s/o Shari's thread on "average" kids . . .

[mcconnellboys]

Oh, I've done so many, many things wrong! Where to begin?

 

I didn't do literary analysis really at all with my older son. He did do a couple of outside literature classes before he went back to a traditional high school, but I don't think I prepared him well for going into the lit classes he had there. The good thing about most kids is that they can get their bearings pretty well and catch up even if they are lacking in an area - and I think that's true for kids going to college, too.

 

I didn't do nearly enough testing and he still has difficulty with tests. Some of this is because of his processing problems (another thing I've never really gotten addressed satisfactorily). I worry that he's going to have trouble with this in college. I'm still not sure what to do about it.

 

I didn't do a good job with languages or math with my older son. I was never able to get him any meaningful group speaking experiences for foreign languages. I should have gotten him an outside tutor (even after he went back to school) for his math studies. He has difficulty in both areas.

 

I was distracted with my younger son coming home to school when the older was in seventh grade. I thought that leaving him to do most of his own reading would be more beneficial for him, becausing of his processing issues, but I now think that he needed more of my time during the week, rather than my just facilitating his studies and checking in with him about them.

 

I never did do science justice with him.....

 

That's all I can think of at the moment.

 

With the younger, I'm trying to correct some of the things I think I did wrong with the older. But I'm sure that in a few years I'll be able to look back and see other, different mistakes that I've made with him. Hindsight is nearly always perfect, isn't it?

[mcconnellboys]

Yes, very glad to know that my younger son is not the only one to continue doing this as they get older..... and this is the child who used to remind all of us about things we needed to do. Now that he's hitting puberty, he's become so forgetful! And just when my old brain really needed his help, too....

[IsabelC]

Hi, I'm Hotdrink, and I have a non gifted child :seeya:

My boy has just turned 7, and he hasn't even finished OPGTR yet, which is probably below average around here, where the kids read Harry Potter at 3 or 4. He can't do a narration to save his life, and he has only just started to do handwriting that can be read by anyone but the most skilled code-breakers. We don't do Saxon Math, but if we did you can bet he wouldn't be two grade levels above his age. :)

[asta]

Every time I "get down on myself" about my "genius level" kid who isn't doing EPGY, 17 different math programs, 32 community college classes, winning the Jr. World championship at piping, getting ready to matriculate with his baccalaureate at 17... I read these stories, we go out and buy an ice cream, and lay under a tree at the park for a day.

 

Jennifer Capriati

 

Brandenn E. Bremmer

 

Shine

 

I certainly don't believe all bright kids are prodigies. But sometimes I wonder if their parents do.

 

 

asta

[zaichiki]

I've had that problem in "real life" with my DD who has epilepsy. She takes a long time to get work done but people don't seem to "hear" that.

 

"Just make her sit there until she gets the work done" was one of my favs. She would have been fused to the chair.

 

Giving advice to perfect strangers about kids we don't know is tricky. People nearly always give advice based on their OWN experiences with their children. I learned this early on. I now take all advice with a grain of salt.

[zaichiki]

Isn't that what these boards are for? Not to compare our children, but to find others who know our pain and joy.

Amen!

[Renee in NC]

Luanne, your daughter is in her 20's so this isn't really fair. I remember suggestions that she apply for financial aid grants at the community college or work to pay for it rather than you struggling to pay for high school curriculum while you were worried about your job. I don't think that's unreasonable given the circumstances.

 

Barb

 

Her daughter is 20 and it is unreasonable when you are talking special needs. You can't get federal financial aid without a diploma (even a hs diploma) or GED.

 

I am only pointing this out because I have one or two that will likely be in the same boat at the same age.

[distancia]

... for advice about what to do with my daughter because every time I ask ... I get "send her to CC" ... "send her to CC". ... with her ADHD and other issues she wouldn't do well there yet at all, but even if I try to point that out I still get the same responses. She is accelerated in some areas, but not at all in most areas.

