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caedmyn

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Posts posted by caedmyn

  1. My dyslexic and very, very ADHD and highly meltdown-prone 1st grader has been doing Abecedarian (Phonographix-based program) for reading and spelling, with bits of Barton 1 & 2 thrown in as necessary. He did fine last year with Level A, which roughly covered what Barton 2 & 3 covers.  ("Fine" meaning we did very short lessons and went through lots and lots of Smarties, and I really really needed a nap after every lesson. But he understood the content.)

    This year he's in Level B and they've introduced more complicated vowel spellings--specifically different spellings for long O, and OU/OW. It's working for reading those sounds, but not even remotely for spelling. I can't even convince him that "ow" is an actual sound by itself, ie ONE sound, not o-w. As soon as we start any of the spelling pages he starts yawning and his eyes glaze over. Clearly Abecedarian is not going to work for spelling, which is exactly the conclusion I came to three dyslexic kids ago. But...I cannot face Barton again. This is kid #5 with dyslexia. I did Barton 1-8 with the first two. Did some of Barton then switched to an online tutor for the next two. #5 is the most ADHD of the bunch (and that's saying a lot), and the least cooperative. I just cannot face years and years of Barton again, even with a tutor.

    But he has to do SOMETHING for spelling, something that won't make me want to rip my hair out every time we do it. Preferably something that won't take years and years to get through, because I'd really, really like this kid to be able to go to school in 3rd grade, or 4th grade at the latest. Kid #1, my stealth dyslexic child, did a few different morpheme-based spelling programs (Sopris Rewards, Megawords), but I don't think #5 is old enough for any of them. I have Apples & Pears but I think it's too much writing at this point. Should I try All About Spelling? I'm not sure how much less hair-pulling-inducing that's going to be than Barton. Nessy? At least I wouldn't have to teach anything. Ignore spelling entirely for this year? I'm just not sure what to do. Open to other program suggestions also.

    And thank God kid #6, just starting K, does NOT appear to be dyslexic. He actually remembers the sounds from lesson to lesson, has a functioning working memory, focuses, and is a breeze to work with. It's truly amazing.

  2. My 6yo is starting K this year.  He is probably dyslexic (family history and has some signs and symptoms).  He is also very, very ADHD and tends to be oppositional.  I think it will be absolute torture trying to do Barton with him.  I also don't want to spend several years going through it.  My other dyslexic kids who started Barton in K took 4-5 years to get through Level 8 which is where we stop.  Wondering what else is out there for dyslexia that's geared for younger kids. I've thought about using Abecedarian + a separate program for spelling but not sure what.

  3. My 5.5yo is most likely dyslexic (4 older siblings with dyslexia and he has signs also).  He is very uncooperative in general, and very very ADHD.  His older siblings have all used/are using Barton through Level 8, but I’m considering using a different reading/spelling program with him because I just don’t want to spend years slogging through Barton with an uncooperative ADHD kid.  2 years of Pinwheels seems more manageable than 3-4 years of Barton.   Has anyone used Pinwheels with a dyslexic kid?  Was it enough to get them reading well?  

    The end goal would be for him to read well enough to attend a small private school that doesn’t offer accomodations.  His three siblings who’ve finished Barton 8 are doing well there.  Sibling #4 is likely severely dyslexic and in Barton level 6 currently and will probably need some accomodations for school if I can talk the school into them.  I’m guessing the 5.5yo is moderately dyslexic.

  4. 6 hours ago, Emily ZL said:

    You know, I know he's only 8, but sometimes with this situation it can be nice -- if at all possible with this child -- to give the child his subjects in a basket or milk crate with a list of assignments and try to have him work independently. It goes without saying that this method only works when there are some awesome rewards for getting work done before a certain time and consistent consequences (especially reinforced by Dad playing the heavy) for not doing so. But the main benefit is that sometimes there just starts to develop this bad atmosphere between mom and boy, with the boy resenting having to "play school" with fake mom teacher and be the performing monkey, with mom saying "what's the answer" and "now listen to me teach" and it's all resented. I was in those circumstances with an 8 yo boy and it just got a lot better when he was responsible for his own work and just called me in for help. In those cases, I would use language like "hmm, that's tricky. Let's see if we can figure this out together." That validates the struggle and is less "teacher-y" and more fellow learner. If he ever reverted to the "potato" or random number answer, I'd just walk away and tell him I will help him when he's ready. It did take some tweaking of the rewards and consequences to get it right, but it really improved the atmosphere.

