I’ve been homeschooling my late-in-life son, Ben, since he was in kindergarten. He’s now going into the 7th grade. It was a strange turn of events that led me to make that monumental decision of educating him at home. My oldest son was homeschooling my granddaughters. Honestly, I thought it was odd that he wanted to do that, but he was confident about his decision. Not me. I was going the traditional route. I wanted Ben to be with his peers, and I also wanted some alone time. So we signed Ben up for preschool. We paid our local public school monthly to give Ben his first socialization experiences with the pre-kindergarten classes. He cried when we left him. Crying is typical for most kids initially, but he cried every time we dropped him off for 10 months. He never warmed up to school, and time taught us why. Ben was only four, but I wanted him to learn how to be tough. I mean, life is hard! Well,“life is hard” was about to have a whole new meaning for us. Then, the unthinkable happened. We received a call from our son’s teacher, who told me Ben had been punched in the face by another four-year-old! Surely this did not just happen, I thought. The teacher, a pleasant, middle-aged, seasoned pre-K teacher, said “Tommy” (the one who threw the punch) was a troubled child. She had reported the punch to “Tommy’s mom” and assured me it wasn’t going to happen again. Well, it did! Tommy was bullying my precious son. The child whom my husband and I had waited for, for 21 years! Yes, you read that right. 21 years of infertility. Ben was the best surprise, as our oldest son is 27 years older and had already given us two granddaughters. So as you can imagine, we didn’t take this bullying lightly. Unfortunately, the bullying didn’t end there for Ben. He came home with stories of Tommy pushing him, taking things from him, and just plain being mean. I spoke to the teacher repeatedly and even tried talking with Tommy’s mom (who, by the way, seemed angry—a wounded soul). She was unapproachable. No wonder Tommy was an angry bully at the age of four! Because I couldn’t change that part, I decided to teach Ben that “we are not quitters.” I proceeded to teach my four-year-old how to defend himself, how to stand up to Tommy and any other mean person that may come along in his future
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I taught Ben how to block a punch. I even told him to push back if he needed to. To take his toy back if it got pulled away. The truth is, Ben is a gentle soul. He wasn’t interested in blocking punches and taking back toys with force. He just wanted to play and make friends.
Then Sandy Hook happened. That shooter going into that school and shooting those precious children. The horror of it all. That was it. That was all I needed.
From that day forward, Ben never walked back into another school. After talking with my husband, we decided I would try homeschooling him. My mind was whirling—so many questions. So much doubt and fear that maybe I would mess my beloved baby up! That I wasn’t smart enough to take this on. But what I did know was I loved him and wanted to protect him, and for me, that was all I needed (that and the fact that my husband was on board). So our journey began....