 

My h/s daughter (17) has ADD issues among other things. She is quite bright but cannot sit still for very long. What she is now doing is taking ONLINE classes from the Comm College (actually she uses Clovis Comm Coll in New Mexico, it's $125 for up to 6 credit hours (2 classes). She can take frequent breaks and she does her work on her netbook (baby laptop) so she is very portable and frequently changes where she sits. 90% of her work is multiple choice quizzes and exams, and the instructors give online Power Point notes, so it is not as time-consuming as in the old days when we had to write by hand. ALL open book tests/exams!

 

It has built her self-confidence immensely. And if you need a slower pace, Brigham Young offers online college courses that are SELF-PACED for the slower student.

Edited July 3, 2010 by distancia

[Peela]

I dont come to the highschool board much because I feel inadequate when I do.

Dd16 is doing really well, and is very capable, but we dont have to do the things you guys over there have to do. She can get into uni pretty easily. She is doing correspondence courses that take a lot of time and it has meant we have had to back right off on "the basics".

Ds14 is plodding along and doing ok. OK is ok.

 

I have had to let of of a lot of what I wanted to cover with dd especially.

 

All in all, the way it is turning out is that my kids are having a great life, a great teen part of their life...they are working part time, doing about 4-5 hours a day of academics, and fitting in a whole lot of other things including a lot of socialising that is more than socialising- being on committees and planning events. It's just what we are doing. Its not really what I planned. But I am not going to take away everything that means so much to them, to fit in a lot more academics, when what they are doing is enough to get them where they want to go.

 

It turned out we homeschool for a lot more reasons that academics. Its a life and a lifestyle, and academics are just a part.

[LinRTX]

I really don't think handwriting is such an issue these days. I know many adults with bad handwriting. Everything my children have to turn in is done on the computer, so handwriting really isn't an issue. I just want the numbers formed legibly for the math.

 

Linda

[Beth in SW WA]

I really don't think handwriting is such an issue these days. I know many adults with bad handwriting. Everything my children have to turn in is done on the computer, so handwriting really isn't an issue. I just want the numbers formed legibly for the math.

 

Linda

 

I only hope the SAT essay-graders will be able to read ds's handwriting. It's atrocious and beyond repair, I fear. He's a righty who writes with a hook (like some leftys). Oy vey!

[Ester Maria]

Over the course of the years I have been assigning, shall we call it, "private evaluations" for my children - I was afraid that, being homeschooled and them being my children (cannot be truly objective), I might miss some important insights that competent other people could provide me with about my children. So every year once or twice I would get them informally examined by an old school colleague or a friend, a retired professor, somebody else from the academia, somebody my friends recommended me "from the field", and so on; basically, we're talking about a dozen to twenty individuals who have agreed to share with me what they really think about my daughters - academically as well as with regards to their area of expertise - by THEIR criteria, not taking into account the frivolities and superficiality of the school system which often sells as "standard" the education which is essentially "substandard" and where the grades might not only not be transparent with regards to one's actual knowledge, but also with regards to one's abilities (so we may easily be fooled into thinking that our children are geniuses just because they can handle with an A a "standard package" of the school system).

 

I've had some really interesting conversations that way, afterwards (with kids not being present, of course). According to those people, my children are everything from "somewhat below what I would pose as age-appropriate standards" to "pure geniuses even by the strict scales" - I kid you not, everything. We did not operate with terms of average, above or below as I wanted exclusively their personal and professional opinion by their criteria, not by what the school teaches and how it makes the division, but the result remained the same: the SAME child can oscillate so much, and progress on so different speeds for different areas, and the standards themselves can be so very different.

 

Keep in mind that "the average" is a statistical function, not a REAL state of things. One can be average only "relatively", not "absolutely" - average in some system, with regards to the demands of the system and other performers there. Statistics is something that you shouldn't take "very literally", as not only the "demands" of the system are HIGHLY debatable (different school standards, the eternal question of "what constitutes a basic, solid and excellent education?" and so on), but you are often a subject to LUCK when it comes to OTHERS. You can find yourself in a better or a worse system, and if somebody works by Gauss, you can be a C-level and an A-level student for the SAME amount of knowledge, ONLY based on the luck factor of the others around you.

