Posts Tagged ‘stress’

This is a bit of a rant, a bit of praise and a bit of frustration.  You see I have four children.  One, is living with his mother, he’s my step-child and I do only what a step-mother does – I love him and offer assistance when requested.  The other three are my responsibility.  One of which is 19 and in college and working.  Her father is taking care of that end – paying for college.  She doesn’t live with me.  So that narrows it to 2 I’m directly responsible for education wise.

My children – up until this year – have been enrolled in the normal public school system.  James is a senior (leaving to serve our great country as a Marine in June 2009), and the other is Stephen a junior in high school.  That’s 11th and 12th grade students in a public NORMAL California high school.  That is the number one issue – public school.

Now I hear many say the school systems are great.  Normally those are the parents of kids that are in elementary school.  By the time they hit junior high, I don’t seem to hear that much more.  Because, they (our California public schools) are not great.  Not in my opinion – and not the schools I’ve personally had any connection to.  They are overcrowded, understaffed, under budgeted… just plain under everything.

Let me make one thing clear – teachers as a whole are NOT in my category of issues.  These folks work for our children with what seems like all odds against them.  I would not begin to put them down.

James, my 12th grader – has exited out of normal high school this year and is in what is called an “Independent High School” program.  This means he meets with a teacher once a week and gets work handed to him and he has one week to complete it.  Or not.  This is an independent program.  If you don’t do the work, you are out.  Period.  So James, who didn’t do a BIT of work in the past two years, now is fully in charge of himself to learn what is needed and turn in his work.  Here starts one issue.  If he didn’t do the work before, how would he now?

I didn’t get involved in the kids schooling much.  I know, say what you must – but I didn’t.  Single mom, three kids – I was lucky to be home on time to pick them up from daycare let alone oversee hours of homework.  I would pick them up, get home and continue to work from home.  So not much guidance if any from me.

Now, James has to makeup a years worth of work – plus his senior work.  Again, this is a child that didn’t do anything in school to begin with!  Now, he’s having to double his work.  Hmmmm.

As of two weeks ago I was starting to get calls from his teacher – “James is doing poorly, he’s behind… etc. etc. etc.”.  Funny, his report card just came in with a B+ average.  So what happened?  He went back to how he normally does stuff.  He just doesn’t do it.

Well, I finally took charge.  Why now you ask?  After years of not doing a thing?  Because it’s all he’s got.  If he doesn’t graduate his military entry will be postponed.  Then, as usual – he’d fall down on himself and feel poorly and get himself even further behind.  I know my son.

Today, he met with his teacher for the normal one hour and turned in his work.  He’s got a TON left to do before next Friday’s meeting as I’m getting him caught back up and back on track.

Basically, he’s home schooled.  Not entirely, but that’s what it boils down to.  The plus side is… he’s home schooled.  No more gangs, no more girls, no more teachers screaming (yes, it’s happened).  But he’s got a long way to go this week to get back on track.

Now, enter my other child – Stephen.  He is bi-polar, rages at times, and is generally a to-himself kinda kid.  According to his doctors the last two hospitalizations were due to stress at school (bullies, deadlines etc.) and they have recommended he get out of the normal public schools as there is really no adults there to manage bullies – which is his biggest issue.  Great.  So Stephen is going to the same Independent program now as Jim.

That’s two at home doing schooling.

I work.

We can do this.

Who do I blame?  No one.  To have the kids out of the public regular high school is a huge plus to me.  The amount of drama, fights and lack of guidance only lays way to issues.  Many issues as our family has had to go through since junior high school.

The issue I see with my younger one is – if it was up to him, he’d stay away from any social type situations forever.  He’s not a people person.  Well, he’s not a mean people person and at their ages there are a lot of those.

I don’t know folks… James will be okay now that I have a handle on things, but Stephen?  How do I assist a depressed bi-polar child by keeping him at home?  I think I’m going to go onto the home schooling sites and see what kind of things we can do to get him out of the house.  I can’t believe his doctors think this will be beneficial to him in the long run.  Honestly.

