I am entitling this post "Part 1" because, as of this writing, I have not yet found the path out of burnout. I have had many insights since I began writing this blog, but I have yet to put most of them into practice. I am still struggling with despair and sleeplessness, and the more I become determined to change, the harder I fall. I believe I am on the path to recovery, though, so I want to begin sharing those insights.
Over Christmas break, I remembered that I had benefited greatly from a Beth Moore Bible study a number of years ago, so I began reading another book by her. This book, Get Out of That Pit!, spoke directly to my situation, as if Beth Moore knew me personally. I saw that I had slipped into a pit of depression by trying to "fix" myself and my son, primarily to meet others' expectations, and that no human strength--my own, or a friend's--was going to pull me out. The only path out would be calling upon Jesus, my Savior and Deliverer, to "fix" the situation in His own way, on His own timetable. Vitamins, therapy programs and curriculum consultants have their place, but apart from the only One who can intervene, they are worthless. They will only disappoint when they don't meet my superhuman expectations.
I also noticed that my "pit" bears a striking resemblance to another pit I fell into about 20 years ago, before I knew Christ, when I was throwing all my energy into trying to please the God by relying on personal strength. I wanted to make a good impression as the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship co-president and to succeed as a Christian camp counselor; but I devoted so much energy to this quest for perfection that I became angry at God and, essentially, had a nervous breakdown in graduate school. I plunged into a spiral of depression, co-dependency and worse that didn't end until I realized that Jesus Christ was the answer, not myself, and got saved. I never sunk to that level again, though I feared that was happening this autumn. I remembered a woman from our former church who testified three times about her miraculous deliverance from drug abuse before returning to addiction, and I saw myself.
What does that have to do with today? Only that the quest for perfection in our own strength will always lead to burnout, and that we only find hope when we seek divine deliverance. In my current situation, I am only beginning this process.
I am still burned out. We live in a gang-ridden area, so public school is not an option. Instead, we are "coasting." I require daily work from Joe and Lydia, but I lack the energy to seek new approaches or to pursue more remedial programs (which, most likely, burned him out and contributed to his refusal to work). Joe's attitude is gradually improving, but it is not because of anything I have said or done. In fact, the "therapy" that seems to help his visual coordination and confidence most has been piano, and that only because he has an excellent relationship with his piano teacher and loves spending time with her. Most of my programs have resulted in only arguing and rebellion, yet learning from an outsider that he obviously likes has made him persist with a study that most middle school boys would find onerous.
And isn't that what home schooling is all about, at its heart--relationship?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Our Dark Hour, Part 2
Summer 2010 was the calm before the storm. Testing was over; I forgot about school, helped our homeschooling group with several projects, and even found time for some personal interests. Then fall came, and trouble hit. Serious trouble.
Problems often come in bunches, and that certainly proved the case this fall. Lydia began first grade, and for the first time, I had two children to homeschool simultaneously. (Kindergarten had been very light, in spite of her being an early reader.) At the same time that Lydia's education began in earnest, Joe's attention medication stopped working, and he decided that he no longer wanted to be educated. He would sit in distant areas of the house, claiming to do math while I worked with Lydia, and later announce that he hadn't done a thing. The memory of Mom's criticism was not distant, and I panicked. Meanwhile, relationships I had had before began disappearing for various reasons, and I convinced myself I was all alone. The weekend Jim went away was my breaking point; I sat in my bed, crying in despair.
From that point, my personal life went down the tubes fast. I struggled with frighteningly depressive thoughts, of a magnitude I hadn't seen since my early 20's just before I became a Christian. I couldn't sleep, and I began pushing away the people I still encountered. I dreaded waking up to teach each day, and focused on teaching Lydia when I couldn't deal with Joe's resistence anymore. We began going to KCCHS's new co-op, an extremely structured situation which Joe could handle, but I refused to speak to any of the adults involved and was ashmaed to look people in the eye. Guilt and shame consumed me. My entire self-image had been bound up in how well I was schooling my kids, and when Joe stopped making progress, I felt utterly worthless--especially when leaders in our group would quote statistics about the success of home schooled versus public schooled kids. If the Lord hadn't placed us in the gang-ridden east side of Aurora, I probably wouldn't have continued.