    This worked well for one of his brothers.  This child can’t really read though (dyslexic, doing tutoring, just taking him forever) so he can’t do much independently.  Even for math I have to stay close to read the instructions to him.

  5. 12 hours ago, Alice Lamb said:

    Has he been watching "Odd Squad" on PBS?  The "potato" thing is something one of the characters does that annoys the other kids on the show. While there's some off-the-wall humor and a little (very light) K-3 math, if he's picking up the annoying behavior more than math, he loses that privilege.

     

    Yes, they watch that all the time!  Now that I know where he’s getting it from I’ll have a talk with him about it.

  6. 7 hours ago, freesia said:

    Oh, the Mondays!  Both my boys really struggled.  Number one thing that helped is me just expecting it to be hard for them. I am less frustrated when I don't have a high expectation.

    I would also ignore passive aggressive and find a way not to engage verbally with it.  But I would expect compliance.  One thing I did at that age, with that type of behavior is to buy a candle with a 7-8 hour burn time.  I would light it at the beginning of the work period and blow it out if whatever behavior I was trying to exterminate happened.  So, in your case, I would say, "Mondays are hard, I know.  It's hard to get back to work and it feels funny or easier to you to say "potato" as an answer.  You know I don't like that and it isn't helpful for your learning, either.  So, I have this candle.  It will burn for 7 hours.  It stays lit as long as the answers you give are helpful, clear and serious. You know what I expect.  I will decide if I need to blow out the candle.  After it is blown out, it stays out until (next Monday, tomorrow, etc.)  I will not answer you if you argue withe me.  When the candle burns down you may (get a new toy, have an extra hour of screen time, whatever your family uses)."  Then you do it.

    I have also put 10 chocolate chips in front of a child and said, "If you can get through this lesson without xyz, you get the chocolate chips.  For every time you do something like  say potato (or whatever) I will eat one.  You get what remains.  I am the ultimate decider.  If you argue at all, I will eat them all (or eat another one)"

    The key is to be consistent, don't argue about it. Follow through.  Also, admit that Mondays kind of suck, but we all have to find ways to cope.  Your ds's coping skill is not working well for your family.  You might also want to brainstorm some better coping skills with him (separate from introducing candles or choc chips.)

    I think he’d respond well to chocolate chips so I’ll try that with him.  Maybe I can offer him one for each thing he gets done before we officially start school also.  He can get done quickly when he buckles down and does his work, but when he doesn’t care to work it’s a tiring battle to get him to stay in his seat and work.

    • Like 2
  7. 7 hours ago, Lori D. said:

    Mondays have to be tough on him, as everyone else "does their special thing" -- i.e. , goes away to school -- and he's stuck home alone to do school.

    Could you switch things around and start off Mondays with a "bang" so he's excited and looking forward into starting his new school week, and can feel pride that he has his own "special thing" that the others don't get *because* he homeschooling?

    How about Monday's start off with:
    -  a kit or hands-on project or activity/demo from Science, or Art
    - together play an educational game or two
    - together watch an educational video and talk about it, or follow up with a short children's nonfiction book on the same topic
    - do a nature walk and collect leaves or rocks or other items
    - read-aloud a chapter out of an especially exciting (to him) book

    Also, starting the morning with some strenuous physical exercise can burn off that excess energy used on grumping about everything. 😉 -- So, trampoline jumping, jump roping, running, brisk walking, biking, etc. If there's access to a bigger swimming pool, swimming laps is great. Aerobics or dancing to music, or the X-box + dance mat + "Dance Dance Revolution" game.

