Our Journey Begins

Or, the really long About Us post

This has been an interesting week! As a family, the decision was made to home school my son. Papers have been filed. Actions taken. Wow!

Only weird people do that, right?

No... You'd be surprised how many people you might know that home school their children, but this blog isn't about them. This is about my and my son's journey into homeschooling.

Since you are new here, and this is a new blog, I suppose an introduction is in order. We'll start with the most interesting family member. My son.

Gabe is 8 years old and a third-grader this year. He loves super heroes and all the in-franchises like Harry Potter and Transformers. If it was targeted to his age range, more than likely he is into it. Gabe is a pop-culture addict when not running around and drawing his mini-comics. He's also incredibly kind and sweet. However, there is one thing that sets him apart from most of his classmates. Gabe has autism.

For those who might not know what autism is, it is a development disorder that tends to show up in more boys than girls and is marked by social and language delays. This is my layman's way of explanation and there are many, many sites that can explain better. I'd suggest starting at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism. However, Gabe's autism is considered high-functioning and while he has marked differences, in many respects he is like any other kid out there. He wants to have a loving environment, make friends, do good with his schoolwork, and have fun. We're doing pretty good on the first one, working on the second one, making big changes on the third, and on the fourth -- I'm a big believer in trying to make life fun.

Gabe started out at our local public school, but it became fast apparent this year that public school was no longer going to work for him. I'm not sure what the expectations are in the 'upper' grades, but he still needed support and I still needed to know what was happening during the day. Plus, this year, the kids were a bit harsher than they were last year. Patience was not there like we knew, and sadly, he was falling behind more on his comprehension skills.

Now, before we go more into schooling, I think it is time to introduce myself. My name is Heidi. I work for a Fortune 50 company as a computer programmer. I recently earned an Associate's Degree in IT - Programming, Cum Laude, but basically, I self-taught myself Java, C#, VB, scripts, Linux, Windows, and you name it. I'm a go-to person at work in that they can give me anything, and I will find a way to make it work. I've been in IT off and on most of my life. I'm a geek. That's about it.

Years ago, when Gabe was but a dream with a hand upon my abdomen, I dreamed of schooling him at home and a garden and all those really kitschy and princess-oriented dreams. These did not come to be. For reasons I won't get into, I divorced my husband and father to Gabe. At that time, we were also being told he was possibly autistic or had Asperger's. Regardless, we never heard from my ex again and that was about 6 years ago. I gave up on the little garden, the little home classroom, and buckled myself down for a single parent's life.

Then, I moved and became a programmer, setting up a nice lifestyle for us, and Grandma (Nana) moved in with us. When we started to see the issues of third-grade life manifesting in Gabe, and a decision was discussed again. I spoke how I was hoping to be able to work-from-home as a programmer by the time he was in middle school because my heart just felt like he would not be able to handle those social intricacies by then. Nana said we should start now.

A frantic week spent by the light of the laptop and the glow of Google's homepage resulted in finding out about any homeschooling support groups, how to home school, legal considerations, what it took to be compliant and all the other things I will discuss over the course of this blog. Anyways, I didn't sleep much and had to be careful how I explained what the routine change would be like to Gabe. It was huge! With Nana, we were going to do this!

Another week or so spent trying to decide on curriculums and finally settling on Verticy Learning. We felt this would address Gabe's needs best, and I will explain more about it as we go through it ourselves.

Now, Gabe has been officially withdrawn from school as of tomorrow. His last day at public. Our form is in the mail, certified with return receipt. We have a list of e-groups we have joined and a calendar packed with Home School Days for various museums and parks.

We are ready. We are excited. Our journey begins.