 

So statistically, MOST will be average, because that's how the system is set up from the beginning - what's "typical" of the "normal MOST" will be labelled average. It's not a "value label". The gifted and the advanced ones should by default be the minority (unfortunately, in our day and times, way too MANY people make it "into" that minority, which blurrs the perspective on the truly exceptional people and complicates things; one of the BIG, one of the BIGGEST in fact problems of the school system is that As and Bs NORMAL, regular grades as opposed to A being an EXCEPTIONAL grade and B being given to not too many either, and that A is attainable for an average student with an average effort, which by definition it shouldn't be). I don't quite understand why do you have an issue with your child fitting in the box somebody labelled "average", which in fact demonstrates the ability and the knowledged expected by the system (system is MADE FOR AND BY the model of the "average"!). It is a statistical claim, which often says more about the (in)adequate system or other in the game than your own child.

 

Secondly, knowledge isn't so easily measured. Before I start on recommending Liessmann again, really, standard testing style is one of the things that KILL the education (and the overall bureaucratization of everything related to it) and mean the LEAST when it comes to knowledge. It is, maybe, unavoidable in the context of the mass education, but don't take it too seriously. Just to your work, teach what you consider to be important, allow your child to progress at their pace and they will usually be fine - after all, you know them the best and can estimate when to push, how hard to push, and when to slow down. Education is a lot more than the sum of the standard tests, grade expectations and other "formalities".

 

The path is usually not linear either. Some kids APPEAR very bright when young, but when you talk to them and allow some years to pass, you realize it was that way because they were exposed to more things than the average, not because of true talent, and with time, they get "averagized" into their age group as the amount and type of exposure gets similar. Other kids are late bloomers, starting small, and then suddenly "exploding" in final years of high school or even at university and surprising everyone. And even with kids that do seem to progress by a linear function, there actually are plateaux and leaps.

 

Relax. Make it the most high quality road possible rather tha the fastest one, without being "bitter" about those that happen to combine quality with speed and that really do happen to be "specially wired" for one or more things and be exceptional. They have their own path, their own contributions to make and their own development to go through (with incredible side-effects on the plan of the emotional maturity, innocence, gaps with peers, etc. - the grass only SEEMS to be greener, there's a whole other and not the least bit less difficult set of issues with gifted and advanced children). Other kids have theirs, and might not even be academic in nature.

 

The most important thing is to raise HEALTHY (physically - as much as possible; but also emotionally - incredibly important life-wise! and, if you wish, "spiritually") and HAPPY children. Everything else is secondary, even formal academics, which again differ so much from criteria to criteria, crowd to crowd, culture to culture and for MOST people are more of a tool to accomplish some other things in life than a goal per se (it's only for a relative minority of researchers, scientists, etc.). That doesn't mean that the lives of "average" children will not be profoundly affected by a good quality education tailored to them, that they will not thrive and develop on different lives while studying, and that they will not develop a strong lasting love for some form of academic work, reading, etc., even if they end up having formal education only as a "tool".

[asta]

What Ester said.

 

 

asta

[johnandtinagilbert]

I think I want Esther to come and teach more than Latin at my house. ;)

[Peela]

I think I want Esther to come and teach more than Latin at my house. ;)

 

Yeah, I am joining the Ester fan club too.

[IsabelC]

Um, same here. Totally agree. (Ester's post is just what I would have written, were I having a more coherent day :lol:)

 

 

(but don't forget, the average human adult has one ovary and one testicle;))

 

 

.

[Pam Wilhelm]

I really need to print out this thread and read parts of it everyday!!!

 

Thank you all for your candor!