    Another option might be as simple as having him drop one subject per day. Either let him pick which to drop (and then Tues. there are 4 choices to pick from, etc., until by the end of the week each of 5 subjects has been dropped once for the week), or write each subject on a slip of paper and he draws one out of the jar and that gets dropped for the day. That moves each of your 5 major subjects to just 4x/week, but it can give the student a sense of not being so overwhelmed, and a little bit of control if they get to drop one subject for the day.

    [and yes, if helping him have his own special Monday morning thing doesn't work, then @freesia's "suck it buttercup" techniques might have to be the next option... 😉 ]

    I don’t think it has anything to do with his siblings being in school as Mondays were awful for all the boys when they were all homeschooling.    We do school four days a week already, but I could offer to let him pick one of his lesser “subjects” (math flashcards, copywork, memory work) to drop on Mondays.  His school day only about 1.5 hrs a day anyway so it’s not like he’s overloaded with work.  Exercise might help also if I can get him to do it.  Maybe I can come up with an easy obstacle course for him and his little brothers to do in the mornings.  They’d probably all like that.

  8. Mondays are always awful.  My lone homeschooled kid (8 yo) is always pokey and uncooperative on Mondays.  He’s passive-aggressively uncooperative in general, but definitely worse on Mondays.  Anyone have a way to make Mondays go better?  

    Also, if anyone has found a good way to get cooperation from a passive-aggressive kid...he does things like randomly answer questions with “Potato”, or instead of telling me what one dollar plus three dimes is, will say, “More than a dollar.” He knows the answer, apparently it’s just more fun to not give it.  He does some version if this all day long but especially during school time.

  9. I've had six completely uncomplicated home births, including two surprise breeches, needing no more assistance than someone to catch the baby and help me to the bed afterwards.  Unassisted births are still outside my comfort zone.  Though if I had to choose between a hospital birth (for a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy) and an unassisted birth, I might choose an unassisted birth.

    • Like 1
  10. 4 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

    OP, I do not have any advice to give about this, but I am going to tell you of a time when I was a teen for I see strong parallels between this and many of your posts though I grew up in a different country and culture.

    I grew up in a gender based culture to very loving parents. But at 12 or 13 if you told me my parents loved me, I would not have believed you especially my mom. All I wanted  was to be treated equally to my brother and not be prevented from doing things because I was a girl. It made life very difficult for me for it affected my education, my movements outside and generally how my day to day life was lived.

    Since my culture is heavily patriarchal and my dad knew no better he tried to raise me in a way that the culture said girls should be and though mom disagreed with him, the culture and because she took the vow to obey and submit to her husband as part of her wedding vows she believed she must always defer to my dad's wishes. So she always tried to fix me when it was clear to me if she only stood up to my dad, it would make it so much better. So we had almost daily conflicts between us, I almost hated my mom for that. It came to head until it was very clear that for me to live the life I wanted which was just to be treated as an equal to my brother, she had to take a stand with my father instead of trying to always fix me. 

    I can still remember what happened. My gentle, soft spoken mother raised her voice against my dad probably for the very first and last time in their life and said she will not stand for her daughter to be treated unequally to her son. I have tears in my eyes writing this because I realized that day how much my mother loved me, how much she had to overcome to stand up for me because she had to overcome the culture she was raised and the idea that she was dishonoring her wedding vows if she went against her husband. It changed my life completely. I have no doubt in my mind that the life I live today is directly because my mom stood up for me. My dad is also a very loving person, he has always loved me, but preconceived ideas about how a girl should be raised hurt our relationship. My father changed and my mom got more used to speaking up. My brother parents his daughter differently than how I was raised because how it affected me.

    In all your posts, two things come clearly across to me. Your love for your children and how you seem to be caught between doing what is best for them and your DH's ideas. You seem to be trying to fix your children when I truly think if you try to change your DH's ideas it will benefit all of you. 

    I left the country of my origin almost 20 years ago but I have the most loving and close relationship with my parents now living across continents  which I did not have when I was living in the same house. It changed because my mom stood up for me. Our entire family did.  It was not easy and she had to overcome so much. So it maybe for you too. But I can tell you it was worth it in terms of the life of my brother and me and also relationship wise. 

