After an exhausting school year involving thrice weekly meetings with teachers, crying fits with nightly homework and having to eat lunch at school with my son four times a week so that he could make it through the day, I decided I can't take it anymore. This year I'm going to to take responsibility for my son's education. Watching a vibrant, confident and gifted child transform into a frustrated self-conscious boy who doubted his intelligence was taking a heavy emotional toll on both of us.

We had both been diagnosed with ADHD and his teacher informed me relentlessly that he needed to be on Ritalin. I consulted experts and against my better judgment, gave him 1 dose which rocketed him into Anaphalyxis and nearly killed him! I later learned the school receives $500 for each student taking Ritalin. Naturally, I diverged another path and started looking for ways to help us both naturally. The school refused to give him 504 Educational Rights under ADA and labeled him a troublemaker. Evidently the greatest transgressions a 6 year old can commit are asking questions and squirming in his seat.

He was bored because I had already taught him everything he was being forced to repeat in school. His teachers sent home nasty notes everyday about him not being able to focus or sit still in class. He was bored with his classmates because he said they couldn't understand anything he talked about or was interested in. His Pediatrician had been urging me to homeschool him for years. He could speak in sentences at one year old and describe his symptoms to her which she informed me was remarkable.

I had been teaching him since he was in the womb. I was bedridden with a high risk pregnancy and read continuously while listening to Mozart and Beethoven. I read every book known to man on pregnancy and the first 5 years of a child's life. Having come from a family of 5 children where I had to fight for attention made me want to give my child all that I had longed for in a parent. I decided then that Parenting would be my number one priority.

I was able to stay home with him for 6 months then my sister stayed home with him for 6 months. I missed him crawling and walking for the first time because I had to go back to work. His biological father refused to pay child support but that's another story. I certainly didn't want him around as a bad example. I wanted the best for my boy and would sacrifice to make it happen.

After my sister had to go back to work, I found him a fantastic daycare at a community college. He loved his daycare Montessori atmosphere and thrived in it. He informed me at 13 months old that he wanted to use the potty like a big boy and started doing it! The staff informed me they didn't potty train until age two. Lo and behold two weeks later they told me they were potty training the whole class because all the other kids would follow him to the bathroom and take off their diapers! Those parents should have sent gifts. By all accounts he was a smart little boy with a wicked sense of humor. He did his Mother proud. When I got laid off from my job I was able to get a single parent grant and go back to college. That allowed him to stay in his daycare and I could go visit him when I had a break from class.  

A strange thing happened when I enrolled him in our school district preschool at age 4. I got daily phone calls from the teacher informing me that she couldn't control my son. I asked for specifics and was told he monopolized the classroom computer and kept getting out of his seat without permission. The horror... Naturally, I told her that I didn't want him controlled. I wanted him to be able to explore and touch things. He had been using a computer since he was 2. I'd never had any complaints about his unruly behavior before and thought her reasoning was insane. After a month he began wetting the bed and biting his fingernails until they bled. I took him out of preschool despite the Principal calling to inform me that was a bad decision and I was putting him on the path to juvenile deliquency! That should have been my cue to exit stage right with my child.

However, against my better judgment I followed my Mother's advice and enrolled him in Kindergarten. Same scenario through second grade. I couldn't believe how much school had changed. I couldn't believe how teaching philosophy and methodology had changed. I volunteered at school and even got a job as a Special Education Teacher in the district. That was my real education and a wake up call. I began attending home school information meetings and doing research.

I couldn't continue to let the system break my child down to simply be another drone. I'd gone to this district my entire education and didn't have these problems. I'd been a cheerleader, class president, yearbook editor and just about everything you can do. I graduated with honors. I just assumed that was no problem for anybody. I didn't understand how a highly intelligent child could be treated like an idiot and his self-esteem shattered.

I realized at work one day at a job I hated that I had to make a lifestyle change and put my child's well-being before anything else. I was a natural teacher and had succeeded at everything I had tried thus far. How hard could it be?