.

I hope you are able to take care of yourself, and you feel better soon. :grouphug:

I'm not following your trajectory here. I was just answering Sparkly's question about why parents are putting their kids into so many activities. I don't think parents who overschedule their kids are doing so to teach them humanity so they can solve the moral dilemmas of our time. I think they are doing it so their kids have lots to put in their college applications.

I had daily chores. My step-mom implemented them, which is a whole other story that probably only my therapist is interested in. :lol:

I think ultimately, yes. It's about "being successful," no? I bet for some parents it is them living through their children, but for lots it's in attempts to guarantee their children's future. (Not saying this is the right way to do it, but I see it in my circles.)

I think I just read it differently. I didn't read it as "kids these days are morally bankrupt." I read it as, "all of this recent focus on children being happy and having high self-esteem may be backfiring. Maybe we over-corrected?"

Simplicity Parenting is my favorite parenting book. I'm a self-help book junkie, (parenting books especially because I was not raised the way I would like to raise my kids) not so much now that I'm in therapy. Ha!

Depends on the age I guess? Does a teen in school all day who plays a sport and has lots of homework from AP classes have time to mow the lawn? Do the dinner dishes? I honestly don't know, but I can see how those things aren't required because of so many other commitments.

I think having an over abundance of anything has great potential to cause ambivalence as opposed to gratitude.

Yeah she lost me there. It was a sloppy way to end the article.

You don't think parenting is different for this generation? Everything is so kid-centric now, and the pressure has to be more than my mom experienced. I get what you're saying that every generation complains about the next, but I do think we face unique challenges as parents to this next generation as far as reigning in expectations and instilling work ethic. (I especially agreed with the point about over scheduled kids not even having time to do chores.)

I do think this generation of kids is different because of the technology available, and living in an age of abundance. Toys have never been cheaper. It's easy for parents to go overboard, IMO. Of course no one here does.... ;)

Whoa. Wrong crowd. Lol

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/06/30/parenting-spoiled-kids/ I think there are a lot of great points. It feels like the pendulum is swinging. We definitely need to start a chore requirement. My kids balk when I ask them to do anything.

I have a BA in English, with a creative writing emphasis. I'm going back for my masters soon to make connections and get back in the swing of working.

Maybe he's just bored of phonics? If he's already reading easy readers, maybe just practice reading for a while, and sneak in the phonics as he needs it?

Thank you for the book rec!

I missed the question about math. We accelerate SM, so we do CWP and IP on level with the texts. We actually only do text problems and IP at this point, which isn't a lot of problems at all. Sometimes we do CWP, but usually I don't find it necessary. There are word problems in the IP so that's satisfied the challenge there. I understand it's scary to skip. I've been there, got the tee shirt. You can probably search this board and find 100 post from me asking these same questions. What helped me chill out about it was realizing we have the gift of time. He's 6. If you have to layer in something you missed because you realized "oh, maybe he does need a little instruction," you have time. I'm not advocating skipping for accelerations sake, but if he's got the math down and he's ready to move on, don't worry about doing every problem. As far as the reading, obviously you are free to teach how you see fit, that's the beauty of this all. I'm of the school that just because they are capable, doesn't mean the time is right. It was always my number one goal to instill a love of reading in my kids, so I've operated with that in mind. My older DS never had phonics instruction, as he taught himself to read, and my youngers both learned to read at Montessori school, so I only have an rough idea what it entails. (I understand what phonics are, it's just I've never seen any of the books often mentioned here OPGTR, and 100 easy lessons) I'm only speaking to the pushing of reading in general, which I'm not even saying you're doing, just throwing this all out there.

I only bought the teacher manual of Building Poems I think.

There's plenty of research and studies about the negative effects of pushing reading at 5, I would at least look at it and go from there.

I definitely agree. I think there are just varying opinions about when and how much, which makes sense because every kid is different.

I don't know, my almost 9 year old is moving into a more academic routine fine. We were pretty unstructured up until this past year and actually only ever ran into problems when I tried to force a routine onto him. Doing phonics (or whatever) every day (to the point of tears at times) would not work here, nor would I want it to. ETA: Not saying the PP's are wrong, just saying what's worked and not worked for us.

YES.

Ok, I really have no qualifications to give advice, but here I go anyways. First I need to clarify, I didn't mean follow his lead as to what to study and which curricula to choose (all though that is valid advice, it wasn't what I was getting at.) I meant as far as how much school work, and how much you push academics. Do I think a 6 year old needs phonics instruction every day? Nope. Especially not one ahead of the curve. I can't really speak any more to it than that because I didn't even do phonics instruction, but that's because of the kid I had. There were MONTHS where all my kid did was play legos. I can't help as far as the not wanting him to think all one does is play, I don't see that as a negative at 6. I think you have time to slowly introduce the concept of hard work in other ways, but I firmly believe play IS work at this stage. The thing I'm trying to express is, I can't tell you how to follow your own kid's lead. (And I'm not trying to come across as harsh.) It's an acquired skill that is stemmed in knowing your kid, i.e. the relationship. Posters can give advice on how to change things up, but you are the one who has to figure out what the kid needs. I know that sounds scary! Believe me, I was here on a regular basis trying to get someone, anyone, to tell me how to do this! And it is compounded ounce you add in a gifted aspect, because there is even less in common with the general population of kids. I don't know if that helped. I'm just letting you know what I've learned in the past 4 years we've been homeschooling, and I'm thankful that I did, or I'd be beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how to get my kid to do X, for X amount of time like I thought he needed.