Back to School Ism Style

Tis the season for new crayons, school clothes and lunchables for most people. In our home of isms, however, this time of year is hardly a blip on the radar - barring the fact that there are far fewer people in Target during the day. You see for us, school is a year-long event - with a few well timed breaks now and then - some by choice, some by force.

We have always homeschooled our girls, even before we knew what our isms were called. It is only now that we have acronyms for our isms that so much of our school day actuallly makes sense. We now know why for so many years there would be an immediate downward spiral to the morning if I served my well seasoned homemade quiche made with real whipping cream, or if we had the incredibly tasty turkey sausage patties along side french toast made with real french bread. (You get the idea.) We would no more get started with what began as a promising homeschool day only to meet with the Jekyll and Hyde scenario, which seemed to come from nowhere. There were crashes ever few hours on one side of the schoolroom and bouncing off the walls on the other side. Our school day never looked as idylic in real life as it did in my head, and Lord forbid, never as wonderful as it seemed to be going for every other homeschooling mom I know. I immediately assumed the fault was mine and spent many hours in the fetal position crying out trying to understand what I was doing wrong, where I had sinned and why God would punish these girls so for anything I might have done. There is nothing like isms running amuck in a school day to bring you to your knees and suck every ounce of creativity from your body.

Once we clued into the origins of our isms and started treating them, our schoolday began to at least resemble something like structure and progress. The only catch was that it now included things like vision therapy, occupational therapy, listening therapy and one that sounds like pure science fiction - neurofeedback. We were doing any and everything possible to improve our situation. Some we included in our school day at home. Others required an hour's drive to therapy offices - all in the name of healing. When we incorporated dietary and supplemental changes, as well as allergy treatments, it was eventually (it actually got worse before it got better) as if a rocket had catapulted our day into real life. It was amazing. There were fewer meltdowns (fewer - not zero). There was comprehension, laughter (appropriate laughter), there was independent work - an impossible feat for anyone prior to about 6 months ago. The spring allergy season hit us hard again, but we were able to somewhat stablize it by taking a good month off. It's just not worth fighting pollen and it's affect on isms.

We have found that "summer school" is probably one of our most productive times of the year. Everyone is exercising every day. Allergies are at a minimum and the pool is always a great incentive to finish quickly. So, no surprise that we still look a little different from the rest of the world during the day, but this time it is for the better.