My Daughter is Interested in Nursing

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This is really an, off the LPN to RN nursing student, topic. I am currently a LPN to RN student and I FINALLY got one of my children to cross over and become interested in nursing. I fare pretty well when it comes to "tutoring" my daughter in her Mathematics, English, and Science courses but I have no idea where to begin to "introduce" her to nursing concepts. How much is too much when it comes to teaching nursing concepts? Should I keep it simple (ie basic medical terminology, simple A&P and microbiology concepts, and a little Fundamentals of Nursing)? Or should I go all the way (ie pretty much turn her into a professional nursing student before she enters high school)??

How do you know your children would have been bullied?

Anyway the thing that I was concerned with was how you said "should I turn her into a professional nursing student before she enters high school". I mean, besides the fact that you can't do that because she won't have the maturity or developed critical thinking yet, but also because it kind of will burn her out before she even begins the real nursing student world. I'd prepare her for high school not college! If anything, just medical terminology is enough.

I'm speaking from the POV of a senior nursing student. Several of my classmates don't want to continue on to graduate school because they are burned out. And they aren't lazy students, some are over achievers who are really burned out.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
I can't tell if this is humor or not, but I think so?

Anyway, I wish you luck. I'm sure your daughter will let you know how much she wants to learn and tell you (whether in words or action) if its to much. So I wouldn't worry too much about getting the right "amount", because it will get figured out as you go. I wish I could have done online schooling when I was a kid.

No, I was just being sarcastic. I don't take personal attacks kindly, especially when the individual pointing fingers doesn't know me. I wish I could have been home educated when I was a kid too.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
How do you know your children would have been bullied?

Anyway the thing that I was concerned with was how you said "should I turn her into a professional nursing student before she enters high school". I mean, besides the fact that you can't do that because she won't have the maturity or developed critical thinking yet, but also because it kind of will burn her out before she even begins the real nursing student world. I'd prepare her for high school not college! If anything, just medical terminology is enough.

I'm speaking from the POV of a senior nursing student. Several of my classmates don't want to continue on to graduate school because they are burned out. And they aren't lazy students, some are over achievers who are really burned out.

It's bigger than just the bullying, but I won't waste valuable time trying to explain why my husband and myself made a collective decision to home educate our children. Like I said in my previous post, my husband suggested I teach her what I know because she said she wants to be a nurse. But having an understanding of who I am, I will definitely NOT aim to turn her into a professional nursing student. I'll probably just sit back and let come to me. That seems like the best thing to do. It's far too much on her academic plate and mine at this time. When she's ready , she'll let me know.

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I do have to really advocate the idea of a public education. Of course public education varies wildly from state to state and even city to city. BUT at my high school, they actually offered a FREE CNA course, Pharm Tech, etc. You could also be a member of HOSA-Future Health Professionals and be around other like-minded students. These are things you would never be able to offer your child through homeschooling. So maybe consider sending your child to public school just for high school, that way they can have access to all of these career-building options.

My school also offered technical courses in cosmetology, car mechanics, computers... so that way your daughter might have the opportunity to explore other fields besides nursing as well.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
I do have to really advocate the idea of a public education. Of course public education varies wildly from state to state and even city to city. BUT at my high school, they actually offered a FREE CNA course, Pharm Tech, etc. You could also be a member of HOSA-Future Health Professionals and be around other like-minded students. These are things you would never be able to offer your child through homeschooling. So maybe consider sending your child to public school just for high school, that way they can have access to all of these career-building options.

My school also offered technical courses in cosmetology, car mechanics, computers... so that way your daughter might have the opportunity to explore other fields besides nursing as well.

Coming from a public school background I am aware of what the public institutions have to offer. I was a HOSA member in 9th and 10th Grade (a long, long, long time ago) My children's home school program has dual enrollment from 9th to 12th Grade. I will definitely look into what courses she can take once she starts high school. She could remain a home school student but get the "social" interaction she needs in a public setting (this would "ease" her into being able think on her own two feet)

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Specializes in Critical Care.

You haven't completed formal training on how to be an RN to start with. Additionally, you don't have the special education needed to properly train someone to be a nurse.... so I don't think you should be teaching ANY nursing concepts to your child, especially since she's 12. I would be afraid of teaching my kid nursing concepts because I know that nursing schools have their own system that works and I wouldn't want to mess that up by instilling wrong or misguided strategies/mindsets into my child. I say this as someone who was home schooled from K-12 by... wait for it... my mom, who is an RN. She never touched nursing concepts with me even though I wanted to be a nurse in high school. She just focused on giving me a solid education and built critical thinking skills exercises into her curriculum, starting in kindergarten (this was back in the days before online home schooling was a thing). I have had a pretty easy time of it pulling excellent grades in nursing school - and I'm pretty sure that's a direct result of the time my mom spent teaching me how to think critically/logically when I was a kid. She and my dad never pressured my siblings or me to follow any particular career path, they just worked on making sure we understood the content they taught us and left it up to us to decide what we wanted to do once we finished high school.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
"You haven't completed formal training on how to be an RN to start with. Additionally, you don't have the special education needed to properly train someone to be a nurse.... so I don't think you should be teaching ANY nursing concepts to your child, especially since she's 12."

