I've just written a new article for empowher.com called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Homeschooling: Can They Go Together?
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Jody,
Sounds like you are speaking from experience regarding CFS and Homeschooling. Where you doing any Home schooling after you became ill ?
Do the Education Authorities carry out any checks on Education standards in home schooled children ?
In the UK Homeschooling is allowed but frowned on and is not encouraged. What is the attitude in Canada.?
I think a lot of parents welcome the break from their children that normal schooling provides and would find the 24 hour a day attention that would be required for Homeschooling to be too much for them. On the other hand you have the reward of seeing a child make the progress that perhaps he would not make in normal schooling environment.
Any budding geniuses in your classes?
It's alot of work but at least it is your own rules and work. Not a teacher or school that arbitrarily is telling you what your child must do. If for instance your kid isn't ready to be able to read, it's no pressure at home ... you wait until signs show that they are ready. But it can be torture for that kid in school where it is hit upon every day.
So more work, but you choose your own, and less interference from outside to burn up your energy and peace of mind.
sickofcfs,
It's good to hear from someone else who has homeschooled.:Retro smile:
Congratulations on the job you and your daughter did, sounds like it's gone well for her, at least where schooling is concerned. Health may be another matter.
We basically ended up just stopping everything. He was so sick he could hardly lift his head. If I didn't put the food in front of him he didn't eat. And even then if there was too much on a plate he was too overwhelmed to take a bite. It was terrifying.
Wow, Jody what a timely post! God always sends me things I need when I need. I am just beginning to look into homeschooling my two kids (15, 9) for various reasons. I see many benefits for my kids and for myself and our family in general. I may not be able to envision the "dark side" ;]. My husband travels for business and is away three months at a time and I figure homeschooling would free us up to spend more time with him at his location. Public school is slowly sucking the good life out of me and the kids as they are both developing negative attitudes. I am an out of the box thinker, my husband in the box thinker. He worries that since we are both with this illness (he has more energy than I, but it does get used for the job) we may not be able to handle it. We live only five miles from the schools and I spend 2 1/2 hours daily driving my kids back and forth to school because of heavy traffic. I also have to wake up at 5:30am to have my daughter at school for 7am which just kills me. I think dropping this schedule alone would be of great benefit to me to help conserve more energy. I am looking to use the K12 online curriculum.
Any advice from you or any homeschoolers out there that would help keep me moving in the right direction, tips, or other information you might deem important would be sooooooo appreciated! Bring it on!
She's been on Valcyte since Feb and is doing very well. Tonight she walked with an engineering club in the homecoming parade -- at least a mile! She seems fine, though. So we're feeling good about her homeschooling and her health at the moment.
I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to have a kid that sick! You and Jesse have my utmost sympathy. It would be awful to have to be fighting the school system on top of that.
What a great moment for your daughter. And for you.
It was terrifying in the beginning. I checked on him every hour or so to make sure he was still breathing. Horrible.
That was almost four years ago. He is still not well but he is better than he was. We found out two years ago his teeth were full of cavities -- so therefore, infection -- and he needed a root canal.
One of the hazards of being sick and broke for long periods is, nobody goes to the dentist. Jess paid for that big-time. But between credit cards and a benevolent local dentist who offered his services for free for local low-income families last year, we got all the cavities taken care of, and the root canal.
There are the worries about what they might be putting in his mouth but ... we had to do something about all that rot and infection so we just went ahead and hope for the best.
We are trying to build up his immune system, and improve his digestive system. He's on B12 and vit D, which seem to help. (He can't hack many supplements at a time so we choose them carefully.)
We were glad not to have had to deal with a school amidst all this.
sickofcfs,
I appreciate your sentiments.:Retro smile:
Our B12 is sublingual.
Are there other ones you're thinking of?
Wow! It was amazing to find other homeschooling CFS folks out there! We began homeschooling our oldest in 1987, when it was still very unusual. When I got sick in 2000 we were still schooling two at home. My husband took over as I was too ill to sit up or talk much. After I got sick, our middle child made the decision to go to a small private school at age 16- it was strange sending him off to school for the first time ever! (He just completed medical school, so I guess those years of homeschooling were adequate preparation!) My husband got sick in 2002, and after that we just did what we could. Our youngest got sick in 2003. For two years, she was a part of a homeschool co-op one morning a week- it completely wiped her out to go for 3-4 hours, and she could not attend any of the afternoon sessions. There are so many online options now. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that students can make use of community resources, other adults who have special knowledge or skills, and can pursue their own special interests. It is definitely a challenge when both parents are sick, but so many benefits!
Wow! It was amazing to find other homeschooling CFS folks out there! We began homeschooling our oldest in 1987, when it was still very unusual. When I got sick in 2000 we were still schooling two at home. My husband took over as I was too ill to sit up or talk much. After I got sick, our middle child made the decision to go to a small private school at age 16- it was strange sending him off to school for the first time ever! (He just completed medical school, so I guess those years of homeschooling were adequate preparation!) My husband got sick in 2002, and after that we just did what we could. Our youngest got sick in 2003. For two years, she was a part of a homeschool co-op one morning a week- it completely wiped her out to go for 3-4 hours, and she could not attend any of the afternoon sessions. There are so many online options now. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that students can make use of community resources, other adults who have special knowledge or skills, and can pursue their own special interests. It is definitely a challenge when both parents are sick, but so many benefits!