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Discovery #2: Reality

Sometimes Usually reality doesn't live up to our ideal.  Sometimes we don't live up to our own ideal.  Since I was very young, my ideal way to parent was staying at home, nurturing and loving all my children at once through homeschooling.  That was before I realized I couldn't control everything in my life.  It sounds like a realization I should have made at a much younger age, and I feel very immature for not coming to this conclusion before, but it is what it is: I can't be supermom. 

A friend of mine told me a story that has stuck with me.  She has some things going on in her life that she doesn't like.  Some are out of her control, and some are just part of her personality, things she needs to overcome through an immense amount of personal effort, and may never overcome.  I think we all have our big weaknesses like this.  After watching a beautiful, well-educated, seemingly perfect-in-every-way cousin of hers, and lamenting to her brother that she knew she'd never be that way, he told her, "We just had a bigger hole to dig ourselves out of."  He was referring to deep family issues, but I think it applies to any trial we may be facing.  It's great when people can be the best and live up to the ideal most of the time, but we should also celebrate when we overcome hardships and mount them as average citizens instead of much worse. 

How does this relate to homeschooling?  Well, our family has had a rough patch.  For almost the last two years (we're trying not to blame it on the city...ahem).  So many unexpected trials at once and one after another.  Just thinking about it makes me tear up and be grateful we all survived emotionally and spiritually.  The hard part is that the biggest trials are things we really can't talk about at all, so you'll have to take my word for it.  It's been rough.  Before these trials, I always thought that since I knew what was best for my family, I could just work harder and harder if things got rough.  I could push through anything and make it work with the brains God has give me.  But lately my life is starting to remind me of a game of Rummikub I once played with some friends in high school.  I overestimated my intellectual ability and took tiles from here and there, then from everywhere until I had completely remade the game and made a mess of everything and couldn't even put it back together the way it was, and the game ended with no winner. 

Of course, this time I am not the only player, and I'm not in control, it's not "my turn", as it were.  Don't mistake me, I do believe I am responsible for my children.  But I can't control everything that happens to them or me or their daddy. 

I still deeply believe in homeschooling and I wish every mother who had the ability to homeschool would do it if they could. Through many talks with Sean, and lots of introspection on my part, we may not be ready yet.  It's difficult for me to give up something so dear to my heart, even if it's only tentatively for one year, but it may be best for our family.  We're on the path to recovery and things have been so much better for us, but something inside has broken that needs time to be mended. 

The conclusion is that we're still not sure what we'll do.  After the last talk with Sean, when he told me he's worried I have too much on my plate (and I truly am slow in all my reactions, including recovery from trials), I started looking into schools.  Just thinking about it makes me sad, but I'll need to get past that.  We're not even sure that putting Trevor in school will be the answer, which is also difficult.

The school that Trevor would go to is only 4 blocks away.  And it is also rated a 2 on greatschools.org (my own elementary school was an 8 the last time I checked).  I also happened to find this article written in May about it: Sheridan Hills.  It states that it is in the "bottom 5 percent performing schools in the state."  Yeah, right.  Going from homeschooling to giving my kids away to not just a low-performing school, but among the worst schools in the state?  Not gonna happen.  If my kids are going to be away from me for hours a day, it better be for a good reason and a good alternative.  So we're looking into charter schools in our area.  With the discoveries I've made lately about Trevor's personality, I'm afraid he would be lost in the public school and I want to make sure he'd be getting the type of attention he needs.  I'm hoping we'd only have to do this for a year, or even just a half a year, until we get through a few things on our plates.

Laying it All Out on the Table

Baring it all here.  I've had some very difficult and enlightening discoveries within the past few weeks.  It's very hard for me to express what I've learned, as I'm just starting to accept it myself, but I want to record it all anyway because the process is important to me to have written.

Discovery #1:

Trevor is different.  Okay, so I always thought he was different, but that it was just unfortunate family traits (from both Sean and myself) that make him different, and that I needed to squelch them and nag them away.  I've written about some of those traits and others that don't worry me as much in this blog and in our family blog.  A very perceptive and compassionate friend loaned me her copy of Raising Your Spirited Child, by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.  I don't like labels at all (I'm wary of self-fulfilling prophecy aloing with other concerns), and I truly dislike subjective psychological quizzes, so it really rubbed me wrong and I had to force myself through the first 100 pages until I started to tolerate and then understand it.  Trevor would definitely be considered spirited by this author's standards, and I began to make the connection between Trevor's odd traits and the possibility that maybe they're not as bad as I think they are, and instead of trying desperately to make him "normal", perhaps I should be more proud of his differences and help others see that fitting the mold is not what it's all about.

I was able to stew on these thoughts for a few weeks before I had the worst day of my life.  I am still too shocked and saddened to disclose all the details, but let's just say it involved a park, some choice words yelled at me by my Favorite Trevor Ever (in front of  several friends and their kids--it was a church activity), and mommy crying the whole way home in confusion.  A friend emailed me to ask if I was okay, and luckily she happens to not only be a great friend, but also has her degree in Marriage and Family Studies (or something similar), and she was able to give me some advice.  She also happened to babysit our kids the week before and noticed something different about Trevor as well, but unlike me, it didn't cause her to worry.  On the contrary, she had some eye-opening insights for me. 