I am assuming what you mean by "formal training" is that I can't "legally" complete my nursing documentation with RN initials?? You are correct. But I am at the end of my RN program, just waiting for an clinical exit exam date. After that it's on to the state boards. I also assume what you mean by "special education" is that I do not have a BSN degree, again you are correct. But what you failed to do before you chimed in is read my PREVIOUS comments stating that my husband suggested I teach her. My initial post has been taken WAY out of context. I am not an overbearing mother forcing nursing on my daughter.

"I would be afraid of teaching my kid nursing concepts because I know that nursing schools have their own system that works and I wouldn't want to mess that up by instilling wrong or misguided strategies/mindsets into my child."

I absolutely agree, which is why I am going to have my daughter focus on her middle school academic education.

I say this as someone who was home schooled from K-12 by... wait for it... my mom, who is an RN. She never touched nursing concepts with me even though I wanted to be a nurse in high school. She just focused on giving me a solid education and built critical thinking skills exercises into her curriculum, starting in kindergarten (this was back in the days before online home schooling was a thing). I have had a pretty easy time of it pulling excellent grades in nursing school - and I'm pretty sure that's a direct result of the time my mom spent teaching me how to think critically/logically when I was a kid. She and my dad never pressured my siblings or me to follow any particular career path, they just worked on making sure we understood the content they taught us and left it up to us to decide what we wanted to do once we finished high school.

I also agree with that. My mother, a retired nurse, made sure I focused on my academic education from K -12 grade. Unfortunately I was not home educated. But as I stated in my last response, I will NOT teach my daughter any nursing concepts at this time. My primary focus for her is to make sure she stays on track with her home school courses and maintains grades that would get her into any college she chooses.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
You haven't completed formal training on how to be an RN to start with. Additionally, you don't have the special education needed to properly train someone to be a nurse.... so I don't think you should be teaching ANY nursing concepts to your child, especially since she's 12. I would be afraid of teaching my kid nursing concepts because I know that nursing schools have their own system that works and I wouldn't want to mess that up by instilling wrong or misguided strategies/mindsets into my child. I say this as someone who was home schooled from K-12 by... wait for it... my mom, who is an RN. She never touched nursing concepts with me even though I wanted to be a nurse in high school. She just focused on giving me a solid education and built critical thinking skills exercises into her curriculum, starting in kindergarten (this was back in the days before online home schooling was a thing). I have had a pretty easy time of it pulling excellent grades in nursing school - and I'm pretty sure that's a direct result of the time my mom spent teaching me how to think critically/logically when I was a kid. She and my dad never pressured my siblings or me to follow any particular career path, they just worked on making sure we understood the content they taught us and left it up to us to decide what we wanted to do once we finished high school.

I am assuming what you mean by "formal training" is that I can't "legally" complete my nursing documentation with RN initials?? You are correct. But I am at the end of my RN program, just waiting for an clinical exit exam date. After that it's on to the state boards. I also assume what you mean by "special education" is that I do not have a BSN degree, again you are correct. But what you failed to do before you chimed in is read my PREVIOUS comments stating that my husband suggested I teach her. My initial post has been taken WAY out of context. I am not an overbearing mother forcing nursing on my daughter.

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Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

From a momma thats been there.... I pulled my daughter from school after she completed 5th grade. She was being "left behind" so that the school could focus on getting the minimum scores for tests - since she scored higher, she was often left with the librarian to "enhance her education". When the librarian contacted me about offsite visits to the public library for additional "enhancement" - it was time to go.

In middle school my daughter wanted to be a vet. She was enrolled in a horsemanship class for PE credit. I spoke with the barn managers and over time (as they felt she was ready for it) she began giving shots, working with ferriers and even the vet. I often teased her that she would "have to put her arm up a horses butt" and she actually did, in addition to delivering a foal and shoving a tube down into their stomach for colic. What she found was that she was unable to grind their teeth down. Because you can't adequately medicate a horse and keep them standing (easiest explanation), there is an amount of pain they must endure during this process. She could put a horse down (and helped with 2) but couldn't bear the thought of doing necessary dental work. My point - allowing her to be in the environment that she thought she wanted to be in, allowed her to see that she didn't want to be there. She also thought she wanted to show horses and after her 1st show realized that she liked training horses more... End of showing horses - beginning of learning to turn retired race horses into sweet calm loving lesson horses.

