Before I recap the first week back to school, I want to first recap our summer…
This was the first summer that Matt and I both worked from home all summer. Matt was home the summer before, but since I was still in having to go into an office then, we put the boys in summer camps pretty much the whole summer. This summer, although we thought about summer camps for the boys, decided against it. With both of us home, and with our primary goal to get out of debt, we couldn’t justify spending $400/week ($200 per kid) to send the boys to camp.
The first week was great! I was all, “Let’s make a weekly schedule!” And the boys were all, “Yay, let’s schedule swimming every afternoon, and art on Mondays, and movies on Tuesdays with Gramma, and… ” And we thought we were the smartest parents ever, and the summer would be fun and educational, and the boys would be entertained, and Matt and I would be able to work without too many interruptions, and we were extremely proud of ourselves. Fast-forward one week (and the rest of summer) later, the “schedule” was tossed, and the boys pretty much played on the iPad, Wii, or Computer (save the Tuesday movie day with Gramma and the regular swimming in our pool) every day. All day. Just to cut us some slack… Matt and I have lots of conference calls with our jobs and since those electronic games kept them quiet (i.e. not fighting with each other) while we worked/conferenced… it became the mainstay. We weren’t proud of it, but at the same time, the boys were able to entertain themselves. (And they did play educational games like “Cool Math Games” on the computer, so it wasn’t all just video games all summer.)
The other thing we did this summer: we took our 7 year old off his ADHD medicine.
The back story: He had been on his meds for about 18 months. We took him to a neurologist when he was in kindergarten because our pediatrician thought he was having seizures – after two extreme episodes that I can only describe as mental breaks that he had during school. The neurologist did all sorts of neurological testing, which came back negative, so he concluded it was ADHD and started him on medicine.
We’ve never been completely convinced that he had ADHD, it seemed more anxiety-related (especially since he had spent two years in a Montessori school with NO issues AT ALL before going to public school), but our neurologist explained that neither are curable. The medicine just treats the symptoms (outbursts, impulse-control), so if the medicine works, then we use it, if it doesn’t, then we try something else. Since he was not functioning in school AT ALL before starting the meds, and the medicine did its job and allowed him to not only control himself, but also make friends, we kept him on it. As a parent, you want your child to succeed and the medicine was helping him, as much as we hated it.
During this time, we were still actively working towards our goal to travel the world with our kids, but knowing that we were having to medicate our child so he could “fit in” with his school mates, made us even more determined that we needed to take control of his schooling. Plain and simple: We did not want to have to medicate our child so he could go to school. We couldn’t wait to start homeschooling.
The first week off his medicine was an experiment. “Let’s just see how he does!” If it was horrible, we would just continue using the medicine. If it wasn’t bad, then we would keep him off. The change was amazing. There was a small adjustment period, but after a few weeks, Matt and I started noticing his personality coming out more and more… He was more talkative. He was more creative (dancing, singing, etc.) It was almost gut-wrenching that we had been suppressing this part of him through the medicine. He still had little bouts of “anxiety” (which is still what we think it is), but for the most part, he really did great all summer.
As the first week of school quickly approached, Matt and I were nervous… What do we do? We really did NOT want to put him back on the medicine, but the school environment seems to trigger his “anxiety” and so we were not sure what would happen if we sent him to school without medication. (Side note: we LOVE his school. Seriously… when he had his “breaks” in kinder, they were so completely accommodating and helpful, and just wanted to do whatever they could for him, and we were so thankful to be supported while we figured it out.) We talked to his teacher and told her that we would prefer to not use medicine and wanted to see how the first two weeks of school went. If he was out-of-control, and medicine was needed, we would cross that bridge, but we needed her to communicate with us and let us know how he was doing. She was totally on board.
The first day of school, no medicine. He was calm in the morning. Calm when we picked him up (actually, excited about stuff he learned!) And he seemed “normal.” The second day of school… Matt and I gave each other that “look” when they were getting ready for school. Zach was a little more hyper, loud, not listening, and Matt and I both thought, “Here we go… I bet we’ll get a call from his teacher today.” Two years ago, when my phone rang and it was a teacher, they were calling to tell me I needed to come pick him up because he was out of control. We just knew we would get a call. But the day went on, and no call. Day 3, same morning start as day 2. Same gut feeling. No call.
Day 4 (yesterday) my phone rang after school… it was Zach’s teacher… my heart sank. In two seconds, I prepared myself for her to tell me that Zach was out of control. That Matt and I were going to have to make a decision. That we may have to medicate him after all. Or that we would have to figure out how to homeschool him now, while we are still working (even though we see how great we did over summer.) When she said, “I just wanted to call and let you know how great Zach is doing! He is so sweet. He’s actually really quiet. I am not worried about him at all!” I teared up. (I am tearing up now as I write this…) The relief, the joy, the comfort of knowing he is doing okay is the BEST feeling in the world.
Both boys are LOVING school this first week back… not sure if it because they got a much-needed summer break (no daily camps/schedules all summer), or if it is because they like their teachers/school, but they have come home every day with some new thing they learned. And they have been more excited than I’ve ever seen them about going to school every day. Matt and I are both missing them being home all day… but we love seeing their independence and knowing they are learning new stuff that, quite frankly, I’m still nervous about teaching when we do take off on our journey.
Of course, this is only week one. We’ll check back with you in a few weeks… 🙂
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