 

My children are very, very average academically.... and we like that! They never read at a 9th grade level in utero, they can't pass a SAT/ACT test in their preteens, they have finally just gotten a working grasp on the 4 math functions!! :lol: What my kids are.... is kind hearted, witty, drop dead hysterical......... they have enriched my life and if they never "get" upper level mathematics it is okay with me (although, I secretly think we have a budding Artist, a Zookeeper and an Engineer in our midst).

 

:grouphug:

[Kareni]

 

(but don't forget, the average human adult has one ovary and one testicle;))

 

 

I loved reading this! How true it is.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[johnandtinagilbert]

Um, same here. Totally agree. (Ester's post is just what I would have written, were I having a more coherent day :lol:)

 

 

(but don't forget, the average human adult has one ovary and one testicle;))

 

 

.

I had no idea...I love the things I learn here.

[Capt_Uhura]

:iagree: w/ Ester....she said what I would have said if I could ever be that coherent....which I can't. :lol:

 

This seems like a good thread to post this. http://www.thedailyriff.com/2010/07/would-you-hire-your-own-kids-7-skills-schools-should-be-teaching-them.php

[Cedarmom]

Interesting thread. My son is one of the ones who did do some early college. He is very advanced in math and science. But writing has been another story! It has always been an issue. ANd we had to go slower on it. He was probably "behind" in english until his junior year. We never did as much writing as I would have liked. ANd I ended up teaching him handwriting as a junior in order for him to do the SAT essay. If we had tried an AP or college english, he would have been buried.

[Kareni]

 

This seems like a good thread to post this. http://www.thedailyriff.com/2010/07/would-you-hire-your-own-kids-7-skills-schools-should-be-teaching-them.php

 

 

 

That was a thought provoking article, Capt_Uhura. Thanks for linking it.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Carmen_and_Company]

There are some kids out there that are truly gifted, and that's great, but the majority of children, even those of parents here on the WTM, lean towards your average student. My dc lean toward average, one excels in math/sciences, loves to read, and would accept a fail on a writing assignment. He's doing well in college and writes papers without cringing.

 

My middle dd is allergic to numbers, writes well, but hates to read. My youngest plans to major in sports, yep, sports. Just because my dc did not invent the electro-magnetic gizmo, or write the #1 book on the New York Times book list or had a 2400 on their SATs before high school does not mean my dc will not do great things in their lives. Heck, if they all finish college, secure great paying jobs, and find wonderful spouses--I could care less about their IQ or ability to complete calculus in the 5th grade.

 

There's more to life for our children than being compared to geniuses. Also, I never compared my children with computer-land dc, as I cannot validate intellectual prowess based on an Internet post by an unknown entity going by let us say, Carmen & Co. For all you know, my dc I've posted about for the past 11 years may not even exist.

 

Accept your dc for who they are and utilize their specific gifts to help them excel into the the adult there are meant to be.

[Sumiller]

. . .to teach their kids at home using a variety of materials, but all to attain the same goal -- to train the minds of our children -- to read deeply, think and reason, and communicate it. My kids have strengths and weaknesses and I definitely do as their teacher. :tongue_smilie: We just get up the next day and keep on working.

 

Lisa

 

:iagree:

 

For some of us, humbly accepting our weaknesses and then persevering through them are the hard lessons learned through the process of homeschooling not only for us but for our children as well.

[asta]

There's more to life for our children than being compared to geniuses. Also, I never compared my children with computer-land dc, as I cannot validate intellectual prowess based on an Internet post by an unknown entity going by let us say, Carmen & Co. For all you know, my dc I've posted about for the past 11 years may not even exist.

 

 

Ok, now this cracks me up. Just this morning, I was thinking about a story I read about "internet Munchausen's": people who wander around websites with grand stories about their horrible illnesses to garner sympathy. They feed on it. When people start to get suspicious, they even have a "family member" (themselves) write a post that they have died. And then they move on to another support site.

 

When I read stories on chat boards about people who have one catastrophe after another in their lives (never ending, not just normal bad luck), or a never ending stream of "and little Johnny did calculus at TWO!", I think of that story.

