Parental Impact

I must say that I think I've been watching entirely too many reruns of Criminal Minds lately.  I've been catching up on the series through reruns because the show is entirely too graphic and inappropriate for 2.0 to even catch a glimpse of and as the show comes on Wednesday nights at 8 and 2.0's bedtime has been between 830 and 930...well you get the picture.

During his nap this afternoon, I was watching three episodes, one of which is an all time favorite of mine and two from this past season that I hadn't been able to watch all the way through without interruption.  I didn't realize I had picked three episodes with similar themes until after 2.0 got up and I had to turn it off.

All three episodes involved serial killers who evolved due to extreme abuse, one from a grandmother after his mother died giving birth to him, one from a mother who abused him because he was born deaf, and the last from a father after the son admitted he was gay.  These poor kids were humiliated, starved, beaten, sexually assaulted, verbally abused, and emotionally decimated.  All three kids went to jail after killing several people and one committed suicide before going back to jail after escaping.  Can you see why 2.0 doesn't watch this show?

As I watched each episode, I started to think about my role as a mother.  If, as my son's mom, I tell him that he is worthless and reinforce that opinion with actions that repeat the same, he will grow up believing that he is worthless.  If I were to starve him and humiliate him, he would grow to resent and eventually hate me for what I was doing to him.  Whether he would turn into a serial killer is unknown.  Some adults who grew up in situations like this have not turned out that way.  I think of Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called It (read this book and the two that follow it only if you can stand reading about graphically described instances of severe child abuse).  He went through horrible abuse and he's not a serial killer, at least as far as I know.  Instead, he has taken his own personal tragedy and turned it into a motivational moment.

I want to be perfectly clear.  I would NEVER abuse or humiliate my son.  I would NEVER EVER treat him as if he is worthless.  I don't know a single mother who would actually do that to her children.

But what does my behavior tell my son?

Is he able to believe the words that I say to him because my actions speak the same things to him?  I like to think I get that part right about 95% of the time.  I like to think that he knows that I would do anything for him and that he is precious to me.  I like to believe that I show him the right way to go in life by the deeds I do.  I do realize that I miss the mark and that I miss it by quite a lot sometimes.

As parents, I don't think we realize truly what an impact we have on our kids.  If we did, I think we would be absolutely petrified of the things we do and the words we say.  You see, 2.0 sees me get angry at the driver who just cut me off in traffic.  He hears the words I say when no one else is around to hear them.  He sees my frustration and confusion and impatience.  He learns how to handle such things from my behavior, not from my direction when he faces similar situations.

Tonight I held my son closer because I want him to know I love him.  I didn't let myself get distracted as easily because I want him to know he's important to me.  Now I'm going to read to him because I want to him to know that I value the written word and he should to.

What impact are you leaving?

The Reasoning Behind Home Education

When I was in middle school, I noticed one girl in band class who wasn't there for the rest of the school day and I didn't understand why she wasn't there the rest of the time.  Did she have some kind of horrible disease?  Was she a grade ahead of me and I didn't know it?  Maybe she had all the same classes I had but at a different time.  Or she was a Special Ed student and she had the rest of her classes in another building.  When I asked some of the other kids in class who she was, I was told in very hushed tones that she was homeschooled.  Oh the horror, for this was 1993 and no one was homeschooled unless you were a religious weirdo, sick to the point of death if you were around other kids or so troubled that you'd been kicked out of every other school and that was the only option left for you.

I ended up going to church with this girl and her family for a couple of years and I discovered that she was not only very smart and kind and funny, but that she was completely normal.  Her parents weren't strange, she wasn't sick and she wasn't troubled.  Her parents simply believed they could provide her with a better education at home than she would receive in the public school system.  Except for band class as neither of them played an instrument and this young lady wanted to play the flute more than just about anything.

Fast forward twenty years and homeschooling is starting to become the norm instead of the exception.  I know more homeschooled kids now than I ever have.  The internet is making school more accessible from home than it ever has been before.  More and more states are beginning to offer online K-12 as an alternative to attending a physical campus.  I wish it had been this easy to homeschool when I was in school because I would've begged to stay home instead of face the African Savanna that was high school.  I hated watching weak kids being picked off like sick wildebeests by the popular lions and cheetahs.  It was sickening.

2.0 will be homeschooled.  This was not a decision that Nate and I came to lightly.  We talked about our children's education before we even thought we'd have children to educate.  You see, Nate has an IQ of 165 and mine is 155, both of which are firmly planted in the genius IQ range (140 and over is considered genius level).  If 2.0 has a high IQ like we do, then public school will be horribly boring for him.  

