Why Homeschool?

  I feel stuck right now. I'm in that place where no option seems like a good option and so you find yourself weighing bad against worse trying to decide which path to take.
  A little background, I started homeschooling Cole in November of this year because the public school system was failing him miserably. He was put in a class for "Emotionally Disturbed" children and the children in his class we extremely disturbed indeed. The method of discipline was to shut unruly children in a "quiet room", which was a tiny closet sized room with concrete walls and floor. The teacher pointed out to me that it was painted "soothing" colors, as if being locked in a soft aquamarine room as opposed to gray makes any damn difference at all. Cole is not an unruly child, in fact he is very concerned with following rules so he never was put into that room. I made it clear that he should NEVER be put in that room. Despite not being subjected to it directly, what he saw in that class was awful.
  He described kids screaming and cussing, flipping their desks over, eating crayons, and being stripped of their shoes and shoved into this "quiet room" where they would continue to scream and beat against the walls. Once he came home and told me a kid removed his clothes and said he was going to "poop and pee" on the walls. Cole didn't know for sure if he did, but he said the janitor had to come in and clean the room after the child was removed. I was aghast. This wasn't an asylum in the 1950's... it was a public school classroom in the 20th century!
  When one of these children began to threaten Cole with violence I became very worried. I complained, I called an IEP meeting, I called the superintendent, and I was met with complete indifference. No one cared that this child had threatened to beat up, even kill, my son. Not only was this kid a bully, he was a deeply disturbed bully and that worried me.
  Three days after I gave birth to Autumn I got a phone call saying that this child had attempted to stab Cole with a pen. He was tackled by a teacher and teacher's aide and pulled off Cole before he could do more than graze Cole's arm. Cole came home shaking and nauseous from the stress. I was beyond angry. I was angry that no one seemed to have seen this coming and even after the child attacked Cole they still seemed to be completely indifferent. I called the police and they took a report but said there was nothing they could do because the child was mentally ill. The officer felt bad for me and called the school resource officer to see if there was anything more he could do. The resource officer knew this child by name and said he was dangerous. It was then I decided I was going to homeschool. I really felt I had no other choice.
   I was totally unprepared, I had a baby who was less than a week old and it was several months into the school year. I had no curriculum and no game plan. I had an anxiety attack that lasted for a solid week as I gathered the documentation I needed to pull him out of public school. I like to have a plan of action for everything, I don't do spontaneous.
   To add to the stress Chloe's teacher felt the need to tell me every single day that my daughter, who has classic ADHD, was not paying attention (Oh really? A child with attention deficit is displaying a deficit in attention? How could that be?) She had a 504 plan, which the school chose to lose first and then ignore. I couldn't balance trying to homeschool Cole and the constant requests from Chloe's teacher for meeting so that we could re-hash the fact that Chloe was displaying classic symptoms of ADHD. She was on meds which caused side-effects that the teacher then wrote me emails about (Chloe is "in a fog", Chloe "seems withdrawn") even the psychiatrist was annoyed. Those things are common side effects of the meds she was on, not a sign that there was something "going on" with Chloe. I hesitate to call any teacher stupid, but ... well. After explaining 5,456,789 times to this woman that meds are not a cure, and they come with their own drawbacks and she was going to HAVE to accommodate Chloe in other ways (i.e. help with note-taking skills, allow extra time to complete work, etc) I just decided to homeschool her too.
  So here I am. I am SO frustrated with this, I cry just about everyday. I was woefully unprepared and I too have OCD and ADHD, so it's a case of the blind leading the blind. I feel like I am unable to focus and organize enough to be effective as a teacher. In one sense I can understand what they deal with better than anyone because I am dealing with it too. I have tried giving myself pep-talks and I have tried convincing myself they are learning despite the slooooow pace (welcome to OCD land, where everything moves in slow motion). It's a constant battle. I am so tired. I am stuck.