Teaching the Young-I'm Not the Stupid One Here

Okay, can I just say Lord Help Me? I have spent the most frustrating week working with a four year old who refuses to learn anything different than what her mom has not taught her. The child knows nothing and doesn't want to do anything, but watch tv. She doesn't like to color or hold a pencil. No, she is not slow witted because once her mom comes to pick her up she is rude, and smart mouthed. This child's mom is a teacher in the public school system who just says she can not deal with a child until it is ten years old. By then it should know everything because someone else should have taught it. The child and the mom drive me on a fast train down the road of insanity.

The child can not say her alphabets in a clear way when her mom is around. When it is just us I have been able to get her to unjumble the letters. That is after we pass the the temper tantrum and the "Momma says I say them good. Momma smiles when I say them"  I say, (in my head--your mom is wrong)  "That's nice, but no one can understand you and you have the letters mixed up. Say it like this...." She pouts and cries????

The mom says how they make her say the alphabets in the place of her grace and how she is saying them better. They see the difference, but they don't correct her. What happens when she enters public school? The child has been let to run her own world to such an extent her favorite line is "I have it or do it at home." She does nothing at home. This woman would never be allowed to teach any child of mine. For the first four years of her life she spent with a babysitter where her mom says she didn't expect her to be taught anything she just wanted her somewhere while she was at work. Makes me wonder what a 'teacher' is.  I'm lost. I'm not the stupid one here, I am trying so hard not to jump off the train and let the child enjoy her train wreck with the pacifier in her 4 yr old  mouth.

After I had my first daughter and she was a 2lb preemie and I was informed she would be way behind the other children and always slower, I thought 'hell no'. She was such a tiny thing and I believed them. That is until they did a test on her (don't ask me the name) and she did something that amazed the observer/technician. She clasped her hands in front of her. No big deal to me, but I was informed babies didn't do that until they were three or four months old. I took this and ran with it. Everything I could think of to teach this child I did. She started talking at six months (Mhia came home from birth saying "I'm hungry". At first no one believed me, but when she cried you could clearly hear her) with short little words. She had a full clear grammatically correct full sentence vocabulary of over 200 words by the time she was eighteen months old, knew every color and shape and could tell you the difference between a circle, a zero, and the letter o and could read before she started school.  Karra has never stopped talking. Her sisters who were also preemies have turned out to be no different. Except they don't talk as much as she does.

I truly believe education begins at home and am frustrated with those who are falling apart and blaming the pubic school system because their child is not learning. GET BACK TO YOUR JOB!

I tried the public school thing, but had always wanted to keep the girls home. I thought home-schooling was only for rich White people (forgive my ignorant mind), but when I found out different, whoo hoo! The adventure began. I know this isn't for everyone and to each his own. I did it on my own with the Abe Lincoln format. Library and pay no one.We have never had a lot of money and our little home school never had a lot of supplies, but they have learned way beyond my imagination because they took their education in their own hands and branched into things I have no interest in and my family members tend to call them 'geniuses' and call on us when they need to know something.  I'm going to accept this about them because I believe what I 'speak' over them. Intelligence, beauty, morals,self-dependence and tolerance (still working on this with the eldest daughter).