Random Musings of a Frogged Mind

I’ve been homeschooling six kids for a couple weeks now and I’ve had to come to a very hard decision. I’m wracked with good old guilt at this point because I’ve had to do something for the sake of a few of my children and the sanity of our family.

I’m sending two kids to school.

I know there’s people who would be like, ‘that’s it? That’s the big decision made’, but I cannot stress enough how much I have loved homeschooling kids and being able to bond with the original kids so strongly was a huge factor in us continuing to do so. So when the toxicity levels got so high in our house today I finally relinquished my fantasy that I could break through the walls built through my constant presence. It isn’t a possibility. In fact I think it may have hindered it a bit as cabin fever sets in, even with the opportunity to run outside, it doesn’t seem to be enough. Tomorrow I’m having school meetings with two schools in the area that I am enrolling them into.

I think part of the guilt stems from the fact that I’ve had to single out the two I can’t help anymore. I truly do hope that they will eventually grow to understand that I don’t want them to leave. I have no idea how to even relay that to them either. How do you convince a kid that you’re not sending him to school out of punishment like he’s likely to think, but out of love for the relationship?

The other four have been suffering in their school so much that it wasn’t a long thought out decision to do this, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve failed. What a ridiculous notion though, logically I know I didn’t fail, but I’m not a Vulcan and logic never can convince a heart of anything.

I have to remember to cut myself some slack. We adopted three kids with a history a short three weeks ago. Three weeks isn’t near enough time to gauge anything really but I have to do something for the entire family’s sake. I can no longer allow two children to dominate the entire day whether its out of fear, anger or attachment issues, it still can’t happen.

So school it is. It’s much sooner than I thought would happen strictly due to funding cut off dates for aide, but we’ll have to manage. I know it won’t be an easy transition, but like the ones we’ve been taking so far, it’s just one baby step at a time, day-by-day.

And I am not joining the PTA.