High school is different now.  Much different.

I praise anyone who home schools – at least I know and understand why they don’t want them in the public school system.  It’s a genuine failure in so many ways.  I feel like somewhere with all of the “universal healthcare” and “my company is flopping bail us out” crud – we seem to have completely forgotten the children.  Our future is the kids and they are going to colleges in spite of what they’ve learned in high school – not because of it in many cases.

If you know of any good sites for home schooling, please leave them in the comments.  Stephen could certainly use it!

Thanks for listening/reading to my vent.

Love and Light,

A Momma

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First, a huge amount of gratitude to those that have commented, emailed and given their love and support in the times I’ve had in the last week.

I have had Stephen read the comments and he teared up.  He’s 16 but can be touched by kind hearts and beautiful words.  Thank you.

He is starting his own blog, and I’ll link here when he’s got it a bit under control.

Second, if there is anyone else out there that is empathic at all – I ask you this – how heavy are you feeling now?

Those reading may not believe in what I do, and that’s a blessing because varied views are beautiful and learning experiences for us all!

Let me tell you where I’m at right this moment as a 40 year old lady, living in the U.S. on this planet Earth in this Solar System and a part of the Universe:

I’m fighting to keep my world full of light, and love and stillness.

Although I’ve dealt with emotional ups and downs this last week – I can tell you that isn’t all that is creating a difficult situation in my spirit.

In the U.S. we have so many crisis’s right now.  From the election, to the financial “Wholly Heck”, to the day to day issues of homelessness, abuse and suffering.

In the World we have suffering, war, and hate.

On Earth we have a general tone of “oh well, someone will fix it later”.

*We* does not mean each individual by the way, there are many doing what they can in each instance.  But not the whole.

Mahatma Ghandi has a quote I attempt to live my life by every day and I do fall short most days unfortunately:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

That doesn’t mean look to someone to change it.  It does truly mean for you to be the change you wish for.  It starts with each of us.

With that said, there isn’t many American’s right now that aren’t having great angst and fear around this election.  Both the Obama side and the McCain side of voters actually FEAR the other getting into office.  Why?  It’s because of our media and mis-information being thrown at you. These two are men.  Humans like us.  They will each do the best they can to assist this country.  Neither is as bad as each side paints them to be.

I can say I’ve personally seen things that make me question the integrity and sincerity of both sides.  Enough to make me wonder who to “write in” on the ballot.  Then I catch myself.

Folks, either candidate will be perfect.

If that statement jolts you from the inside and you want to SCREAM “it’s not so” – then I urge you to look inside and ask yourself what your true fear is.  Take a deep look at what you fear and work on that.  Yourself.

Whoever gets elected is going to have a tough year ahead of them.  It’s just where we are at right now.

I get that lately – many folks are going to need therapy in heavy doses after this election.

It will all be okay.

It will all just *be* and that is perfect.

Please get yourself to a place of calmness, stillness and light if you are currently in fear, stressed or generally off balance.  At the very least, if you are feeling this way – take a look at it.

It feels to me that the world is going faster and faster and folks are attempting to move away from it, not with it.

It will all be okay… really.  It will be perfect.

Love and Light to everyone that reads this.  You are loved.

Monica

Moving to Wordpress SELF HOSTED – er, BACK to self-hosted…. SO, whatcha see here is flippin’ old!

Don’t you stress it Muffin Toes!

I’ll get this baby runnin in the next day or two!  Just you hold on!

WOW – it’s like the WAY back machine in here!

whoooot!

Well buddies and friends and lurkers – update.

Moving to a self hosted Wordpress.

DNS is changed… and it will be up within oh… 3 days?!

HOLD ON

or… whatever it is you celebrate during this time of year. 

It’s time to re-energize myself you know?  You cannot assist others when your own battery icon is glowing red.  Does anyone have any hints for meditation or how’s this… what do you do to get the *positive* energy in to your soul and being when you are pouring it out to others to assist them in their struggles?  I have asked some folks and all good ideas which I’m going to practice.  But I was wondering what anyone here would like to share?