*quick note--Thanks for your prayers!  My friend's cousin is recuperating and doing well, thank God!  Also, Amy J, would you please email me?  I've lost your addy and have been thinking about you lately!*

Well, after much debate, deliberation, prayer, study, discussion, soul-searching, information-gathering and discerning . . . I believe the oldest boys will be attending the local public high school next fall.

Wow.  I'm surprised the earth dares still spin! 

As a person who isn't really even sure she believes in public education *at all* (thinking that the federal government's only job should be whatever individuals and states can't do--i.e. national defense), having planned from the beginning to homeschool all the way through, no one is more surprised at this turn of events than I.  Though, if I'm honest, I'll have to admit I've been fighting the idea all year long in one way or another.  Basically, it boils down to several major issues for us:

a) I've noticed that the homeschooled teens I know are starting to feel as if they're being held back from the candy store--as if high school is Shangri-La.  While I know this is not the case, I also know that if they're homeschooled all the way through, they'll never get the chance to find that out for themselves, and I don't like the idea of them feeling I'm keeping things from them.

b) My younger children are going to need some specialized attention this year that I don't think I could do well in addition to what I'm already doing.

c) My eldest is nearly 16 and definitely feeling his oats . . . we're butting heads *way* more than I like, and I just flat out don't feel like it's healthy for me to be micro-managing his life.  I don't like the dynamics that have been created by being his teacher at this point.

d) I don't have the support that might be helpful in this situation, and it would be lovely to have other adults investing in them and involved in their lives, so I wouldn't be bearing the burden (though it's a great one!) on my own.

e) I think our small space makes us all feel stir crazy sometimes, and having another physical place to be for several hours a day would be helpful for the older ones.

f) The kids don't really know the reality of much of what we say to them in terms of what God has saved them from.  It sortof sounds like Charlie Brown's mother after a point, I would think . . . waa waaaaaahhh, wa waaaaahhhh wahhh wahhh . . . when we talk about the impact of drugs/alcohol/promiscuity etc etc because it's so far away from them.  Do I want them seeing it up close?  Not especially.  And yet . . . how can you fight something you don't really know is out there and impacting kids your age?

g) They're strong.  God's given me several scriptures and word pictures about seedlings--I have 2 flats of them on my dining room table right now; broccoli, tomatoes, cantaloupe, basil, thyme, and parsley, 144 plants in all--and how we plant the seeds and keep them indoors, sheltered and protected, for some time, to allow the roots to grow and the stems to become strong.  This week we'll put them out on the porch during the day but bring them in at night--we'll "harden them off." We don't put them out in the garden 'til they're ready.  I think this is where we're at; the hardening-off stage.  Better to go off during the day when you are still able to come home at night and on weekends for some debriefing, to get your head on straight and your heart comforted from whatever batterings might take place.  I don't believe in elementary school missionaries.  But high schoolers ought to be able to bear some weight.  God reminded my husband of the scripture in Psalm 127: "As arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior, so are the children of one's youth . . ."  He told R that arrows aren't made from old, thick branches--they're made from the young, slim ones.  And of course, they're in the hands of the ultimate Mighty Warrior.

h) God's been taking me to Daniel over and over since the middle of last summer.  I noticed when I read it this time that Daniel was a teen who was educated by the Babylonians--the ultimate anti-God culture of the time, I guess--and yet he was protected and given great wisdom and knowledge by God.  We can't live in fear and let that be the basis of our homeschool/outside school decisions. 

i) I recognize that homeschooling can be an idol--maybe we idealize a particular family model or dream of what we want our homes to look like without looking at the reality of what's happening in the homes we're actually living in.  For us, right now, things don't look exactly the way I wanted them to.  And yet, I know we've done what we were supposed to do up to this point.  I don't regret the sheltering my kids have received because it's allowed them to become strong and know what their own minds are.  They know each other well;  they wouldn't have had nearly the time with their siblings they've had, were they to have been in school.  We're all friends, and I think that's pretty unusual in this world.  They've got a level of innocence that I treasure.  But there's a bit more sibling crankiness going on than I'd like, and the complaint is that they're on top of each other too much.  The littles are interrupting the bigs; the middles don't want to be followed around by the older ones when they're creating a surprise.  I think having some time away will make the time at home sweeter, and that would be a good improvement.

j) Dh thinks it's time for them to go.

k) They've made several friends at our church who attend the same school they'd be going to.  This is huge to me, because they won't have to just flounder around trying to figure out who they fit in with; the kids they know are in all different groups--some sports kids, some band kids, etc.--and so I don't worry as much about that.

l) The older kids' schooling is taking up so much time that I don't feel I've been doing as good a job with the younger ones as I did with the older ones.  I do *not* like that!

m) Ds needs someone to answer to besides me.  Having assignments that really HAVE TO BE turned in would be good, LOL!  This is a life lesson that I just somehow haven't been able to really get through to them.  I think he even worries about not being able to complete and turn things in on a deadline, which I think is a lie, and he needs to know that.  While we've tried to be more structured, less structured, have dad run things, have mom run things, do everything ourselves, sub some classes out . . . it still doesn't feel like I've got the right groove happening for this stage, and it's time for a major change.

n)  *note: I'm adding this as it came to me later!* We would enjoy the opportunity to be a light in the community.  We can sometimes feel isolated (and even be isolated almost by design) as homeschooling families, I think.  It would be great to meet some other parents whom we haven't had a chance to get to know before, as well as getting to know some new teens.

So, anyway, that's the news around here.  It actually feels quite anticlimactic having made this huge decision that now we find ourselves in mid-March with nearly 5 months 'til the next school year even starts!  Time for us all to try to adjust to a whole new plan. 

 I really do want to express that I don't believe public high school is for everyone, or to be saying that homeschooling large families can't be done, or anything like that.  What we all need to do is actually ask the Lord for His plan for our kids, one year at a time.  The fact is that most people never even think of asking the question and their kids wind up in public school all along by default.  The other less comfortable fact is that many who wind up homeschooling do so not out of a position of positive strength and a desire to pour wisdom and knowledge and purpose into their kids, but out of fear.  Here's the trick . . . as your kids get older, they KNOW it!  They know you're afraid of the world, or that you don't trust them, or that you don't think they can hack it, etc. etc.  Fear is the enemy's hallmark.  You can't make good decisions when you're being controlled by it.  Here's our job as parents--to know: What does God want for this child?  Our family?  Right now?  This year?  These are the questions we must ask ourselves, and continue to encourage our fellow moms in whatever answer they hear from the Lord Himself.  We all need to spend more time in prayer for these precious ones He's entrusted to our care.

While I will apparently have two in school in the fall, I'll still have five at home!  We'll be doing sixth, fourth, and first grade.  With a little preschool mixed in for the 4 and 1 year olds.  Ahhh . . . sounds like a piece of cake, to tell you the truth!  And to top it off, this Friday is the first meeting of a group a friend and I are trying to organize for teens in our county, LOL.  We'd barely sent out the email notices when my dh and I came to this decision.  I'll still be working on putting this group together because we do, after all, have 3 more months and the summer to be high schooling homeschoolers, and I really care about the other kids in the same boat and helping them get together and have some fun, and who knows what the future holds!  Whatever it is, I'm sure we won't be bored!