(Unfounded) Homeschooling Pressures...

I was looking back through my instagram feed (#bubuhomeschool) and realized that it's been 67 weeks since we officially started our at-home lessons. I used to try to fit in so many more activities each day back then, and I also had a lot more of a battle to get Bu interested in learning.

Some of that might be his maturity and the fact that it was a new thing back then, but I think a lot of it is also that there's not as much pressure these days. When we started, my son was getting 8 hours a week of therapy, and I felt that wasn't enough. The fact that I don't have any typical children Bu's age around me as a basis for comparison (not that comparison is ever a great idea) also made me wonder if I was doing enough...

These days, Bu is doing 16 hours a week of therapy. That's at least 2-4 hours every weekday of ONE-ON-ONE structured learning time. The fact that I know he's practicing colors, matching, etc with his therapists and challenging himself cognitively has helped me to ease up on forcing too much "academic" stuff at home. I have always known that children up to the age of 6-7 learn most by playing, but I finally started to BELIEVE it when I realized recently just HOW MUCH my son knows!

The fact that we haven't been using worksheets lately and Bu is doing so great has led me to think that we're going to ease up on them altogether around here for the time being. Bu does way better with visuals and manipulatives than he does trying to follow directions on a piece of paper. It's always a great advantage in homeschooling to know HOW your child learns best and how they most ENJOY learning.

I was also reading a "preschool complete curriculum" book last night (which prompted this post) and in the "parents guide" section, there was a page that was titled "what you can expect from your 4 year old". I typically hate reading things like this because it only reminds me of the things Bu isn't quite at age-level with, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bu can do many of these things (recognize letters, 6 different colors, 3 different shapes) and THEN some! What most struck me is that at four years old, "your child's attention span is longer and they can now work 10-15 minutes straight".

Bu works for hours a day! We've been doing 10-15 minutes of activity daily (plus therapy) since right after his third birthday, and I thought most days that it was just not enough. Turns out, he's actually ahead of the curve!

It can sometimes be a little scary, know that your child's education is entirely in your hands...but seeing how great he's actually doing (even compared to neurotypical kids his age) justifies to me that we're on the right track! Maybe I need to relax and just high five my awesome kid for being on this journey with me.