At Home & Schooling

I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you as my daughter ♥️ I don’t even have the words to describe how proud I am to be your mom. You are perfect. Absolutely perfect ♥️. Dear Petra, you are my favorite person in this whole world! I love you more than anyone could ever love. I wish you to shine through life always! And if ever, anyone dared to dim that light I would eat him alive 😀 (not kidding 😂). Happy birthday my love! ♥️

Yesterday I was attacked by moms in one of the groups I’m in. It’s an American group about teens. So the mother in that group was asking if she should check her son’s (13) chats with his friends and all the answers were definitely yes, because some of them can be bullies or even worse some predator tracking him. I replied that I consider that lack of respect for a person (even a child) to invade his privacy. 13 is not 8, he should have enough sense to deal with that on his own and enough trust in me to approach me if he did have a problem. I also added that I don’t only never check my kids phones, I actually most of the times don’t even know where they go to hang out with their friends. Yerevan is a safe city (I can track them in case I’m really worried). For which basically I was attacked by many, with accusations such as I should not be a mom at all and should not be trusted with children.

Well, I talked to my other kids about that (16 and 20) and asked their opinion. They both said I’m not a bad mom, I’m a mom who respects her kids privacy. That was nice to hear from them 🤣.

Anyway, I still hold by what I said. I raise them to be independent and if that means learning from their mistakes well….we all did 🤷🏼‍♀️. And while it is physically and mentally impossible for me to follow them everywhere and check what they are up to, it’s actually very easy for me to go through their phones every now and then. But I can’t. It just feels sick. I would hate if someone went through my private chats, no matter who that might be. Why would I treat my kids with anything less than that kind of respect for their privacy?

Do I love to homeschool? Not always….
Do I love homeschooling? Absolutely!

I love the freedom I give my kids to slowly study at home. At their own pace. Without rush or pressure. I love the peace of their home they study at, without being exposed to screaming, yelling, bullying and other crap that exists inside school walls. I love the variety of choices I can give them, be it curricula wise or topic wise. I love that they can eat, speak, sing, jump during their study time. I love that they can question whatever I teach them, question the topic itself or my knowledge of it. And frankly so much more that homeschooling gives my kids.

But. Do I love to teach every single day? We can skip sure, but most of the days it’s teaching. Do I love to have my kids with me 24/7 every single day? Do I love researching constantly, questioning curricula, programs, certificates whether or not they are suitable for each one of my kids? Do I love the fact that I’m the one responsible for how they turn out to be educationally or professionally?

No I don’t. But I do it anyway. Because what I love about homeschooling outweighs by far what I don’t.

Some people tell me: maybe you don’t inspire me to homeschool, but you sure inspire me to have kids after 40!

Well, what can I say? It’s nice to know that my crazy life is an inspiration for someone 😂♥️

Dear mothers. I know you’ve been raised to be good girls, women, wives, mothers. But please. Don’t raise your daughters to be good!

I see it everyday. My students, my daughter’s friends, just girls..obedient, good girls. Trying hard to be liked, to be good in their mother’s eyes and later in the eyes of societies too. Don’t do that to them!

Raise them to be bold. Raise them to be resilient. Raise them to raise their voice when something is not right. Doesn’t feel right. Raise them to trust their intuition and say no. Raise them not to be convenient. Raise them to put themselves first. Always. Everywhere. In every single situation. Raise them to never accept a bad treatment. Never. Raise them confident and knowing their worth. Loved and accepted just the way they are. Raise them into self loving, self cherishing women and teach them to never ever compromise that for anything or anyone!

When someone asks Neel where is he from, he always says Lebanon 😃. He doesn’t speak Arabic, has never lived in Lebanon much but he says he was born there and therefore he is Lebanese 😀.

I’m going to homeschool my kid! Tell me all about homeschooling! You are doing the right thing! Schools suck!

Some things I’ve heard over and over from friends and people I met even before they were pregnant! 🤦🏼‍♀️ Or their kids were like 6 months old.

Some did homeschool eventually but most never did, and they sure told me what a failure they were.

Can we just stop doing that?? Homeschooling is not a virtue!! It’s just a choice which seems right for some people at a certain time. And it’s not a sentence either. You can enroll your kids back in school at whatever point you decide or find suitable.

Teenagers. Yesterday Nizar’s friend was at our place and started acting really rude. When I told him that his behaviour was unacceptable he replied: you know teens, hormones 🤷🏼‍♀️. And I lost it 😆.

I’m sick of this attitude 🤦🏼‍♀️. Teens equals rude behaviors, teens equals slamming doors, screaming, crazy attitudes. NOT AT MY HOUSE!!

Rude is rude, bad behavior is bad behaviour. What is not acceptable is not acceptable for everyone!!! And I won’t tolerate it.

Nizar tried out this new cool “teen” attitude on me a couple of times. And he learned that it was not cool at all 😆.

Today I want to write this post to thank our wonderful dentist Dr. Ani and our beloved clinic for all their patience, care and professionalism ♥️

Slavic’s teeth came out black and with cavities from the beginning 😔. We changed dentists, clinics but everyone insisted he should be treated with general anesthesia because of his age. I was hopeless when I found . I thought nothing could be done. But they not only gave us hope, but made us fall in love with them. They treated Slavic for a whole year, fixed all his teeth, including root canal treatments and tooth extraction, all with local anesthesia. And on top of that Slavic loved his dentist so much that his dream now is to become a dentist 😀🥰.

Today was his last treatment and he received a special gift: cute, mini dentist pack of instruments ♥️♥️

I’m beyond grateful to ♥️

Hope you had a wonderful summer and feeling great about starting new academic year whether homeschooling or not. We, after eventful hot months between Armenia and Georgia are excited to be back to studying 😃.

📚 Oussama (20) will be continuing his computer engineering studies at the American University of Armenia into his third year (time does fly 🫣).

📚 Petra (16) decided against college and will be continuing her studies at the local high school in addition to doing A level program with me, Oussama and her dad. She hasn’t decided yet what field she is interested in for higher education.

📚 Nizar (13) will be taking more of A level subjects this year just for general education on top of the subjects that he is already doing with his dad and Oussama; math, further math and physics. He is pretty sure about his passion for architecture so I guess that’s where we are heading with him.

📚 Neel (9) will be studying general subjects with him at home with me. Russian and English languages, math, sciences.

📚 Slavic (5) is proudly finishing his preschool Russian workbooks 🥰

On top of that Nizar and Neel will be attending music and sports schools here in Yerevan.

My husband and me will be tutoring along with other projects: math, physics, economics, biology and chemistry (IGCSE and A level) 😊.

Have a great academic new year ahead, everyone!!! ♥️♥️📚📚