 

Yeah, I'm a judgmental person. I'm working on it. :glare:

 

 

a

Edited July 6, 2010 by asta

[asta]

Interesting thread. My son is one of the ones who did do some early college. He is very advanced in math and science. But writing has been another story! It has always been an issue. ANd we had to go slower on it. He was probably "behind" in english until his junior year. We never did as much writing as I would have liked. ANd I ended up teaching him handwriting as a junior in order for him to do the SAT essay. If we had tried an AP or college english, he would have been buried.

 

Science is DSs joy. Math is his nemesis. He can conceptualize scientific stuff at a college level, but what good does it do him without the math? It is always two steps forward, one step back. It is completely disheartening to him. When he gets it, he GETS it. But it is so much slower "going" than the science concepts. He is done with his chem book, but can't do the labs yet, because of the math.

 

English? Great. Love IEW. History? Piece of cake. Eidetic memory for that kind of stuff. Again - he could be doing CC, if we had one. Rhetoric & Foreign Language? No problem. Logic? Fine. He's a bagpiper! He has to memorize all of his tunes - he must have a hundred in his head! Why is math such a phenomenal pain? Isn't it just logic? AIEEE! If anyone knows the secret code, please post it. :confused:

 

 

a

[Tammyla]

:001_smile:

 

Over the course of the years I have been assigning, shall we call it, "private evaluations" for my children - I was afraid that, being homeschooled and them being my children (cannot be truly objective), I might miss some important insights that competent other people could provide me with about my children. So every year once or twice I would get them informally examined by an old school colleague or a friend, a retired professor, somebody else from the academia, somebody my friends recommended me "from the field", and so on; basically, we're talking about a dozen to twenty individuals who have agreed to share with me what they really think about my daughters - academically as well as with regards to their area of expertise - by THEIR criteria, not taking into account the frivolities and superficiality of the school system which often sells as "standard" the education which is essentially "substandard" and where the grades might not only not be transparent with regards to one's actual knowledge, but also with regards to one's abilities (so we may easily be fooled into thinking that our children are geniuses just because they can handle with an A a "standard package" of the school system).

 

I've had some really interesting conversations that way, afterwards (with kids not being present, of course). According to those people, my children are everything from "somewhat below what I would pose as age-appropriate standards" to "pure geniuses even by the strict scales" - I kid you not, everything. We did not operate with terms of average, above or below as I wanted exclusively their personal and professional opinion by their criteria, not by what the school teaches and how it makes the division, but the result remained the same: the SAME child can oscillate so much, and progress on so different speeds for different areas, and the standards themselves can be so very different.

 

Keep in mind that "the average" is a statistical function, not a REAL state of things. One can be average only "relatively", not "absolutely" - average in some system, with regards to the demands of the system and other performers there. Statistics is something that you shouldn't take "very literally", as not only the "demands" of the system are HIGHLY debatable (different school standards, the eternal question of "what constitutes a basic, solid and excellent education?" and so on), but you are often a subject to LUCK when it comes to OTHERS. You can find yourself in a better or a worse system, and if somebody works by Gauss, you can be a C-level and an A-level student for the SAME amount of knowledge, ONLY based on the luck factor of the others around you.

 

So statistically, MOST will be average, because that's how the system is set up from the beginning - what's "typical" of the "normal MOST" will be labelled average. It's not a "value label". The gifted and the advanced ones should by default be the minority (unfortunately, in our day and times, way too MANY people make it "into" that minority, which blurrs the perspective on the truly exceptional people and complicates things; one of the BIG, one of the BIGGEST in fact problems of the school system is that As and Bs NORMAL, regular grades as opposed to A being an EXCEPTIONAL grade and B being given to not too many either, and that A is attainable for an average student with an average effort, which by definition it shouldn't be). I don't quite understand why do you have an issue with your child fitting in the box somebody labelled "average", which in fact demonstrates the ability and the knowledged expected by the system (system is MADE FOR AND BY the model of the "average"!). It is a statistical claim, which often says more about the (in)adequate system or other in the game than your own child.

