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Transition to Adolescence: What to do when your child wants to go to high school
© Beverley Paine July 2001 The following question came up on the Learning Naturally online support group: It's not unusual for children starting to go through puberty to have transition issues. Transition issues beset us throughout life and can cause a great deal of anxiety, especially if they go unrecognised. You might recognise them as that unsettled feeling you get as one project winds up and you are keen to get started on the next. The old project often sits around unfinished because you have lost enthusiasm, having learned the major lessons. You might berate yourself for not getting on with it, and curse it for holding you back. There's a good chance this eleven year old is experiencing similar emotions as her body sends her clear signals she's moving on and needs to leave old ways of being behind. After five decades of living I've discovered I'm safer sitting still and not making any decisions while I'm in a transition state. The answers will come in their own time. It's like waiting for the baby's new teeth to erupt. Waiting is unpleasant and uncomfortable but all will be well eventually. We can't hurry the process. The best we can do is accept that this is a transition stage - somewhere between two places in our lives - and that when the time comes we'll know what it is we're supposed to do. In this way we are the ones that find our answers - they aren't centred elsewhere. In this cae, it's my experience, gleaned both personally and from the stories of other homeschoolers that have combined school and homeschooling, or who have had children go back to school, that it is unnecessary to prepare for high school by sending a child to year 7. I can't see any benefit at all deriving from this - except perhaps to put the child off from her intended course of action! Our children are the only ones we need to be answerable to, now and in the future. Our job is to identify and meet their needs as they arise, not their perceived future ones because the future isn't written yet! |
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