That being said, Nate has ADD and is dyslexic, not to mention the vision problems he has as a result of his keratoconus (click here for more info on keratoconus).  Those conditions made school difficult for Nate.  While he attends college, he has to have accommodations made so he can learn in spite of his issues.  Not all public schools have the funding to meet the needs of students who have special needs like that.  While homeschooling, Nate and I can meet those needs and tailor 2.0's education to fit him.  

If 2.0 excels in one area but falls behind in another, we can spend more time on what he has trouble with over an extended period of time and still offer more advanced material to him in the areas he excels in.  I was horrible with math but excelled in English, literature, and science.  For all I know, my son may excel in those same areas as well.

Homeschooling also provides us with the opportunity to teach our son what we want him to know.  I don't want my son learning about condoms when he's seven.  I don't want him to learn an abbreviated version of history because the teacher doesn't want to discuss the civil rights movement or is uncomfortable talking about the Nazis.  I want my son to learn how to mend a torn hem on his jeans and I want him to learn how to change the oil on the car he's driving without taking time away from the rest of his studies.

Most of all, I want to spend time with my child.  I'm not saying that parents who send their kids to public school don't want to spend time with their kids.  I'm saying that I want to spend more time with my son.  I want to help open the world up for him, not ship him off to another place so someone else gets the privilege of handing him the world and explaining it to him.  I'm not sending him to daycare.  Why would I send him off to school?

Homeschooling is not for everyone.  Some parents aren't able to do it and some parents simply shouldn't do it.  If homeschooling isn't for you, that's fine.  Isn't there enough criticism of parents nowadays?  There's nothing wrong with public schools.  I simply want to educate my son at home.  

Someday though, he may step foot in a public school.  After all, I'm a horrible artist and I haven't played my clarinet in over a decade.  If 2.0 wants to play an instrument or take an art class or play a sport, he just might have to do what that girl did in my band class twenty years ago and take the class with other kids.  

The Library Incident

I haven't been feeling well for about a week now.  I've been really tired, sick to my stomach, and having headaches and heartburn off and on.  I've been irritable and a little short tempered with my husband and son.  I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm simply passing some information along that may help you, as the reader, understand some of the peripherals.

I took 2.0 to the library today because we needed to get out of the house for a little bit.  Last week his allergies made his life unpleasant and had to stay inside pretty much all the time.  I think he was going a little stir crazy and I thought the fresh air would energize me a little bit.

The branch of the library that we go to just put in a table with duplos in the children's section and 2.0 loves those duplos.  He throws a horrible fit when it's time to leave and I was hoping that today would be an exception.  Sadly it wasn't.  He threw himself down on the floor when I tried to get him to leave with me and hit his head on the edge of the table on his way down.  I had to scoop him up and walk patiently to the bathroom while he screamed his head off.

Once in the bathroom I was able to calm him down, but when I wouldn't let him walk out of the bathroom on his own, the crying and screaming started again.  I let him cry it out for a moment and went to leave the bathroom.

He started wailing and screaming again, which necessitated my hasty checkout and brisk pace to the van in the parking lot.  I've never had him react this way in public.  Normally once he calms down, the fit is over.  Today he kept screaming in the car as I strapped him into the car seat and halfway home.  I told him that once we got home he was getting a spanking and going into time out because his behavior was inappropriate and he knew better.

I carried him inside and we went directly to his bedroom, where I sat him down on his changing table and started taking off his shoes.  Immediately, 2.0 started saying "I sorry Mommy.  I sorry threw fit library Mommy."
Once I got his shoes off, I leaned down and looked him in the eye.  "What else are you sorry for Nathan?"
"I sorry for scream Mommy.  I sorry for fit Mommy."
"Will you do it again?"
He looked at me and in all seriousness said "Yes.  Probably."

He was so cute and sincere that I almost didn't spank him.  Almost.

He threw another fit later in the evening and once I picked him up, started apologizing immediately.  When he started climbing on me like I'm some sort of human jungle gym, I lost my cool and yelled at him to stop.  I hate raising my voice if I don't have to and I saw his poor little face fall because he hadn't done anything wrong.  Now it was time for me to be a good example.

I picked him up and carried him to his bedroom again.  He started crying on the way there; probably because he thought he was in trouble.  I sat in his rocking chair and cuddled him close.  "I'm sorry baby.  I'm sorry that I yelled at you.  You weren't doing anything wrong and I lost my temper.  I'm sorry that I lost my temper Nathan.  Can you forgive Mommy?"

Wouldn't you know that my sweet little boy looked at me, smiled, and said "yes".

I'm not proud of my behavior.  I didn't act like an adult, let alone a caring loving mother.  I still felt it was important to show 2.0 that when Mommy doesn't act right, Mommy apologizes.  Then he knows it's not just something he has to do to get out of being disciplined.  He knows that mommies have to apologize too.