Relieved.

It's been a roller coaster of a last few days.  We almost switched our little man's school to an "international school."

He's now back at his local kindergarten:)  

There's a lot that went on but I'm not sure how much I'm going to get into here.  If you have questions, perhaps you can directly ask us and we'll fill you in:)

What we've learned...

1) Seek wisdom.  So thankful for the people that have been writing us messages, on the phone with us and talking through wise approaches and helping fill us in on their experiences with Steiner education.  Even on the way to the meetings to explain our change of mind we were listening to our whatsapp messages.

2) No need to rush into anything without understanding everything... would have been easier if we would have understood things upfront.  We didn't realize what was really going on until the ball had already started rolling.

3) A lot of places really want our kids to go to their school and will make quite an effort to make that happen.  Our kids are the only native English speaking children in this city of a few million:)  It is a unique circumstance that sometimes has challenges but that also has unique privileges.  So when it comes to our kids education, we combine homeschooling with a local twist (kindergarten).

We are back at the local kindergarten (after having informed them we were on our way out) and they are so happy to have us back.  Our little man now has one-on-one teaching to help him learn pinyin (Chinese letters) and they are giving him extra help with everything.  I won't get into the details of all the international school's incentives, but they offered us so many that it seemed quite crazy not to send them there. The local school is aware that it wasn't a financial decision to not be at the international school since it would have been less to send two kids there than the discounted price they give us for one child locally.

The local kindergarten is so happy to have him back that they are also trying to do an extra push to reinforce my 5 year old's education.  He's not quite there yet.

It makes me laugh to think he has homework in kindergarten.

4) Don't depend on your own perspective.  Listen to wise counsel and not just rely on what you see or think.

6) Be grateful.  I'm so thankful for what we have.  At present our kids are doing some homeschooling and getting to learn Chinese.  I'm grateful that I'm at the other side of this week!! I'm grateful that my phone has stopped beeping with school staff asking me to make a decision and finding another ways to "help" us make a decision to go to the other school.  I'm grateful that He is good and able.  And I'm grateful that when we explained everything to our kids that they trust us and are flexible. 

I feel relieved to be ending my week knowing what my kids are learning, the people influencing them and thinking about reading to my kids,  helping my little man tackle another lesson in his Learn to Read in 100 Lessons and working on character builders (instead of some stranger sorts of things).

I was going to write about the entire experience with lots of details but felt it was perhaps a bit better to summarize the relief of being at the other end of it all.  I think there are mixed opinions about the type of school we almost went to and I'm not sure all of the details are needed at the end of the day.

Thanks to everyone for keeping us in mind and sharing with us.

Thanks for stopping by and reading!  Have a great weekend!