As Christmas approached, Joe improved somewhat. His doctor found a new medication regimen that worked, and he had an EEG which ruled out a seizure disorder. I changed my approach: requiring supervision for Joe's work, and combining him in a unit study with Lydia. Unfortunately, my personal demeanor did not recover as well. It is a known fact that people who devote all their energy to "holding it together" without divine help will eventually disintegrate, and that is what happened to me. The weight of taking on all Joe's issues for years, attempting to fix all his problems using my own strength and never succeeding, had caught up with me. I was fine during vacation weeks, when I could forget about school; but when academia returned, so did the depressive thoughts, sleepless nights, and pushing people away. I used Facebook with a "poison pen," venting anger indiscriminately. Although I sought help from my church, I refrained from telling them about my homeschooling struggles because I knew they would tell me to put the children in school; and as difficult as Joe was at home, I knew he would never withstand the drug, alcohol and gang pressures rampant in an east Aurora middle school.
Problems often come in bunches, and that certainly proved the case this fall. Lydia began first grade, and for the first time, I had two children to homeschool simultaneously. (Kindergarten had been very light, in spite of her being an early reader.) At the same time that Lydia's education began in earnest, Joe's attention medication stopped working, and he decided that he no longer wanted to be educated. He would sit in distant areas of the house, claiming to do math while I worked with Lydia, and later announce that he hadn't done a thing. The memory of Mom's criticism was not distant, and I panicked. Meanwhile, relationships I had had before began disappearing for various reasons, and I convinced myself I was all alone. The weekend Jim went away was my breaking point; I sat in my bed, crying in despair.
From that point, my personal life went down the tubes fast. I struggled with frighteningly depressive thoughts, of a magnitude I hadn't seen since my early 20's just before I became a Christian. I couldn't sleep, and I began pushing away the people I still encountered. I dreaded waking up to teach each day, and focused on teaching Lydia when I couldn't deal with Joe's resistence anymore. We began going to KCCHS's new co-op, an extremely structured situation which Joe could handle, but I refused to speak to any of the adults involved and was ashmaed to look people in the eye. Guilt and shame consumed me. My entire self-image had been bound up in how well I was schooling my kids, and when Joe stopped making progress, I felt utterly worthless--especially when leaders in our group would quote statistics about the success of home schooled versus public schooled kids. If the Lord hadn't placed us in the gang-ridden east side of Aurora, I probably wouldn't have continued.
As Christmas approached, Joe improved somewhat. His doctor found a new medication regimen that worked, and he had an EEG which ruled out a seizure disorder. I changed my approach: requiring supervision for Joe's work, and combining him in a unit study with Lydia. Unfortunately, my personal demeanor did not recover as well. It is a known fact that people who devote all their energy to "holding it together" without divine help will eventually disintegrate, and that is what happened to me. The weight of taking on all Joe's issues for years, attempting to fix all his problems using my own strength and never succeeding, had caught up with me. I was fine during vacation weeks, when I could forget about school; but when academia returned, so did the depressive thoughts, sleepless nights, and pushing people away. I used Facebook with a "poison pen," venting anger indiscriminately. Although I sought help from my church, I refrained from telling them about my homeschooling struggles because I knew they would tell me to put the children in school; and as difficult as Joe was at home, I knew he would never withstand the drug, alcohol and gang pressures rampant in an east Aurora middle school.
Fix It, Now
Sixth grade saw a dramatic change in our approach to curriculum. Remedial, remedial, remedial was our new theme song. I purchased an entire K-8 basal reading program (left from the '50's!) and took Joe back to a second-grade reader that summer, retraining him each night under the guise of "reading Lydia a bedtime story." Gone was the literature-based English program we had used for three years; I learned, too late, that "Learning Language Arts through Literature" had miserable reviews, and attributed his low scores to that program. We began a multi-faceted remedial program which included comprehension work, reading workbooks, intensive phonics, "Easy Grammar," "Daily Grams" and "Reading and Reasoning." Science and geography continued, but with only a fraction of the intensity I had pursued them during our Sonlight days. The tester had also recommended a exercise program involving racquet balls and hula hoops. We added that to the daily repertoire, too, though none of us could understand how bouncing balls would make him a better reader.