 

Secondly, knowledge isn't so easily measured. Before I start on recommending Liessmann again, really, standard testing style is one of the things that KILL the education (and the overall bureaucratization of everything related to it) and mean the LEAST when it comes to knowledge. It is, maybe, unavoidable in the context of the mass education, but don't take it too seriously. Just to your work, teach what you consider to be important, allow your child to progress at their pace and they will usually be fine - after all, you know them the best and can estimate when to push, how hard to push, and when to slow down. Education is a lot more than the sum of the standard tests, grade expectations and other "formalities".

 

The path is usually not linear either. Some kids APPEAR very bright when young, but when you talk to them and allow some years to pass, you realize it was that way because they were exposed to more things than the average, not because of true talent, and with time, they get "averagized" into their age group as the amount and type of exposure gets similar. Other kids are late bloomers, starting small, and then suddenly "exploding" in final years of high school or even at university and surprising everyone. And even with kids that do seem to progress by a linear function, there actually are plateaux and leaps.

 

Relax. Make it the most high quality road possible rather tha the fastest one, without being "bitter" about those that happen to combine quality with speed and that really do happen to be "specially wired" for one or more things and be exceptional. They have their own path, their own contributions to make and their own development to go through (with incredible side-effects on the plan of the emotional maturity, innocence, gaps with peers, etc. - the grass only SEEMS to be greener, there's a whole other and not the least bit less difficult set of issues with gifted and advanced children). Other kids have theirs, and might not even be academic in nature.

 

The most important thing is to raise HEALTHY (physically - as much as possible; but also emotionally - incredibly important life-wise! and, if you wish, "spiritually") and HAPPY children. Everything else is secondary, even formal academics, which again differ so much from criteria to criteria, crowd to crowd, culture to culture and for MOST people are more of a tool to accomplish some other things in life than a goal per se (it's only for a relative minority of researchers, scientists, etc.). That doesn't mean that the lives of "average" children will not be profoundly affected by a good quality education tailored to them, that they will not thrive and develop on different lives while studying, and that they will not develop a strong lasting love for some form of academic work, reading, etc., even if they end up having formal education only as a "tool".

[Bloggermom]

I wanted to bump this thread up because I found it to be an incredibly comforting thread to read. My 5th grade son is doing 3rd grade level CLE Math while at the same time doing High School level latin. It is great to know we are not the only ones in the same boat.

[tex-mex]

I wonder if that's just a boy thing? or the age? My DS definitely could join this club. <sigh> I loved the story on the general board about the lady who asked her son to get her some more milk and he forgot what he was doing and put in soda and they topped it off with some milk. I told my son that story and now he goes around and when he makes a silly mistake he says, "That doesn't go on the forums."

Oh dear... :D

 

I'm reminded of the Totino's Pizza Rolls commercial where the 2 teen boys can't find the Pizza Rolls and call mom -- only to have her direct them to look "left". They happily find the pizza rolls but leave the cell in the freezer. ;) Yup, my teen to a T. :lol:

 

My teen has severe dysgraphia and he struggles with writing tasks. Math and science are his strengths, tho'. But he despises essays -- so we do them via Dragon Speak. It will be cc for him and not a 4 year school right out of homeschooling. Every child has its strengths and weaknesses. They will blossom in perfect timing... no need to compare or worry.

Edited December 14, 2011 by tex-mex

[Farmgirl70]

Thanks for the honesty, everyone. My kids are 17, 16, and 15. I love them dearly and they are amazing people. I have been wondering if I have educated them adequately. Oldest struggles with math, 16 yo scientist writes way below average level and as I am preparing them toward college, I am full of doubt. Thanks for the reminders that they'll be fine. They really will--they are involved in interesting things and are people I love to spend time with. It's nice to hear from some of the "average" folks out there. We've worked hard, but feel pretty average on these boards....