Fast forward to high school. We had the choice to do dual enrollment or provide her with the remainder of her cirriculum (advanced marine biology, calculus, etc). Her current coursework was harder than the dual enrollment, so we chose to keep her where she was. She worked in a barn, she had a part time job (she was and still is a fish monger - she believes that everyone should be a cashier in a customer service position at some point in their life) - she went to church activities - she had plenty of exposure to kids and people outside of school. She is now a Sophomore in a Math/Comp Sci Major in college - 2 hours away from home. She has adapted well to her situation. She currently still has a 4.0 (although 19 hours and German 2 this semester are gonna ruin that for her) and is involved in Theater, she's a Math TA and somehow has found time for a boyfriend (maybe the reason for the drop in the German grade!!).

We incorporated things she was interested in, into her curriculum. If your daughter is in fact interested, apologia.com has great homeschool resources for your science classes. They have an anatomy and physiology classes. By giving my daughter some freedom to choose her classes, it helped get her to where she is today. She looked forward to May - because she was finishing up school and we would be looking into what books to order for the following year. We homeschooled year round so that she could take vacation when she wanted to. If she didn't want to work for 2 weeks at Christmas - she didn't. If she wanted to work at the barn for a week for kids summer camp or winter camp - she could. If she didn't feel good one day - she just took a day off. We laid out spots in her books to make sure she completed the curriculum by the end of the year and by the time she was in high school - it was her job to make sure she got it done without me "reminding" her. I'm convinced this helped her prepare for college. She is aware of her workload and knows how to prepare to get it done.

I am a huge fan of homeschooling. It isn't for every family or every child. Sometimes you have to put them in public education - sometimes you take them out. I think as long as you are using good teaching materials, teach away. I did develop my own programming curriculum for my daughter in high school, but I used textbooks and other resources to pull it together (I am also a trained database programmer). It is much easier for college transcripts when you can show the actual textbooks used instead of (well - we the parents came up with this all on our own...) Because colleges still aren't completely on board with homeschooled kids and you still sort of have to prove yourself.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
From a momma thats been there.... I pulled my daughter from school after she completed 5th grade. She was being "left behind" so that the school could focus on getting the minimum scores for tests - since she scored higher, she was often left with the librarian to "enhance her education". When the librarian contacted me about offsite visits to the public library for additional "enhancement" - it was time to go.

In middle school my daughter wanted to be a vet. She was enrolled in a horsemanship class for PE credit. I spoke with the barn managers and over time (as they felt she was ready for it) she began giving shots, working with ferriers and even the vet. I often teased her that she would "have to put her arm up a horses butt" and she actually did, in addition to delivering a foal and shoving a tube down into their stomach for colic. What she found was that she was unable to grind their teeth down. Because you can't adequately medicate a horse and keep them standing (easiest explanation), there is an amount of pain they must endure during this process. She could put a horse down (and helped with 2) but couldn't bear the thought of doing necessary dental work. My point - allowing her to be in the environment that she thought she wanted to be in, allowed her to see that she didn't want to be there. She also thought she wanted to show horses and after her 1st show realized that she liked training horses more... End of showing horses - beginning of learning to turn retired race horses into sweet calm loving lesson horses.

Fast forward to high school. We had the choice to do dual enrollment or provide her with the remainder of her cirriculum (advanced marine biology, calculus, etc). Her current coursework was harder than the dual enrollment, so we chose to keep her where she was. She worked in a barn, she had a part time job (she was and still is a fish monger - she believes that everyone should be a cashier in a customer service position at some point in their life) - she went to church activities - she had plenty of exposure to kids and people outside of school. She is now a Sophomore in a Math/Comp Sci Major in college - 2 hours away from home. She has adapted well to her situation. She currently still has a 4.0 (although 19 hours and German 2 this semester are gonna ruin that for her) and is involved in Theater, she's a Math TA and somehow has found time for a boyfriend (maybe the reason for the drop in the German grade!!).

We incorporated things she was interested in, into her curriculum. If your daughter is in fact interested, apologia.com has great homeschool resources for your science classes. They have an anatomy and physiology classes. By giving my daughter some freedom to choose her classes, it helped get her to where she is today. She looked forward to May - because she was finishing up school and we would be looking into what books to order for the following year. We homeschooled year round so that she could take vacation when she wanted to. If she didn't want to work for 2 weeks at Christmas - she didn't. If she wanted to work at the barn for a week for kids summer camp or winter camp - she could. If she didn't feel good one day - she just took a day off. We laid out spots in her books to make sure she completed the curriculum by the end of the year and by the time she was in high school - it was her job to make sure she got it done without me "reminding" her. I'm convinced this helped her prepare for college. She is aware of her workload and knows how to prepare to get it done.

