Home Schooling the Adopted Child

A child needs a solid foundation.  When they are born into your household, you are laying the foundation in Christ and helping build up their positive self-esteem, ethics, morals, and even rules from birth.  These things help a child build such a wonderful solid foundation filled with love.  As they grow, their decisions are grounded on a core set of values based on their strong and established foundation.

When you bring one of these wonderful adopted blessings into your family, they have had a life before you.  This life often included very difficult things and very certainly included loss.  Their foundation has had shifts, may have cracks or missing parts, and may need help filling in and creating a more permanent and solid foundation. 

When you send a newly adopted child to school, you are allowing someone else to fill in the cracks for eight hours a day (more time than you have with them).   Often the bulk of the influence will be their friends...friends that are chose from the insight of the previous foundation .The one before adoption that you have not had time to help heal.  They may pick friends based on things that you have not taught him/her and act on things that, out of your supervision, you may have a hard time correcting. 

When you choose to home school them, even at first, you are choosing what to fill in the cracks with…Christ and life with Him.  You can surround them with teens at Church or your home school group (where they can play sports, take a class, many things) and give them more guidance and bonding time.  You can teach them trust (that may never have been in their foundation before).  This way if you choose to eventually send them to a five day a week school, they will more likely have the skills it takes to choose better friends and the skills it takes to keep them as well.  They will most likely have a foundation that shows them how to share God’s love out of loss.

The Basics of Home Schooling…Just a Starter

We are not overwhelmingly experienced Home Schoolers.  This is our first year.  We have three of our five children at home with us.  Our older two children are at a Christian University Model School (School all day on MWF and teacher led Home School on TTH).  It’s not always easy to home school at three different levels, but it is such a wonderful experience.  The children are learning quicker and getting a lot more fun time J.

Here are some items that have helped me on my road to Home School….

1. A book called “A Mom Just Like You”.  A Home schooling Mom of 10 shares her wisdom on Home Schooling.
2. Find out the Home Schooling laws in your state.  Most things can be found on the internet.
3. A four day a week home school will allow you to have a day for errands, cleaning and other things.  We do five days worth of work in four days.
4. If you have older children assign them an area to pick up (including their bedroom).  The extra (even just picking up and not dusting and doing floors, etc.) cleaning is a big help when your day is so full.
5. Most people average between 3 and 4 hours a day (once you hit about the 2nd grade and less before that).  You may think that is not enough, but you will be getting the same things as a five day a week/8 hour a day school.  Your children will not have to wait for others to be finished.  You will be amazed how much difference in time this makes.
6. I plan six weeks at a time.  If I do it this way I only have to do serious planning every six weeks.  There are many ways to do this though, none of them wrong.
7. The first year I would recommend a box set curriculum.  Usually all the subjects work together and you can get the hang of it.  After you build up your confidence you can decided what you really like or don’t like about a curriculum and pick and choose to vary your curriculum with much more confidence.
8. Realize that you do not have to do EVERYTHING in a teacher’s book.  Often, because it is done one on one, you will find that they get a concept much quicker and you do not need to reiterate it as much.
9. Join a Yahoo Group that is Home school related such as “Ahomeschoolreview” or  “Adopt_and_Homeschool”. This will give you the opportunity to ask questions of other more experience parents.
10. Join a local home school group and get to know other home school parents on field trips or at a once a week class.  This is a wonderful chance for socialization.
11.  Sports through your city or “Upwards” is also a great way for socialization.
12. Make sure you are active in youth activities …especially Church.  It is important for your child to SEE how important God is in your lives.  What a role Christ does play in every week.
13. If a subject seems beyond you, do not think that means you can’t home school.  Often local home school associations will have classes you can pay a minimal fee for OR you can do online school for a certain subject through many curriculum providers.
14. Have each child have a box with their supplies. Have one yourself.  Get a white board (had to have it).  You can  do home school at the kitchen table, though we do have a large home school table.
15. Many cities have Home School Associations or Teaching Co-ops.  These are places that have classes you can sign up for taught by other parents (often highly certified in their subject).  You can sign up for individual classes just like at a University.  They are usually between $10 and $50 a month.  They often also offer field trips and others things.

These are just a few “basics” that are good to know when starting to home school.

Foreign Language and Home School

Of course adoption brings another aspect to the home school classroom.  If you are adopting older you will often have a language barrier. 

Fortunately, even at your local library, there will be ESL (English as a Second Language) material.   Though when I put the question out there “What is a good ESL curriculum?” on many home school or adoption groups I received one answer predominantly….”Which ever one works for you, we didn’t use one”. 

That answer may sound odd to you, but even with an adopted child that you have not attached with yet, it is often you that can gauge what they need to learn.  Much of language is learned through immersion in the culture. 

Curriculum may not come into play a lot first.  Some  may start with a very basic learning to read curriculum and go from there.  Many may figure out a way to communicate beyond just what you can say with words.  You may decide to use pictures you have taken or provided by a curriculum, or even sign language (which we are told works wonderfully).  When working with a child day to day, you are often able to gauge where you need to be at better than any curriculum could.

Remember, the first year is mostly about attaching (it may be shorter or longer to get to the point of full attachment).  Don’t rush or push them to get to the grade level  you feel they should be at.  You will be amazed at the rate many children learn, but bringing your child home is not about school (though you want to make sure they get a good education), it’s about love.  It’s about showing this child the love of Christ and the permanent nature of a relationship based in God’s love.

What the Adopted Child Might Expect

Some adopted children come home with expectations that they will get to “go” to school.  We understand that you may feel you are letting down your child.   Please know that all children have expectations and will learn that they will not always be met and this is often for their own well being.  We as parents have to make the best decision we can knowing our child might not initially be happy about it.  We have all seen the child who get everything.  This is a great temptation for us as adoptive parents.  After all our children often come from so little.  These children need guidelines too.  They need to know we will make the best decision for them whether they like it or not.  We know that once we had our own children we sat back and said, “Wow, my mom was right.  I understand why she did that.”

Recommended Curriculum and Websites

Our personal curriculum is predominately A Beka.  They have a great foundation with Phonics.  We have been told it’s not quite as strong with middle school though.  Here are some other curriculums that we have heard wonderful things about.

Saxon Math

Sonlight

Bob Jones Curriculum

We will add to the list as we get more recommendations.

Here are some wonderful free websites!

http://www.starfall.com/