Is "pacing" my child holding him/her back?

[Stacie Leigh]

I have three school age children. My 6 year old son needs lots of babysitting and encouragement and is easily overwhelmed, but My 8 year old son and 4 year old (5 next week) daughter are very eager.

 

I was feeling a little sad that my 6 year old teared up a few times already and seems like he's having to work harder than the other two, but at least he's learning something new! He was all upset that he couldn't get one of his workbook pages perfect and I had to remind him that if he knew all of it and got it perfect on the first try there was no point since the goal is to learn. Now I say that, but then again, I'm trying to pace my other two and I'm not sure if I'm doing right by them and helping them to have solid foundations or if I'm just holding them back.

 

My 8 year old is not tackling math with much enthusiasm and is just at grade level, but I left cursive out of the picture til this year and now he wants to drill it page after page. I have encouraged him to slow down because I don't want him to burn out without accomplishing what we set out to do but I don't know if I should just let him go at it?

 

He reads over 1000 pages a month but hasn't had much in the way of English as far as mechanics and such. We got Abeka Language 3 and he's 10% done after 2 days and hasn't answered a question wrong yet. (This is while working completely independently.)

 

I knew he was a decent speller so we went with Rod & Staff grade 5 spelling, thinking it would be the equivalent of 4th grade with another program, but it's beneath him for sure. After he spelled every word on his first lists without error before doing any of the associated exercises, I flipped to the back of the book and he had no problem correctly spelling all of the advanced words as well.

 

My DD will be 5 next week and I got all K material for her. She's breezing through Sing Spell Read & Write's K material like it's a joke, lollipop logic doesn't seem to make her stop and think at all and she's done with a page in less than 60 seconds half the time. We're doing BFSU for science and she likes that a lot and we're using the Miquon orange book and that seems a little more "on" for her, but not particularly challenging so I probably need so spend more time on it making it more interesting for her.

 

I like that it's making school low stress and that they feel confident, but I don't want to ignore their potential either. It seems almost unfair that I'm requiring my younger DS to push through his 1st grade work even though it's hard for him while letting the other two skate through their material with little effort. Thoughts?

[Crimson Wife]

I personally try to look for material that's in the "sweet spot" where it's challenging but not so difficult that it's overly frustrating. If she's getting more than 90% correct, it's too easy. If she's getting less than 70% correct, it's probably too hard.

[Stacie Leigh]

I personally try to look for material that's in the "sweet spot" where it's challenging but not so difficult that it's overly frustrating. If she's getting more than 90% correct, it's too easy. If she's getting less than 70% correct, it's probably too hard.

 

Good thought, but hard to accomplish, no doubt! :)

 

She's at about 90% and DS is at about 99%, so probably too easy for both. DS 6, however irritated, is around 75%, albeit with tears, so that sounds about right.

[2smartones]

I personally try to look for material that's in the "sweet spot" where it's challenging but not so difficult that it's overly frustrating. If she's getting more than 90% correct, it's too easy. If she's getting less than 70% correct, it's probably too hard.

 

I agree! I do this, too. Dh and I have always said that we'd much rather have a motivated, highly challenged B student than a bored A student.

[chepyl]

I am having the same kind of problems. My 5 year old is in all second grade materials and he is working at about 99%. However, all material is new except spelling. Even with IP in Singapore 2a, he only gets frustrated with one or two problems each day. And that is just when he is being lazy and not really reading the problem.

 

I need to accelerate him in spelling, but I want to be sure he has the method of the program down before we jump to words he actually needs to study.

 

He gets frustrated with too much writing, but will do math all day if he can do it all in his head!

[jenbrdsly]

I personally try to look for material that's in the "sweet spot" where it's challenging but not so difficult that it's overly frustrating. If she's getting more than 90% correct, it's too easy. If she's getting less than 70% correct, it's probably too hard.

 

 

:iagree:

 

I think that when material is not challenging enough, that in itself becomes a source of stress for children.

I also wanted to chime in on the perfectionism tendency with your oldest. That's a tricky one. I went to a session about perfectionism at the SENG conference in June and they said to remember to frequently say "That's good enough," to children who are dealing with perfectionism.

[Stacie Leigh]

:iagree:

 

I think that when material is not challenging enough, that in itself becomes a source of stress for children.

 

I also wanted to chime in on the perfectionism tendency with your oldest. That's a tricky one. I went to a session about perfectionism at the SENG conference in June and they said to remember to frequently say "That's good enough," to children who are dealing with perfectionism.

 

It's my second that struggles with perfectionism and yes, it's a consistent problem with him. It's amazing how perfectionism will kill productivity any time. I see it with myself too.

[Crimson Wife]

I also wanted to chime in on the perfectionism tendency with your oldest. That's a tricky one. I went to a session about perfectionism at the SENG conference in June and they said to remember to frequently say "That's good enough," to children who are dealing with perfectionism.

 

My kids get sick of hearing me talk about how in baseball even the best players only get a hit 4 tries out of 10. ;)

[joannqn]

Go with more challenge. I made the mistake of not doing so with my daughter with consequences I still haven't been able to completely undo four years later. I learned from my mistakes, and DS has none of the lack of interest and motivation that DD suffers from.