    I agree that it would benefit all of us if DH changed his ideas.  I’ve tried. He is unwilling to change his ideas.  I do stand up for my kids, which doesn’t change DH’s ideas any, but is at least somewhat helpful for them.  I just have to pick the battles that I feel are most worth fighting, because I don’t have the energy to fight them all.

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  11. 31 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

    Did everyone miss this bolded and underlined important detail?

    Really?  You rant like she’s a horrible slob and human and she might be but this has happened FOUR times?  That’s not going to ruin anything unless it’s left that way. Tell her to clean her own laundry and supervise the carpet cleaning. And then move on already.

    If you genuinely think your child has a problem that needs medical help - then tell husband to either shut up or get on board with getting your child the medical help they need to manage living in a world filled with humans they need to interact with. I don’t think that you need his approval to take your child in.

    But this scenario is extremely typical of any teen or cat and all this anger over something that happens maybe once a quarter seems very overblown to me.

    I’d begin to think the poor kitty needs a new home if this were a daily or even weekly happening.   But right now I’m just feeling bad for the cat and the girl.

     

    There’s not any anger at all in my OP, nor throughout this whole thread (on my part anyway).  I’m not sure where you’re getting that from.  If it wasn’t for the cat I wouldn’t worry much about her clothes being on the floor, but since both her and I would like to keep the cat, and I don’t want the carpet or the clothes ruined, I am trying to solve the peeing-on-clothes problem which is caused by clothes left on the floor.  

  12. 19 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

    That's quite blunt, though. You'd want a small incentive that works whenever she leaves clothes on the floor, wouldn't you? So it'd have to be something very small you can take away every time, and hopefully something unemotional. 

    I'm going to try fining her .25 per item of clothing on the floor.  And also requiring her to fold and hang all her clean clothes in the laundry room before she takes them to her room, which will hopefully make it easy for her to actually put her clothes away.  I don't think she likes folding clothes so she leaves the clean ones in the basket and chucks the dirty ones on the floor.  Me telling her to take her clean basket to her room and fold and put them away right away hasn't helped.

  13. 6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

    Yeah, it's certainly the case that I've needed to provide external motivators for kids before. 

    Question for you: what DOES motivate her? Are there consequences or rewards that would work? What's your experience with that? 

    Her tablet motivates her.  And going to friends' houses or events she wants to go to.  I use the tablet as both a consequence (blocking it or a particular app), and an incentive (I'll temporarily unblock an app she wants that I'm not thrilled about when X is done)

  14. 7 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

    You know, Caedmyn, I often see people ask for help with a child and then, when people suggest reasons for the problem and solutions, go "Well, my child is perfectly capable of doing the thing."

    I guess if your child is perfectly capable of keeping her room tidy without a checklist, then there's no problem.

    Except... there is a problem, and you're asking for help with it. If she's capable of doing it, why doesn't she do it?  If she's really motivated to keep clean, why isn't the very real consequence of having peed-on clothes doing the trick without you trying to brainstorm another consequence or another carrot?

    You are trying to tell us two different things. First, you're saying that you can't get your daughter to pick up her clothes... and then you're saying that she's actually totally able to do this without a checklist or supervision. I don't think that both these statements can possibly be true.

    To be clear, I think you think they're true - but I don't see how it's possible that they both are.

    That's not quite what I'm saying.  Capability and motivation are two different things.  She's capable of picking up her room but not motivated to do it.  Checklists support ability, but they don't provide motivation.  Supervision can help with both ability and motivation.  I don't always have the bandwidth for consistent intensive supervision, so I need to use consequences and incentives to help provide motivation.  In this case I probably need to try to provide more supervision as well as a consequence or incentive.

    • Like 2
  15. 7 minutes ago, Thatboyofmine said:

    @caedmyn,this is sorta off topic, but I have super thick hair, as well.  I just bought thinning shears and watched a couple of YouTube videos to learn how to use them.  Seriously, it changed my life wrt to my hair.   Get a pair now and use them!  They will make her life easier!

