Back-to-{not home}School for Tre

Last year, due to some pretty irritating problems at my childrens’ school {it started with this… and ended with this} I decided to pull Tre out of public school and homeschool him for the remainder of the year. One thing I have been concerned about for a while is that Tre started Kindergarten when he was 4 because of how his birthday falls in the school year. Because of this, he is typically a year younger than just about everyone in his class… a year younger, a year less mature, and he’s a boy. A BOY. Enough said.

It’s not that the work is hard for him. I think more than that, he has been behaviorally compared to kids that have an entire year on him developmentally, which makes him stand out and makes it hard for him to fit in. Then, I started thinking about the fact that he is only one year older than Talia, but two grades ahead of her… and two years younger than Briyana, but only one grade below her. That didn’t make much sense…

So, I started having the *discussion* with Barry about continuing Tre’s work through the year, reviewing with him over the summer, and putting him back in 2nd grade with kids his age this coming year. Not only would that be better for him personally, but would also make things much smoother for him academically since he’s already covered the material. He would be less stressed… be able to learn to enjoy school… and work on his “learning skills” while going over things he had already learned. I have no doubt that Tre has what it takes to successfully get through school with high marks; he has never been a ‘failing’ student. But I don’t want him to hate school his whole life; more importantly, I want him to ENJOY the entire learning process. What I am trying to accomplish by allowing him to be ‘held back’ is to recreate his foundation so that in future grades, he will have the confidence in himself that up to this point, he has been lacking.

Barry (the hubby) was at first quite perturbed at the notion I was presenting to him. He had been held back when he was in school and hated it. I understand that, honey, but you didn’t start a year before everyone else. This isn’t really holding him back; it’s actually putting him where he belongs. I started explaining how Tre would be left out of things his senior year in high school because he would still be 17 at graduation and wouldn’t be able to do many of the things his friends would be doing. To boot, what high school girl wants to date a guy who’s younger than her? *I think those two “key” points made the wheels start spinning* Allowing him to go ahead and stay back NOW will save him a lot of grief in the long run. Plus, with him starting school out of homeschooling, it’s not going to be a big deal – well, not as big of a deal as it had been if he were attached to his classmates who would be advancing to 3rd grade this year. This is perfect timing and it’s a now-or-never type of thing. It took me nearly a month, but Barry finally started to at least give it some consideration.

So, the decision-making time rolled around. We decided to involve Tre in making this decision since it is HIS best interest we’re looking at, and we wanted his input. Kids have a very simple way of thinking about things which seems oddly profound to us :) So we all sat down and discussed the pros and cons… everything we could think of – good and bad – and the implications whatever decision we ultimately made would have on different aspects of his social life, academic career, and his personal development. My baby brought up a very valid point. He will be starting football this year. Going back to 2nd grade would mean he would have an extra year to learn the game, an extra year to play the game, and since he’s already done 2nd grade work, adding football this year and getting used to the new routine wouldn’t be as hard. Smart kid. So, after much debate – and resistence from the hubby – we finally came to a unanimous decision: Tre will go back to 2nd grade, be with kids his own age, and focus on perfecting his study habits during this ‘easy’ year while implementing an extracurricular activity into his schedule, and lay the groundwork for a successful, productive, and enjoyable learning experience for years to come!

I’m totally happy with this decision, and proud of my son for his involvement in the process :) Only 7 days left until school starts. There will be another blog about the entire back-to-school saga… mainly my sad mommy vent that all my kids are growing up. FOUR of my five children are starting school this year. Tomorrow, they’ll be married. Next week, some little rolly-polly looking kid is gonna be calling me granny. :(