Melanie Parkinson

People are often surprised when they find out I homeschool my son (aka, The Boy), even though it’s gaining in popularity and enjoying wider acceptance­—especially now in the wake of Covid-19. I’m often asked why I made that decision, and my answer is simple: my son wasn’t thriving in public school and I decided he needed a different environment. Of course, the events leading up to us making that decision weren’t so simple.

As first-time parents, we gave little thought to what our son’s future school years would look like. We just assumed he’d skate through the public system like we did. Neither my husband nor I particularly liked school or did well, but we got through it. I hoped it would be different for The Boy, but it wasn’t.

From the time he started to walk and explore his world, The Boy was an explosive little force to be reckoned with 24/7. We were both proud so of him, if a bit nervous about what his determined and oppositional personality was going to mean down the road as he got older. We faced many challenges raising him, throughout all facets of life at home and in public. Those first few years were filled with highs and lows that mirrored our son’s extreme behaviour swings. In hindsight, it should have been obvious to us that it wouldn’t be easy for him to integrate into the school system.

Kindergarten orientation was our first “uh oh” moment. The teachers pulled us aside and said something along the lines of “he’s different”, “not like his peers”, “language delay”, and other ominous sounding labels that made me feel I’d been punched in the gut. They suggested we get him assessed as soon as possible, and one even mentioned she thought he might be Autistic. Shocked and worried doesn’t begin to describe how we felt while we stood there amongst all the “normal” kids and their smiling parents.

In the months between orientation and the first day of school, I started researching Autism and what the options were to get The Boy assessed. I felt like I was drowning in medical journals, child development studies, and being pulled down further by the incomprehensible red tape of Government websites that were supposed to be there to help and support parents. What we learned is that there was one path to having a child assessed in our then province of Quebec, and the wait list was about three years. So, we put our name on the list and hoped for the best.

The first week of Kindergarten was pretty good—and then it all fell apart spectacularly. The Boy was disruptive, hitting other kids, having full on meltdowns in class, refusing to listen, refusing to participate in activities, and coming home crying, angry, or miserable. It seemed like the school called every other day, telling me he had done something that required me to go pick him up. It was horrible, and the worst part was we had no idea how to help him.

Within a month, we decided we needed an assessment immediately. Fortunately, we found a Clinical Psychologist who specialized in Child Developmental Disorders and had our first appointment within a week. After a classroom observation visit, she was ready to give us a diagnosis: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), along with a suspected language delay. Finally, we had something to work with going forward.

Having a diagnosis turned out to be the key we needed. It helped narrow down the kind of research I needed to focus on, and once I started, I was amazed at how I identified all the struggles we’d had in the medical literature. It wasn’t long before I realized we needed to throw out all our assumptions about how to be parents and start over from scratch. I’ll write more about this part of the journey in a separate post. For now, back to The Boy’s school journey…

With the help of his pediatrician, his psychologist, and a language therapist, things became more manageable at school. There were still outbursts, meltdowns, and conflicts with other kids, but much less frequent. We developed good working relationships with his teachers and the Principal, as well as the daycare staff (in Quebec, we were able to opt into a $10 per day daycare plan that covered supervision before and after school as well as recess and lunch). In truth, it was manageable because the school was able to put a resource worker as a kind of shadow for The Boy whenever he was out of class. This helped avert many problems before they started, and we were content to keep him there because he seemed happier.

So, from K-4 things settled into a kind of status-quo. However, The Boy was always aware he wasn’t like most kids. He didn’t quite fit in, had few friends, and was embarrassed to face his peers and teachers after he had outbursts he couldn’t control. Though he did have a few good and kind friends who stood by him no matter what, it wasn’t ideal and we knew it. We started thinking about homeschool early on, but in Quebec at the time there weren’t any viable homeschool options.

Fast forward to Grade 5-6 and a move to a new Province—beautiful British Columbia. We were excited to be back home and with our families, but I was worried about how The Boy would adjust to a new school. I wanted to be wrong in thinking it would be a disaster. I hoped that starting over fresh in a new school, where none of the kids knew his history, would be somehow magical and make it all work out. Alas, it did not.

With near daily calls from the school about The Boy’s disruptive behaviour, there was one day in February during Grade 6 where he nearly destroyed his classroom. When I got there, he was hiding in the playground and screaming that he wasn’t going back. I managed to get him home and made my decision—it would be his last day at that school.

I would like to note here that as difficult as things were, through it all the teachers, principals, and support staff were nothing short of fantastic. They went above and beyond to try and accommodate The Boy and help him any way they could. They wanted it to work. Even after that horrible day, when I told the principal I’d decided to try homeschool, she thought maybe we weren’t there yet. However, we were there, and I wasn’t going to force The Boy to continue in an environment that made him so unhappy.

At first, The Boy was not pleased about the switch. He felt that homeschool would make him more isolated and provide fewer opportunities to make friends. He felt that it would make him more likely to be teased by the neighbourhood kids, and he had a lot of anxiety about it.

I had anxiety too. Having been a terrible student, I didn’t know if I would be a good teacher. I’m so fortunate that the program we chose was the same curriculum he’d been following in public school, and so it was more about executing the program rather than creating it. Now that was something I could do! As a Controller, I’d spent years doing that with various systems and procedures at work, and quickly realized those skills would be all I needed to get started with a new homeschool program.

And so, there you have it—an overview of my story and how we made the transition to homeschool. It hasn’t been perfect, and it hasn’t been easy, but now as I look at my fifteen year old getting ready to reintegrate into public school for Grade 10, I am confident that we made the right decision. I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out.