    She actually just had it thinned as part of a trim.  I'll have to ask her if she notices a difference in washing/drying it.

  16. 10 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

     

    Terebith's not wrong. Removing or harming - or threatening to remove or harm - a pet is generally considered a red flag for partner abuse. As I said above, it may be necessary for the animal's welfare, but if it's not, I'd very strongly consider literally any other option.

     

    There's a big difference between rehoming an animal who is damaging or destroying property, and getting rid of or killing an animal to hurt, intimidate, or manipulate someone in an abusive situation.    *If* we rehomed the cat (which as I've said I am not planning on doing), it would be because he's repeatedly peeing on the carpet, not because DD isn't keeping her room clean.  Her not picking her clothes up is simply encouraging the problem, and as I don't want to rehome the cat, she needs to not be giving him opportunities to have this problem.

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  17. 1. I'm not planning on rehoming the cat.

    2. People are reading a little much into DD's hygiene habits.  She's not depressed.  She's just not good at remembering to put the eye ointment on regularly.  I wouldn't say she's highly motivated to deal with it, but she's not uncaring either.  As for showers, it's mainly washing her hair that she dislikes (because it's long and super thick and takes a long time to both wash and dry).  She's not a girl who's super interested in fashion and appearance, which is a mixed blessing (and I was the same way--she's probably in about the same place at 15 as I was at age 13 as a kid with good EF and lots of internal motivation).   And we do have structures in place to help her stay on top of those things, but they're dependent on me remembering to implement them all the time, and my brain doesn't work all that well these days due to health issues.

    3. I do have her pick up her room regularly.  Not daily, probably more like weekly.  She's perfectly capable of doing this without a checklist.  She also actually worked on organizing and decluttering her room somewhat, on her own, on two occasions the past couple of months.  She is maturing, it's just soooooo slow.

    • Like 2
  18. 27 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

    But the corollary to that is that over all the years of the OP's posting I have not seen her post ONE THING positive about any of her children.  They are not pieces of furniture either that have to hop to it or face contempt and name calling. 

    Believe it or not I actually put a fair bit of time and effort into trying to help my kids with their issues.  While I do feel quite a bit of frustration at times, nowhere did I say that I expected her to hop to it, and she doesn't get contempt or name calling from me either.  For the most part I don't even lecture.  A typical conversation about her room looks like this: Me--"DD, you have clothes on the floor again.  You have GOT to keep them off the floor so the cat doesn't pee on them." DD--"I know, I know."  And that's it.  (Yes I've also tried consequences and offering solutions and picked up her clothes for her and stuff like that.)

    • Like 1
  19. 1 hour ago, gardenmom5 said:

     

    you decide, which is more important to you?  the carpet?  or your relationship with your daughter?  (because now is when you are setting up what it's going to be like when she's an independent adult.)

    I don't think this is an either-or issue, where I have to choose between the carpet and a good relationship with her.  I actually have a pretty good relationship with her, and generally manage to find ways to motivate her or say what needs to be said without damaging the relationship (and yes, I let a lot of things go also).

    • Like 2
  20. 2 minutes ago, EKS said:

    When I was a teenager I did this exact thing, and the only need it was meeting was my need for laziness.

    I really think this is the case with her.  She just doesn't put much effort into things, even things she wants, pretty much across the board.  She's always been like this.  She generally seems to need external motivation to make things happen.  Sometimes I see a smidge of internal motivation, but that generally isn't enough at this point to make the thing she wants actually happen.  I'm guessing personality-wise she's what author Gretchen Rubin calls an Obliger, who is more motivated by external expectations and motivation than internal ones.  

  21. 10 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

    I would stick a chair or something in her room she can put the clothes on rather than the floor.  Honestly it’s the only thing that work in my house even for the adults and presumably the cat won’t pee there.  The enzyme spray is good for carpets as our aged cat let us discover.  It’s not perfect but it’s something.  Does the cat like her?  

    Yes, he prefers her out of any of us.  Maybe I'll suggest she pile clothes on top of her dresser instead of the floor.

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