I intended to retest Joe in the spring, so we also incorporated test-taking drills. This time, we had to succeed. So much seemed to be riding on it: my personal dignity, Joe's future, my position in the homeschooling community, and, last but not least...
My relationship with Mom. Yes, my mother, the retired school psychologist who had become furious when I announced our intentions to homeschool seven years earlier.
Perhaps some family background is in order. From the word "go," my family has been grounded in academia. On my father's side, we had grandfathers and great-grandfathers attaining advanced degrees from Ivy League institutions. My dad did graduate work at Harvard and attained his PhD at Rutgers, after which he became a history and classics professor. My mother also attained a graduate degree, and her brother became a professor at Washington University where he helped design the PET scan. I was raised in an atmosphere where academics meant everything. Imagine the sense of inadequacy I took on when I found out that my son, my student, was not measuring up! The pressure built up when we took our summer vacation to the family homestead. Daughters don't feel right when they keep dirty secrets from Mom.
My relationship with Mom. Yes, my mother, the retired school psychologist who had become furious when I announced our intentions to homeschool seven years earlier.
Perhaps some family background is in order. From the word "go," my family has been grounded in academia. On my father's side, we had grandfathers and great-grandfathers attaining advanced degrees from Ivy League institutions. My dad did graduate work at Harvard and attained his PhD at Rutgers, after which he became a history and classics professor. My mother also attained a graduate degree, and her brother became a professor at Washington University where he helped design the PET scan. I was raised in an atmosphere where academics meant everything. Imagine the sense of inadequacy I took on when I found out that my son, my student, was not measuring up! The pressure built up when we took our summer vacation to the family homestead. Daughters don't feel right when they keep dirty secrets from Mom.
So, in Jim's presence, I told her. At first she was surprisingly sympathetic, offering all kinds of advice. "I know he can do it," she said. That was soon to change, though, when we returned the following spring. Mom laid into me with crushing blows. She told me that he needed to get serious, now, about his academic future; that he wouldn't have bombed the test if he had been prepped in public school; that he didn't like learning. She believed that he couldn't read at all. I left that vacation feeling like a total failure, and, once again, set out to fix everything myself.
We tested again last spring, using the California Achievement Test untimed. This time, Joe did amazingly well, scoring above grade-level in areas he had failed the year before. I then began to wonder if the problem was less in Joe's abilities than in his inability to attend to a task. The fluency issues were real; it took him three times the allotted time limit to finish the math section, yet he got nearly all the answers right. The professional tester had tested him in several three-hour blocks, giving only snack breaks, but I tested only half an hour a day and his scores vaulted. Did Joe perform so poorly because he couldn't attend for that length of time? I could only hope.
We tested again last spring, using the California Achievement Test untimed. This time, Joe did amazingly well, scoring above grade-level in areas he had failed the year before. I then began to wonder if the problem was less in Joe's abilities than in his inability to attend to a task. The fluency issues were real; it took him three times the allotted time limit to finish the math section, yet he got nearly all the answers right. The professional tester had tested him in several three-hour blocks, giving only snack breaks, but I tested only half an hour a day and his scores vaulted. Did Joe perform so poorly because he couldn't attend for that length of time? I could only hope.
Are We Learning?
As Joe grew older, though, another dark shadow began to creep across the radar: the suspicion of learning problems. I tried not to think about it, but the signs were there: the fact that I read to him all day long, yet he read little himself; the mental blocks with arithmetic facts; the sense that he wasn't really comprehending the books I read out loud; the fact that I was constantly altering assignments; his tendency to reverse letters; and the fact that he could do virtually nothing without one-on-one assistance.
Following the advice of an HSLDA consultant and Joe's piano teacher, a veteran homeschooler, I started Joe on a regimin of dietary supplements and visual integration exercises. When that didn't work, I bought a remedial program, Audiblox, which promised miraculous healing for children with learning disabilities if we did block sequencing and directional exercises half an hour each day. The program ate into academic time and caused fights, so we discontinued it after one semester. I applied for an HSLDA Foundation grant to have him tested by a home schooling-friendly therapist in Wheaton, and was approved.