[Nan in Mass]

Most days, I am just glad mine are alive at the end of the day. In the end, teaching your child to drive safely (or not drive if that is more appropriate) is probably the most important thing you will teach in high school. All the math in the world won't do them any good if they are dead. Nor will it do any good if they are so overwhelmed that they shut down. Nor if... The list goes on.

[8filltheheart]

One thing we have learned w/our Aspie is that we don't have to have all the answers and lots of mistakes can be made and corrected. :tongue_smilie:

 

His high school transcripts are a disaster due to mental breakdowns in his teenage yrs. We have used his post high school education at the CC to resolve major deficits and forge forward in areas where there weren't weaknesses.

 

Next yr, 2 yrs after graduating from high school, he will be applying for the first time to a 4 yr school. For the first time, he might actually be mature enough to cope w/that sort of transition. For the first time, he stands a chance of being accepted and succeeding. (though it is a school that offers lots of monitoring and on-campus support.)

 

So, while some kids are ready for college in high school (I have those kids too), some take a lot longer to get their feet underneath them. It doesn't mean that they can't move on to bigger places at an older age.

Edited December 15, 2011 by 8FillTheHeart

[Teachin'Mine]

I miss JLD's input here on the boards. She started an awesome thread and always had such great input on this forum.

 

With the bumping of this thread, I re-read my post from over a year ago, and it was a good reminder of where we had been. It's also amazing how much things have changed in a year. Somehow in my mind I always had lumped the four years of high school into one segment of life. I forgot that there's as much of a change from 8th to 9th, and from 9th to 10th as there is from K to 1st and 1st to 2nd. Our kids don't have to seem ready for all that high school represents when they're just starting out. Like all of the years before, it's a gradual process of learning and maturing.

 

And none of the above is original thinking on my part as I've read such wisdom from so many here who had BTDT, but now for the first time I'm seeing the truth in those words. Thank you to Nan and all the others for lending your voices here. :grouphug:

[Rhonda in TX]

I miss JLD's input here on the boards. She started an awesome thread and always had such great input on this forum.

 

With the bumping of this thread' date=' I re-read my post from over a year ago, and it was a good reminder of where we had been. It's also amazing how much things have changed in a year. Somehow in my mind I always had lumped the four years of high school into one segment of life. I forgot that there's as much of a change from 8th to 9th, and from 9th to 10th as there is from K to 1st and 1st to 2nd. Our kids don't have to seem ready for all that high school represents when they're just starting out. Like all of the years before, it's a gradual process of learning and maturing.

 

And none of the above is original thinking on my part as I've read such wisdom from so many here who had BTDT, but now for the first time I'm seeing the truth in those words. Thank you to Nan and all the others for lending your voices here. :grouphug:[/quote']

 

I wish there was a "like" button on the forums. :)

[Teachin'Mine]

I wish there was a "like" button on the forums. :)

 

Awww thank you. :) I wish I could find the thread with all the great pearls of wisdom written by Nan and others. Anyone remember how to find it?

[memphispeg]

I read through all of this again and my goal of homeschooling my dd has become one of answering these questions:

 

1 - How does dd learn?

2 - What does she learn the best?

3 - When faced with a difficult subject, what does she need to be able to do in order to learn it?

4 - What does she enjoy learning and how?

5 - What are her interests?

6 - Where do her creative strengths lie?

7 - What kinds of learning/living situations are non-productive? How does she avoid/remedy these situations?

8 - What does she whole-heartedly embrace in knowledge and in life? What gives her joy?

9 - And many more

 

I think that in late high school and in college my dd's goals are to find the answers to these questions. As a parent, I find that they evolve daily. Patience and enthusiasm on my part are all I can provide.

[LuvingLife]

This thread has done me a lot fo good too, sometimes I feel like all I am trying to do is prepare for college that I forget why I am homeschooled. After reading this thread it has given me a lot of encouragement to keep doing what I do and graduate with the best of my abilities.

 

Great posts everyone!!:001_smile: