The Road Less Traveled

In a nutshell, Aislin is still a Pomeroy Panther at Pomeroy Elementary School.

I didn't want to delete the previous post about homeschooling her because that decision was part of our lives. We had completed the registration process, submitted her vaccination records, report cards, etc...and all we had to do was wait for Dec. 29th, which was the date that AZ Connections Academy asked us to log into her account and confirm our decision. But a lot happened in just one month.

I had Isaac. The delivery, the weirdness a week after the delivery, and the recovery were not what I had experienced with the other kids. It was a difficult month and recovery was slow, and for different reasons. I had started to worry that I wouldn't be well enough to handle things when Tim went back to work, let alone homeschool our daughter after winter break.

I also had a meeting with Aislin's principal as well as her 2nd grade teacher just before winter break. The principal strongly disagreed with homeschooling her because he didn't think that a change of environment would fix the problem (of her behavior). And Tim agreed. In his childhood, he never felt like he had to take responsibility for his actions because he knew he wouldn't be in one place for very long. He and his mom moved often, and he, too, was homeschooled at one point. So whenever there were problems, he didn't try too hard to fix them because he knew he'd have a clean start sooner than later. 

Honestly, I felt stupid for even considering homeschool after having this meeting because my initial belief was that Aislin should never run away from her problems, that she had to learn to fix them...as difficult as that process might be. I knew that...and yet I let the control freak in me try to control her entire environment and even her social interactions. 

So, in the end, we all agreed that Aislin would continue at Pomeroy in January. 

I hope this sweet girl, my oldest of four and the one who paves the way for her brothers, will always fight her battles, even if it's against herself. I hope she always stands up for herself and others without throwing her self-control out the window. I hope that, when she stands at the fork between right and wrong, that she chooses the path that she knows to be right...no matter how thorny or lonely it may be at times.