I am a huge fan of homeschooling. It isn't for every family or every child. Sometimes you have to put them in public education - sometimes you take them out. I think as long as you are using good teaching materials, teach away. I did develop my own programming curriculum for my daughter in high school, but I used textbooks and other resources to pull it together (I am also a trained database programmer). It is much easier for college transcripts when you can show the actual textbooks used instead of (well - we the parents came up with this all on our own...) Because colleges still aren't completely on board with homeschooled kids and you still sort of have to prove yourself.

It's good to see a successful home school story. I've decided to let my daughter determine when and what she wants know about the nursing field. I actually had no desire to "educate" her because every nursing program is different. At one time I was using Spectrum series books to teach my children the required curriculum and having them "evaluated" at the end of school. But when you're home educating four you can run into A LOT of issues. So now I have ALL FOUR enrolled in Florida Virtual School. They are eligible to earn a high school diploma (leaves the decision up to them where they want to go for college). Right now it's all about maintaining excellent grades and passing their assessment exams. When she's ready, I'll know which direction to guide her in.

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A helicopter parent is one that feels the need to control every aspect of their child's life. Mostly it is done out if fear of the real world and how it will hurt their child. I see that here. Especially in how defensive you have gotten over people giving you advice. You came on to a public forum and asked, you can't expect everyone to agree with you.

I think homeschooling has its time and place. It can be good for certain situations. I don't think it's good for parents who live in fear. I had two cousins homeschooled. Brothers. My aunt and uncle deemed the public schools in the DC area too dangerous. It didn't work out very well. One of the boys committed suicide at the age of 18. He had a difficult time adjusting to the realities of the real world. So I myself can get a little defensive when I see a parent such as yourself posting about teaching your kid nursing because they finally crossed over, your fear of public schools in regards to bullying. You can't control all aspects of their lives and keep them in a bubble.

I have one kiddo in middle school. It's hard. It's hard to watch them get their hearts broken, hard to watch other kids be mean to them. I get it. Then I think about all the times I had to fall and pick myself back up and what that taught me. It taught me resilience and how to deal with rejection.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the dual degree thing. I know public school kids do it as well. It's oushing too much, too fast. Kids need the full experience of college. They need the social aspect of high school and not to be bogged down with college classes. They need to be adolescents. I kid you not, it's affecting their mental health. Our country is in a mental health crisis. Increased suicide, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, it all comes together in mental illness.

You can blame this on your husband and that's fine. But I'm very sincere in telling you, let your kids decide what they want, and how they want to do it. Your job is to help them get on the right path to get there, but let them be in charge of finding their path. You are to guide them.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
A helicopter parent is one that feels the need to control every aspect of their child's life. Mostly it is done out if fear of the real world and how it will hurt their child. I see that here. Especially in how defensive you have gotten over people giving you advice. You came on to a public forum and asked, you can't expect everyone to agree with you.

I think homeschooling has its time and place. It can be good for certain situations. I don't think it's good for parents who live in fear. I had two cousins homeschooled. Brothers. My aunt and uncle deemed the public schools in the DC area too dangerous. It didn't work out very well. One of the boys committed suicide at the age of 18. He had a difficult time adjusting to the realities of the real world. So I myself can get a little defensive when I see a parent such as yourself posting about teaching your kid nursing because they finally crossed over, your fear of public schools in regards to bullying. You can't control all aspects of their lives and keep them in a bubble.

I have one kiddo in middle school. It's hard. It's hard to watch them get their hearts broken, hard to watch other kids be mean to them. I get it. Then I think about all the times I had to fall and pick myself back up and what that taught me. It taught me resilience and how to deal with rejection.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the dual degree thing. I know public school kids do it as well. It's oushing too much, too fast. Kids need the full experience of college. They need the social aspect of high school and not to be bogged down with college classes. They need to be adolescents. I kid you not, it's affecting their mental health. Our country is in a mental health crisis. Increased suicide, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, it all comes together in mental illness.

You can blame this on your husband and that's fine. But I'm very sincere in telling you, let your kids decide what they want, and how they want to do it. Your job is to help them get on the right path to get there, but let them be in charge of finding their path. You are to guide them.

Thank you for explaining to me what a "helicopter parent" is. Thank goodness I'm not one of those!!! That sounds like a LOT of work. I see you read my comments referring to the FACT that my husband suggest that I teach my daughter what I know. I was in no way blaming anything on my husband, his intentions were good. He just wanted her to be more prepared than I was went I first started my nursing career path.

My children are just like any of the children in the neighborhood they play with. The only difference is my children receive their education at home. I am using a home education program called Florida Virtual School and my only job is to be their Learning Coach. And as the name suggest, a Learning Coach is there to guide the student when they get stuck on something. That sounds far from helicopter parenting.

I'm sorry to hear about your cousin. Fortunately I have accepted some of the advice offered here. I'll let her come to me when and if she's ready. First of all, she's too young and still in middle school. Secondly, she could also change her mind later on.

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