Month: November 2018

Many of you know my story of why I started homeschooling but in case you don’t, Here is how it all started.

#2 is a phenomenally brilliant child. Everything about him was on time starting at birth. He hit all of his “marks” as expected or sooner. Crawling, walking, speaking, etc. He was always inquisitive but not busy. Fast forward to second grade where, and I mean no offense as I was just as naive then, he had a teacher who could not “handle” him. Those were her words. Thinking back, I should have responded “my son doesn’t need a handler he needs an educator”. But, of course, hindsight is 2020.

At the advice of the school we took him to get evaluated by a physician (second mistake). Of course they opted for him to go on medication. I cried for about a week because everything in me was against this. But what else could I do?

I held out as long as I could lying to administrators that he was getting his medication and maybe it just hadn’t kicked in yet. After about two weeks we were told that something needed to be done or he would be expelled for “not cooperating”. Needless to say, I began giving him the meds. I would periodically take him off and like clockwork would get a note asking if he was still taking them.

These pills zoned my baby out to the point that I did not know who he was. He always had a blank stare and that creative, inquisitive, bright young boy began to fade away.

I would request lower dosages or different types of medication but they all had him like a zombie.

Fast forward to the fourth grade. I had done hours of research and diet changes and decided that this was not what I wanted long term for my son. I went to the school and demanded more focus on my son instead of shuffling him through the rat hole called public education. They offered an IEP and put him on a second grade level without his medication.

Dissatisfied, I pulled him from school. Much like my decision to quit my job and start my own business, I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do but I knew a change had to be made.

While he is doing much better without medications, it definitely took a toll on him. He now needs speech therapy and has memory loss as side affects of the meds. I have learned to adjust his learning to better suit his academic needs. That’s all I ever wanted from his teachers.

My son never had ADHD. He had a case of being a child that teachers didn’t want to tolerate. He had questions they either didn’t want to or couldn’t answer. He didn’t learn at the same pace as others. He wanted to get out of the chair for more than 30 minutes of a 7 hour day. He wanted a challenge.

At the time I had 5 children in school. I pulled them ALL. Go big or go home right?

-Rush

There are so many adjectives to choose from and I have tried them all. There are so many structures to apply, or not apply, to learn the best way that your child learns. Being a mother of 10 can be additionally exhaustive because no two children learn alike.

While this may seem like a lot to mentally process, I assure you it is time that will help you most.

Homeschooling is based on the idea that children can learn at their pace instead of being pressured to move according to their classmates. One child will always progress faster than the other. My two six year olds for instance (no not twins). My boy, surprisingly, learned quicker than my girl. He picked things up, excelled, and retained at a more progressive rate than she did although she was not lacking or failing by any means. Some children just develop a love of learning and some do it because they know they need to but its not as interesting as playing. And that’s okay. That is the joy of homeschooling, they can break when they want (when you approve). It can be used as a reward or even just part of curriculum.

After watching Akeelah and the bee, there was a scene where she jumped rope to keep the spelling of a word. They loved this and we used this method to learn syllables. We used hopscotch for math, etc.

Child led learning has absolutely been the best method for us. I kind of give the children a break from learning for a week, outside of unschooling which is trickery that they are unaware of 😂. Then, I let them come to me with what they want to do. Right now we are doing ASL and because this is something they chose, they have picked up over 100 words and phrases in a week! How phenomenal. This is something I know traditional school would not have been able to accomplish with the RushBunch. Even our 1 year old can gesture a few meanings. In addition we are learning about WW1 and WW2, French, and letter writing using applied English composition. Again, these are subjects they chose which means they are more likely to retain the knowledge they acquired.

I am excited for their journey and honored to be such an instrumental part of it.

What is your family doing?

iRush

So something I don’t talk much about…

McRush.

I think I may have hurt his feelings the other day when I said “I am tired of feeling like a single parent”.

The truth is sometimes I do. And that’s not to negate ANYTHING he does because he is a great father, husband, and phenomenal provider. As a homeschooling parent to the RushBunch who is home all the time (outside of attending conferences and meetings for my business). It can get exhausting as rewarding as It is in the long run, I would be a liar to have you believe otherwise.

I oftentimes tease that he “gets to leave the house” and of course his response is, ” I don’t GET to, I have to.” We laugh but he may feel slighted sometimes which is absolutely not my goal.

I have a great thing. I know I do. I love him to pieces and appreciate him more than I could ever say or show.

He makes it possible to stay at home with our babies. And being married previously as well as being in relationships prior; I know THAT’S a big deal.

We recently hit a rough financial patch and McRush is picking up every available hour known to man but I miss him being around more. (The extra money is NICE THOUGH!)

I gotta make it up to him so I guess I’ll be doing some Jill Scott and grapefruit soon… OW OW!😜 Be on the lookout for #12 😂😂

I am pretty flexible in my homeschooling agenda, I am sure you all know that. But in this, my third trimester of Rush number 11, I find that I have limited amounts of wanting to adult, or mommy, or well, anything that involves me getting out of the bed. But oh have I finally mastered a method that not only I love but my children do as well.

All of these resources, literally hundreds, that I have meticulously collected and taken the time to organized and strategize. The implementations and tedious goals; Worthless for the rest of the year because this, this I love!

What is it you say? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Unschooling.

Now I know I have already spoke about utilizing this method some days but now, NOW I feel like I was doing it all wrong because honey my children are taking flight in this learning thing. My children are well above their traditional grade levels and they loving every moment of it.

It is so simple and the children easily grasp it. Not only that, they look forward to it and so do I. The time goes by so fast when using this method because we all enjoy it.

Y’all! Mind BLOWN! 💥

iRush

i

(This blog is old to me but new to you)

let it go.

1. iRush

   This is a blog (from an old site) I blogged two years ago. The eeriness of how relatable this is today, tell me that someone needs to read it. Enjoy.