The results were not good. Joe's scores showed vast extremes: three years above grade level in math concepts, and three years below in fluency; 90th percentile in block design, third percentile in memory; inconsistent scores in reading comprehension, all well below grade level. Panic and guilt set in. It didn't help that shortly before the testing fiasco, we had been kicked out of an unstructured co-op/playgroup in Plainfield. Joe forgot his medication and became violent, and I was intimidated by the group and failed to control him. A member of our support group's leadership team had told me that I needed to be very, very careful who my children associated with, even among solid Christian families, and now the finger was pointing squarely in my face. I didn't think I deserved friends after getting kicked out, and even avoided Sunday school for a month to "punish" myself. Once again, I was determined to fix everything.
Following the advice of an HSLDA consultant and Joe's piano teacher, a veteran homeschooler, I started Joe on a regimin of dietary supplements and visual integration exercises. When that didn't work, I bought a remedial program, Audiblox, which promised miraculous healing for children with learning disabilities if we did block sequencing and directional exercises half an hour each day. The program ate into academic time and caused fights, so we discontinued it after one semester. I applied for an HSLDA Foundation grant to have him tested by a home schooling-friendly therapist in Wheaton, and was approved.
The results were not good. Joe's scores showed vast extremes: three years above grade level in math concepts, and three years below in fluency; 90th percentile in block design, third percentile in memory; inconsistent scores in reading comprehension, all well below grade level. Panic and guilt set in. It didn't help that shortly before the testing fiasco, we had been kicked out of an unstructured co-op/playgroup in Plainfield. Joe forgot his medication and became violent, and I was intimidated by the group and failed to control him. A member of our support group's leadership team had told me that I needed to be very, very careful who my children associated with, even among solid Christian families, and now the finger was pointing squarely in my face. I didn't think I deserved friends after getting kicked out, and even avoided Sunday school for a month to "punish" myself. Once again, I was determined to fix everything.
Being Careful...and Having Fun
Treatment that Joe received in the hospital left him a calmer, more compliant child. He expressed sincere remorse over the behavior that had led to this point, and the violent behavior occured far less frequently. The winter crisis had left a sizeable gap in our schooling, but we tried to pick up where we left off, and we succeeded in completing most of our planned studies.
The downside, though, was increased professional scrutiny from the doctors and therapists that we could no longer avoid. As fourth grade began, I became much more defensive of our schooling practices, as if someone were constantly watching us in search of records and proof. Joe's new doctor, a developmental pediatrician, vehemently opposed homeschooling, and took me to task in front of the children at each dreaded appointment. He demanded detailed accounts of Joe's "socialization," and I had to enroll him in numerous outside activities to avoid trouble with this doctor. We continued the HSLDA membership, collected pro-homeschooling articles, learned to keep academic portfolios, and watched our whereabouts during school hours, for I could not forget that we had slipped past all the professionals who said he "had to be in public school."
Still, we continued homeschooling, and Joy Academy seemed to prosper. We studied United States history, read novels aloud, made a poetry folders and created a time capsule. As fifth grade started, I became somewhat braver in our support group. We hosted a political discussion in our home, dissected a heart with another family, and even researched our old house. Yes--on a good day, I could even admit we were having fun.
The downside, though, was increased professional scrutiny from the doctors and therapists that we could no longer avoid. As fourth grade began, I became much more defensive of our schooling practices, as if someone were constantly watching us in search of records and proof. Joe's new doctor, a developmental pediatrician, vehemently opposed homeschooling, and took me to task in front of the children at each dreaded appointment. He demanded detailed accounts of Joe's "socialization," and I had to enroll him in numerous outside activities to avoid trouble with this doctor. We continued the HSLDA membership, collected pro-homeschooling articles, learned to keep academic portfolios, and watched our whereabouts during school hours, for I could not forget that we had slipped past all the professionals who said he "had to be in public school."
Still, we continued homeschooling, and Joy Academy seemed to prosper. We studied United States history, read novels aloud, made a poetry folders and created a time capsule. As fifth grade started, I became somewhat braver in our support group. We hosted a political discussion in our home, dissected a heart with another family, and even researched our old house. Yes--on a good day, I could even admit we were having fun.
