You Might Also Like: Everyone Gets a Juice Box, from Understood.org

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What is the episode’s introduction and who is the guest?

Debbie Reber 0:00
Hey, it's Debbie. Every now and then I like to share conversations from other shows that I think you guys would really connect with. So today I'm bringing you an episode from a newer show from Understood called Everyone Gets a Juice Box. It's hosted by Jessica Shaw, who spent years interviewing celebrities but is now turning her attention to something much closer to home: raising kids who learn and think differently. The chaos, the small wins, those moments that that feel impossibly hard and the ones that surprise you. What I like about this show is that it makes room for the parts of parenting that don't get neatly wrapped up, those parts we are so familiar with. And actually, for this episode I'm sharing with you, I am the one being interviewed.
Debbie Reber 0:42
So I'm gonna be sharing the story of how our family ended up homeschooling, something that I honestly never thought we'd choose. If you have ever found yourself rethinking a decision you once felt certain about or stepping into a version of parenting you didn't quite expect. I think this conversation is gonna feel familiar to you. So here's the episode of Everyone Gets a Juice Box. I hope you enjoy it. I think I had known for several years that really this was the best thing for my child, at least for the time being, was homeschooling. Just because of the way my kid experiences the classroom dynamic and everything that's the demands and expectations of a traditional school, it was always gonna be hard.
Debbie Reber 1:24
I just wasn't ready to accept that that was my fate.
Jessica Shaw 1:29
Has anyone ever said to you, you should homeschool your kid? And you thought, um, what? That happened to my guest today, Debbie Reber. And when another parent told her that, she thought, yeah, that's a hard pass. So her kid went to three schools between kindergarten and second grade, got lots of services, some things went well, others didn't. There were calls, complaints, frustrations. And victories. Then something happened that, as she says, forced her hand. So Debbie's husband got a job offer in the Netherlands. It was already stressful moving across the world, which her kid wasn't so happy about. And the idea of finding the right school there and starting over in another language no less, Debbie's hard pass took a hard turn.
Jessica Shaw 2:15
This is Everyone Gets a Juice Box. I'm Jessica Shaw and this is Debbie's story.
Debbie Reber 2:25
We spent a year and a half in a private school for gifted kids. And the first half of that experience we kept being told, We've got it. We get these kids. These are complex kids. This is what we do. And my advice or input wasn't really appreciated. And so when that crashed and burned halfway through first grade, we moved to another very small private school where my child was very supported and appreciated. uh and loved and was super disruptive in that environment and it was just taking too much teacher time. So by second grade we moved into public school and part of my thinking was, well, they can't kick my child out of public school. They have to meet my kids' needs.

Why did Debbie and her family decide to start homeschooling?

Debbie Reber 3:07
And then we had an IEP. And so I it was a magnet gifted program full-time within the public school system. So if anything was gonna I felt like this had the best shot.
Jessica Shaw 3:17
And then at what point did you realize, uh, no, that best shot is not a possible shot?
Debbie Reber 3:23
The whole year was challenging. The the teacher was great and the principal was super cool. My kid spent a lot of time in the principal's office and they became very close friends. And so, you know, there was the support there, but the speech language pathologists and the OTs and other people who were pulling my kid out for services and things, I got a lot of feedback that it was continuing to be challenging and it was a lot of social stuff and just So much dysregulation and that seemed to be increasing. Was there
Jessica Shaw 3:53
a particularly horrible moment that sticks out in your mind of like, uh, this something had to change?
Debbie Reber 4:01
Yeah, I mean at the the first school there were a lot of phone calls and it usually came because of, you know, my child getting dysregulated in in the classroom.

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