that we have been able to resume academics
and she can experience again the joy of learning.
And so? If they spend the rest of their years with you
without learning geometry or calculus, will they never be
able to learn it? Have you not learned anything since you
left school? Allow Them To Heal, and they can
learn anything they are motivated to learn, anything they
need to learn. Until they do heal, rote memorization of
facts, or draining the energy on worksheets when the mind
is not attending will yield no better results than throwing
more money down the black hole of public education.
The rest of your child's life lies ahead. But knowledge
without self-confidence and skill without peace equips for
functioning without equipping for life.
About those methods …
During many conversations or meetings with home educators,
I feel just ever so slightly "out of sync". I
don't worry overmuch about curriculum, and seldom join
in any meaningful way in conversations that concern it.
I don't have an impassioned commitment to a particular
method, although occasionally I will indulge in brief
fantasies on what I "might have done" had my
daughter never been to public school. I'm not overly
concerned with the number of high school credits she has
so far, or how many credits she needs to graduate. I
am not searching for a college, or attempting to encourage
her to solidify her interests so we can
"get her ready". I am not searching for
places where she can volunteer, even though I think that
is a truly wonderful experience for most teenagers,
because I know that with her past experiences, she is
not ready. I know that she may be here at home for
quite a few more years before she is fully confident of
her ability to meet the world without being crushed
beneath the weight of old memories, and the old fears of
being hurt, and I am not overly concerned with whether she
is ready to be on her own at 18, or at 28.
I watch closely for what is helping and what is not
helping. I watch her face as she interacts with others,
even as she watches television. I am often called
over-protective, engaging in actions that might BE
over-protective for some other child. But she is not
some other child, she is my child.
So what's so hard about writing about my "method"? I
don't have one. My home is not a school, and I am not
"homeschooling", I am raising my daughter. I
am not a "home educator". I am Mom.
And that is quite enough.
Healing Priority Resources
Books:
In Their Own Way, Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
The Myth of the A.D.D. Child - 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span
Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion,
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
7 Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing
Your Multiple Intelligences, Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
The Einstein Syndrome, Thomas Sowell
Late-Talking Children, Thomas Sowell
Reclaiming Our Children:
A Healing Solution for a Nation in Crisis,
Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Talking Back to Ritalin: What Doctors Aren't
Telling
You About Stimulants and ADHD,
Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on
Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill,
by Lawrence H. Diller
The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of
the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement,
Thomas S. Szasz
Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars,
Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes,
Alfie Kohn
Web Pages:
Peter R. Breggin and Psychiatric Drug Facts
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. Home Page
Articles:
"Raise Your Own", Cathy Cuthbert
"Baby Mine", Cathy Henderson
Other:
THE Expert
-- YOUR Mind; plus YOUR Heart; plus YOUR Instincts
© Cathy D. Henderson
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