Our Dark Hour
Unfortunately, the relational side of our home school, now called Joy Academy, did not flourish nearly as well. Joe's hyperactivity continued and, despite a trial of medication and counseling, he began to exhibit increasingly violent behavior. My eight-year-old showed exceptional ability at designing machines, including a Radio Shack motor, but he threw punches and threatened to beat me up so often that I repeatedly called the emergency pastor at church. In September 2006 we moved to a new house, which doubled our floor space and gave each child his own room, but the pressure of leaving our old neighborhood and friends proved too much for Joe. In the winter of third grade he repeatedly tried to throw himself over the staircase, and he flew into rage fits which forced Jim to restrain him for hours at a time. We eventually had to hospitalize him for a week.
Joe's hospitalization was definitely the darkest time our family has seen, and the fact that we continued home schooling through all this was nothing short of a miracle. Every professional we encountered told us he had to be placed in public school; the hospital informed our district that we were home schooling an emotionally disturbed child; and even our church told us that his problems were caused by lack of classroom experience. I escaped social work intervention by the skin of my teeth. By every right, we should have lost our freedom to home school, but we managed to slip past professional scrutiny and continue. I considered seeking help through the system for some of his more difficult issues, but changed my mind after some difficult encounters with the professionals who were working with our autistic son, David.
We continued, now card-carrying members of Home School Legal Defense and a Christian homeschool support group. Still, I knew that the kind of problems we had had were unacceptable in the home school world, and I kept a low profile--even offering to leave the support group, because we were an embarrassment and a discredit to the miraculous benefits of homeschooling. We were told not to, that others have had trouble with their children; but the stigma lingered, especially when others talked about the "selective socialization" that would inevitably leave us out.
Joe's hospitalization was definitely the darkest time our family has seen, and the fact that we continued home schooling through all this was nothing short of a miracle. Every professional we encountered told us he had to be placed in public school; the hospital informed our district that we were home schooling an emotionally disturbed child; and even our church told us that his problems were caused by lack of classroom experience. I escaped social work intervention by the skin of my teeth. By every right, we should have lost our freedom to home school, but we managed to slip past professional scrutiny and continue. I considered seeking help through the system for some of his more difficult issues, but changed my mind after some difficult encounters with the professionals who were working with our autistic son, David.
We continued, now card-carrying members of Home School Legal Defense and a Christian homeschool support group. Still, I knew that the kind of problems we had had were unacceptable in the home school world, and I kept a low profile--even offering to leave the support group, because we were an embarrassment and a discredit to the miraculous benefits of homeschooling. We were told not to, that others have had trouble with their children; but the stigma lingered, especially when others talked about the "selective socialization" that would inevitably leave us out.
Homeschool: the Beginning
I don't suppose homeschooling has ever come easily for us. When announced our intentions, back in 2002, we became the laughingstocks of my extended family and the objects of my mother's wrath. Joe was four years old, and my idea of homeschooling preschool was to imitate show-and-tell with his baby brother and stuffed animals. No wonder we had little credibility! Two years later, when Lydia was born, I put Joe in public school--and three months later, we brought him home, for good. O'Donnell Elementary School was a catastrophic disaster; Joe's hyperactivity and distractability were wreaking havoc in the classroom, and his teacher called me multiple times a week to tell me that no one liked him. She and the social worker complained about him constantly, yet no one offered help, and the principal said he had no special needs. So, home he went, to a "school" equipped with two workbooks since we hadn't budgeted for this. I had a newborn and a four-year-old who had just been diagnosed with autism.
Thus we began. Despite our lack of materials, it didn't take long to catch our academic sails, and the fun started. Joe and I studied the United States during the remainder of first grade, which afforded me many opportunities to milk my creative juices. Hawaii week had us cracking a coconut; Georgia, making homemade peanut butter; Oklahoma, opening a Route 66 diner in our kitchen; and Oregon, recreating the Oregon Trail using sofa cushions for mountains and a laundry basket for a covered wagon. When second grade rolled around, Sonlight had entered the picture, and we read, read and read some more. Academic life was good.
Thus we began. Despite our lack of materials, it didn't take long to catch our academic sails, and the fun started. Joe and I studied the United States during the remainder of first grade, which afforded me many opportunities to milk my creative juices. Hawaii week had us cracking a coconut; Georgia, making homemade peanut butter; Oklahoma, opening a Route 66 diner in our kitchen; and Oregon, recreating the Oregon Trail using sofa cushions for mountains and a laundry basket for a covered wagon. When second grade rolled around, Sonlight had entered the picture, and we read, read and read some more. Academic life was good.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year's Day, 2011
As 2011 dawns, I find myself surrounded by people making resolutions. Joe, almost 13, wants to start brushing his teeth every day and also open his own business. Hubby Jim wants to lose weight (after the holiday!) and work his way out of his truck-driving job. Lydia, age 6, just wants to play with her friends outside when spring comes, and collect more money from the Tooth Fairy. Ten-year-old David, severely autistic, is the object of our resolutions: get him toilet trained, for the third time, and hopefully stay out of time-consuming biofeedback therapy.
