Mom, I'm going to major in English Writing...

Warning...I confess to some of my poor homeschooling mistakes...

Today I got a phone call from my oldest son and these were his words, "Mom, I'm going to major in English writing."  He had hinted that he really felt like he wanted to change his major a couple of weeks ago.  He was majoring in Information Systems.  He had a late start in this major so he had programming classes this year and just was not enjoying it too much.  But he was thinking that next year, he would probably enjoy what was to come.

So after registering for his classes and thinking about the classes on his schedule, he just was not happy and called us to ask us what he thought about changing his major.

My first thought was - you can major in whatever you want to, just not English!  That wasn't on his mind at the time - it was more like Public Communications or something in communications.

And then he met with some trusted advisors and professors from his school and realized that what he really loves is writing.  He actually told me that he didn't have to write a "real" paper this semester and he missed it! So, my son is now an English writing major and he is quite happy about this and even about what career choices lie ahead for him. (Yes - I did google this so thankfully, there are some career choices for him!! )

Why am I writing this blog today?  I just want to encourage my fellow homeschooler mommas of young boys.  I will tell you a little bit about my son, Jonathan.  When he was very little, he was very bright and learned very easily.  In fact, just starting out homeschooling, I had it pretty easy.  But one thing that I learned very early was that he hated anything that had to do with writing.  He hated his handwriting assignments (even though he had great  handwriting).  We loved the Sonlight curriculum and they really promoted copy writing. When he was in the third grade, I believe, we were trying this English curriculum and it was not going well at all!  It seemed like anything that had to do with writing or workbooks, etc., he just had no motivation and we had to just make it acts of obedience to do the work!  I didn't think this is what homeschooling should be like!

One day, our of my frustration with trying to get Jonathan to do some of this work, I learned about Switched on Schoolhouse.  Jonathan liked computers and video games - maybe this would be the answer!  I called them and ordered the whole series for his grade!  (I don't advise that - but it was a desperate moment for me, I guess!)  When it came, we had one happy school boy!  Jonathan loved doing his work on the computer and I loved that he was loving doing his school!

We finished up that year and made some changes for Jonathan the next year, but since that time some form of computer course was always part of his curriculum.  We did some other English curriculum, too, over the years like Shurley Grammar.  We think that one of his three-point paragraphs was about why he didn't like to write...

But the funny thing is, and I hate to admit this, I just did not spend time with him and his writing!  With SOS, there are a lot of projects.  Sometimes we would get behind and I would just delete those because they would take extra time and he would work on all the other assignments.  We would often even joke that somehow he made it through high school without writing a research paper!  How did this happen?!  (Although, he did write a few papers...and he did write a research paper in his biology class.)

So - you can imagine my surprise when he called me to tell me that he wanted to major in English writing! You homeschooling mommas out there with reluctant writers, hang in there!  They do grow up.  They may or may not love to write once they go to college, but they will figure out what they love to do and you will be amazed!