Homeschooling in the age of COVID.
I’ve decided to homeschool my son for kindergarten. But do I have the mental fortitude for it? Will I screw up royally and send him down a path of destruction and lawlessness? Am I being dramatic? Probably. But my instincts tell me that this is what he may need for his first year of education.
Before I go any further, I would like to preface this piece by saying how much I admire teachers and all of the hard work they do. I only wish I had a fraction of the courage it takes to stand in front of a class filled with other peoples’ children and impress knowledge upon them. My hat’s off to all teachers. You are an integral part of a child’s life, and deserve so much more accolades than what is given. Especially during the pandemic. Therefor, what is written from here on out, is by no means criticism towards teachers, schools, or districts. This has more so to do with my own personal feelings about my son and his current situation. So without further ado…
My son was supposed to start Kindergarten in August 2020, as he turned 5 on August 7th. But if he had been born on his due date and not 6 weeks early, he would have only been 4, and not old enough to start school. For me and his father, it just seemed too soon for him to go. It was hard for me to explain at first why we felt he wasn’t ready, but we both agreed that it just didn’t feel right. He had been going to speech and occupational therapy and had made some pretty big improvements. So things were going well for him, but I felt like he just needed more time with the therapy and perhaps some social interaction with other kids before I put him in school. I didn’t want to thrown him into kindergarten where he would be forced to sink or swim. His father and I were concerned of the repercussions of him being traumatized by the sudden change in environment, without mommy and daddy, and without the safety of familiar faces. He had what I would call a severe form of stranger danger. It was a very serious case.
He went to therapy a couple of days a week, 30 minutes to an hour a day. He really liked seeing the other kids, but he wasn’t there enough to pick up on some social cues that he may had picked up if we had put him in daycare. Potty training was kind of an issue, he just was not ready. Most of the time he would down right refuse. With all of these things in mind I was concerned that he would struggle. I felt that if he had just a little more time where his father and I could work with him on some of these things he would be ready for school the following year.
So, eventually I called the school board, and asked if he had to go to school for the 2020 school year, and then I explained some of my concerns. I told the lady that only reason he would be old enough was because he was born early. During further conversation, I learned that in Florida, it was not mandatory for kids to go to school until age 6. I thought “hmm…why is that not common knowledge?” and “Why does everyone go at age five then?” I was a little confused but happy to hear it. So, with that in mind, and my instinct that he wasn’t ready, I decided not to enroll him. Then the pandemic hit.
During the first major wave of the pandemic, I had a developed a deep fear of one of us getting COVID and not surviving. I had lost my parents a few years back; I started becoming anxious about the possibility of other family members dying. I became a little too paranoid and way too obsessed. So, when the idea of him starting school in 2021 came up, I still wasn’t comfortable with him going into a public setting while the country was still trying to figure things out. We were so concerned our son would get COVID, even though he didn’t fit the typical age bracket that were being hospitalized. Not only that, but his father was considered high risk due to medical reasons, and I wasn’t exactly a beacon of health myself, so we were scared for any of us to get it. I knew this could have been seen as an irrational fear by some, but the death toll was too high for me to ignore. I was honestly afraid, and so was his father. My son on the other hand, really did not understand the whole COVID thing.
Now we are in another wave of the pandemic. The good news is, that we now have vaccines. But the bad news is, we have the new Delta variant that is way more contagious. And it is now effecting more children in my son’s age bracket. It has also reaped havoc on those who have not gotten the vaccine. His father and I are fully vaccinated, but my son is too young to get the vaccine. This makes me uncomfortable. Am I crazy to be so concerned? Our governor has decided to ban mask mandates in schools and there are still a very large group of people who are not vaccinated for one reason or another. COVID is spreading like wildfire once again. In fact, Florida is the #1 hotspot for new cases and hospitalizations, according to multiple sources.
There is an uptick in deaths from COVID, some being children my son’s age, and there is no clear guidance on how they plan on keeping kids safe in school. I feel like our state government is working against us, instead of making sure we are safe. I feel like we are left to our own devices. So, because of this, I will be homeschooling my son for his first year of school. For me to feel peace of mind, and to keep my son safe, this is what I have chosen to do. I’ll tell you one thing; I am going to do everything in my power to make sure it is the best year of school he’s ever had. It is a done deal, his school district has been informed and has accepted my request to homeschool him. So, there is no turning back for me. He is officially homeschool bound and I am going to make the best out of this situation.
