But, It's Still "Winter Break"!

This morning on Facebook, I posted the above photo with the caption "Time to get back to work after a long and wonderful holiday season"

 It's December 31st as I write this (yes, New Year's Eve!). The kids and I have enjoyed a great month "off" for the holidays (although, of course, you all know that TONS of learning still happens even when you aren't physically at a table with worksheets or what-have-you in front of you).

  I have a lot of pics to post from our "month off", actually, and when I have a few moments to pull them all off of our phones and organize them into semi-cohesive thoughts 

I will try to post them on here.

I suppose this is a bit of a vent, so I appreciate the few of you who are reading this right now. My vent is this: two people, one of whom is a fellow homeschooler, commented that "It's still winter break, though!" and seemed to be suggesting I'm a meanie for not giving my kids more "time off".

I really think that homeschooling families (in particular) should be more supportive of one another!

I would never suggest to another family that they are working their kids "too much" or "too little", even if I might silently feel that way in my mind. See, I can't presume to know (or have the authority to comment about) exactly what is going on in someone else's home, just as they should not presume to know what is going on in our home.

What they may not be taking into consideration (due to lack of information/asking) is that we took TONS of time off in December for "play", or what one might call "winter break". Another tidbit these people are not realizing is that we may be moving again at the end of the month, and as such we will need a week or two off for THAT transition.

And so, in my own infinite wisdom, I have assessed how much time my kids have had away from table work, have seen how relatively restless they have been, watched my kids picking up books on their own, watching informative videos on their own, etc and decided that my kids are ready (and seem willing) to ease back into doing some table work today.

Guess what? I was absolutely correct! My youngest objected for a moment, but then again she objects for a moment every single day as part of her autistic response to new activities that she specifically did not plan for herself. Once she sat down at the table, she was very happy to get to work, she was engaged in the work, and did a good job on it.  My son was ALSO very ready to get back to work, and as a result we were able to get 3/4 of the way through that end-of-the-year Grade 6 Standardized Math Exam I spoke about in earlier blog posts.

I want and need him to finish that exam so that I can feel comfortable starting in on our 4-week Waldorf-style Geometry block. After the Geometry block is done, we will take a bit of time off but then we will actually be starting in (slowly) on the Grade 7 Math book that I purchased from Oak Meadow. My son is devouring math right now and really doing well with is, so it will be exciting to move on to the next level!

Listen, we homeschoolers supposedly got into homeschooling so that we can do things DIFFERENTLY than the public schools do them. Part of that (for our family, at least) is working on our own schedule and when it makes sense for US. I think these "friendly" folks need to re-evaluate how they choose to "support" homeschooling families (or ANY families, for that matter). Scroll on by and keep your comments to yourself, or be supportive in your comments.

Judging another family, even "kinda joking" (as the fellow homeschooler defended her words with) is NOT helpful, and certainly NOT supportive.

Post Edit: I have to include here that today that same homeschooler posted a link to an article entitled "Unhurried Homeschooling, why we need to slow down". I totally agree that these days people do too much. My point here is that you cannot presume to know whether another family needs to "slow down" or not.

We have chosen to do some work today. Maybe tomorrow we won't. Maybe we will. It all depends on how our family is feeling on the day, and that should be OK. Sure, sure, I could keep our homeschooling journey to ourselves, but the idea in sharing it with friends and family is for the support and the education. I both appreciate being supported while at the same time educating people on how homeschooling can look.

Let's all support one another's journey, eh? 
Or, if we cannot be kind, then perhaps we should be silent.