From scratch

Since this September I have been homeschooling Pinkie Pie.  It is a challenging process, in large part because the struggles that she had with school are only partially solved by being at home.  She still does not deal well with mandatory routines, or producing work, or mornings.  Homeschooling is better than regular schooling for her so we are continuing on this track.

It is better than I had thought though, especially as my mental health goes.  I had real worries that this was going to be a disaster for me leaving me miserable and trapped.  Being home with my kid all day every day isn't my ideal, no doubt, but it hasn't been as rough as I anticipated.

We have iterated through a few different ways of teaching math and the current one is a hit.  Pinkie Pie is playing Prodigy, an online RPG where you play a wizard wandering about the world doing standard fantasy type quests.  The trick is that you have to correctly solve a math problem every time you want to cast a spell at the enemies.  Prodigy covers a huge range of different math types and seems like it is carefully engineered to test the entire standard school math curriculum.  An advantage of using this sort of program is that it doesn't have to stick to a fixed grade level.  It adjusts constantly based on how many wrong answers the user inputs and it has already moved Pinkie Pie up to grade 8 math.  This was a real surprise to me because she missed half of grade 6 math with her problems in school but she is learning at a tremendous rate.  Prodigy does need me to step in and teach her how things work rather than just how to get the correct answers but it is an amazing tool; far superior to the other systems we have tried.

We have also recently signed her up for an outdoor nature recreation type program once a week.  They focus on environmental stewardship, survival skills, learning about nature, and playing games outdoors.  If nothing else it is a good way to get her a lot of exercise, and I think she will get a lot more out of it than that.

This process has certainly made me appreciate my financial position.  We aren't wealthy by any means but we are in a position to sign Pinkie Pie up for extra programs when she shows interest.  We have enough money to keep me at home to teach her, rather than just sending her to school to be miserable in a heap.  That is a degree of monetary stability a lot of people don't have, and doing this is giving me an appreciation for it.

It isn't perfect.  I still need more alone time and more of a break than I am getting.  I am still not doing a nearly good enough job and I have to pour more energy into structure and keeping Pinkie Pie on track.  These things are at odds though, which is hard.  Doing all the normal homemaker stuff, educating, doing fun things, workout time, and getting my introvert time just doesn't leave sufficient hours in the day for things like sleep.

I feel stretched.  Not as stretched as I thought I would be at the outset though, so that is a good thing.  Hopefully with more practice at it I will get better and we will both find a way through our troubles.