Here it comes.  She said she believes Trevor is gifted.  I know, another label.  A label I didn't understand and thought was elitist and arrogant to be waving around as a parent.  But she happens to have two children in her own family who tested and turned out to be gifted and require special attention at school.  So I gave her the benefit of the doubt and we talked about it over the phone, me listing all Trevor's oddities and her telling me they were in line with the characteristics of gifted children.  I was still skeptical, so I went to the library that night after the kids were in bed and scoured the catalogs for books on giftedness.  There was only one available, written for teachers, but I took it out and read it; I've been so hungry to know more about how to help Trevor.

I learned so much about giftedness.  Sure, a child may have a special talent or ability that average kids don't, but it is SO much more.  Mind you, I'm not so sure Trevor has any special abilities yet (or that he is gifted), but this has helped me to be more understanding and accepting of him as he is.  The book I read suggested making a running list of traits if you might be in doubt, so I've started one.  Just to give an idea of what difficulties we've had:

Trevor asks questions constantly.  He not only asks questions constantly, but he asks mature questions and worries about things other kids don't worry about.  Three of his questions I haven't been able to help comfort him with any answers are: "Who am I going to marry?" and, "What do I do if you and daddy die and I'm all alone with Conrad and Abigail?"  and, "What should I do if a bad guy comes to my house and tries to do bad things?"  It sounds silly, but he is truly distressed about these things, and no matter how much I try to soothe him, he still worries. 

He is an extreme perfectionist.  When he graduated into Sunbeams (the 3-year old class at church), he wouldn't color certain coloring pages or write his name for his teacher, even though he knew how, for almost a year because he didn't think his letters were good enough. 

Trevor also has a strong sense of justice and fairness.  He just can't seem to get past something when it isn't perfectly fair.  He recently told me, "Mommy, I want to stay up later.  I know you stay up for a long time after we go to bed.  I want to, too."  So Sean and I decided that once or twice a month we'd let him and Conrad stay up late for something fun. 

This is the one that bothers me the most and plagues my mind and heart day and night: his rollercoaster emotions.  He is SO intense and SO sensitive.  He can't just be happy, he has to be jumping off the walls with excitement.  He can't just be sad, he has to be wailing and depressed.  He can't just be mad, he has to be what I call "expressively" mad, doing at least one of the following: crying, yelling, screaming, hitting, throwing.  I thought it would go away after the terrible twos, and the violent part has calmed considerably, but it seems to be a trait that is here to stay.  In fact, I remember my mom visiting us in Idaho soon after Trevor was born, and she remarked how strange it was for a newborn to have a temper.  It was that apparent even from birth.  (I fear Abigail has the same explosive temper!)  He is also sensitive to others' emotions and is intrigued by the one story in the scriptures where Jesus gets angry (and overturns the moneychangers' tables at the temple).  As an example of Trevor's intense moods, just a few days ago we had an interesting conversation.  He was complaining about chores very loudly and angrily, and literally less than 20 seconds later asked me so sweetly to tell him a story.  I almost laughed out loud at the quick change.  (FYI, I told him a story about a boy who woke up one day in his mommy's body and had to take care of everyone and do all the chores.  He liked it...though of course he was stuck on how the boy got his mommy's body instead of the boy experiencing his mom's struggles.)

When he wants to learn about something, he doesn't let it go until he's learned all that he decides he wants to learn.  A few weeks ago, it was inventing.  He wanted to be an inventor and we read about inventors and made "machines" from materials in the recycling bin.  That trait is easy and usually pleasant because I tend to be the same way, wanting to fully and thoroughly exaust a subject before moving on.  Plus we just go to the library and get all the books we can find on his subject and try to appease the appetite that way.  The only hard part is when he's asking questions and wants to go to the library RIGHT NOW to get some books to answer them.

He's still very compassionate for his age.  At soccer, he helps kids up when they fall.  At church when a baby was crying, he asks why the baby is sad.  At home, he automatically goes to sit with Abigail when she is crying and tries to make her feel better.  Of course, he can also be mean like other kids, but I am still surprised at his level of empathy, and to be honest, humbled at my own lack in comparison. 

There are other signs, too, some stranger than others (gifted kids happen to mostly be physically stronger, have fewer illnesses, and taller and heavier than other kids, which also describes Trevor), but I'm hoping to find material to help me truly identify in more concrete terms whether Trevor is gifted or not.  Even if he isn't, though, I'm experiencing what I learned from my education and psychology classes in college, that there are different types of intelligences and though society tends to value certain types of intelligences more than others, all are valuable.  If I can just figure out where Trevor's strengths lie, I can help him succeed in spite of his oddities, maybe even because of his oddities, rather than drown in them.  I've also become aware of my own traits and how they might bother others or impede my kids' success.

I'll have to write about my other important discovery later...I've taken a lot of time to write this morning.