This blog is the child of my own resolution: the resolve to make a fresh start in 2011, to lay rest to the futility and discouragement that colored so much of my homeschooling experience in 2010, to cruise gracefully through midlife instead of retreating into a second adolescence. Christmas vacation has afforded me the chance to put homeschooling on the back burner, to wash my hands of the job for two weeks, bake cookies and pick up a new knitting project. It's easier to enjoy our kids when reading worksheets and math facts are not on the table--yet, come January 3, we will continue.
Why?
This blog is the child of my own resolution: the resolve to make a fresh start in 2011, to lay rest to the futility and discouragement that colored so much of my homeschooling experience in 2010, to cruise gracefully through midlife instead of retreating into a second adolescence. Christmas vacation has afforded me the chance to put homeschooling on the back burner, to wash my hands of the job for two weeks, bake cookies and pick up a new knitting project. It's easier to enjoy our kids when reading worksheets and math facts are not on the table--yet, come January 3, we will continue.
Why?
I am not the kind of person who is likely to give a testimony before a group. Hopefully, no one will ask me to after hearing the story of our home schooling journey, to date. Writing this has not been easy, and some of what I say may offend; but my wish is that this blog may ultimately bless others, to help them avoid some of the traps I have fallen into, to show them that they are not alone and that it is possible to continue home schooling through very difficult times.
Summer 2010 was the calm before the storm. Testing was over; I forgot about school, did several projects for our homeschooling group, and even found time for some personal interests. Then fall came, and trouble hit. Serious trouble.
Problems often come in bunches, and that certainly proved the case this fall. Lydia began first grade, and for the first time, I had two children to homeschool simultaneously. (Kindergarten had been very light, in spite of her being an early reader.) At the same time that Lydia's education began in earnest, Joe's attention medication stopped working, and he decided that he no longer wanted to be educated. He would sit in distant areas of the house, claiming to do math while I worked with Lydia, and later announce that he hadn't done a thing. The memory of Mom's criticism was not distant, and I panicked. Meanwhile, relationships I had had before began disappearing various reasons, and I convinced myself I was all alone. The weekend Jim went away was my breaking point; I sat in my bed, crying in despair.
From that point, my personal life went down the tubes fast. I struggled with frighteningly depressive thoughts, of a magnitude I hadn't seen since my early 20's just before I became a Christian. I couldn't sleep, and I began picking arguments and pushing away the people I still encountered. I dreaded waking up to teach each day, and focused on teaching Lydia when I couldn't deal with Joe's resistence anymore. We began going to KCCHS's new co-op, an extremely structured situation which Joe could handle, but I refused to speak to any of the adults involved. Guilt and shame consumed me. My entire self-image had been bound up in how well I was schooling my kids, and when Joe stopped making progress, I felt utterly worthless--especially when leaders in our group would quote statistics about the success of homeschooled versus public schooled kids. If the Lord hadn't placed us in the gang-ridden east side of Aurora, I probably wouldn't have continued.
As Christmas approached, Joe improved somewhat. His doctor found a new medication regimen that worked, and he had an EEG which ruled out a seizure disorder. I changed my approach: requiring supervision for Joe's work, and combining him in unit study with Lydia (yes, the same United States study we had done six years ago!) Unfortunately, my personal demeanor did not recover as well. It is a known fact that people who devote all their energy to "holding it together" without divine help will eventually disintegrate, and that is what happened to me. The weight of taking on all Joe's issues for years, attempting to fix all his problems using my own strength and never succeeding, had caught up with me. I was fine during vacation weeks, when I could forget about school, but when academia returned, so did the depressive thoughts, sleepless nights, picking arguments and pushing people away. I sought help from my church, but I couldn't tell them about my homeschooling struggles because I knew they were opposed.
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