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Interest stops when it's called "school?"


Snow
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My son is a wiggly, sports-addict 6 year old and I've seen him gobble up information, books, etc that he is interested in, but the second we refer to anything as school, he checks out, no matter what it is. Example from this afternoon, I started reading a picture book and he gave me the skeptical, "is this for school?" (Like, whatcha tryin to pull lady?!) question. I said no, though it was a FIAR book and he said, okay...keep reading. This is how it is for every school subject.

 

Any advice? I'd love to hear it!

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That sounds like my 6 year old son! He is getting better though since we did K at home last year. I just tried to encourage him that it's learning and we learn all the time, even mommy and daddy learn every day! Hang in there! I'd just keep it all pretty vague between school and all the other stuff :)

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My son is approaching Kindergarten the exact same way. I'm not sure I have much advice, but I will definitely be following this post! Over the weekend, I decided to basically "unschool" for a while (and not use my carefully chosen curriculum for now...sigh...) Today we just followed ds's interests, and we learned about Pompeii, volcanoes, and archeology; we built legos like crazy, did some read-alouds...we actually ended up doing a lot, with NO fuss. He even ASKED me to read Life of Fred! What a difference! At the end of the day, I even dared to ask him if school had been fun, and he said yes! I fully intend to still go back to the curriculum eventually, but for now I think I will just "sneak" the learning in too!

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Excellent! He's on his way toward learning for its own sake. Celebrate and try to let him do as much of his learning as possible as not school. :D I know this sounds like a problem, but it is better than having no interest in learning other than a brief time where he would glumly do what he has to do, and that is it. Sports can be used too, not only as PE which is important, but also for things like noticing how a ball rebounds from a surface and so on. Or reading can be about interests.

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Unfortunately, sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do to get to the fun stuff. I'm not one to try and make all of school fun. We do fun things occasionally, but math is still math and writing is still writing. (History and science are the favorites here. So, we discuss how we need to be strong in math to do science, etc.)

 

Whining and complaining is not acceptable here because it is disrespectful. I don't ask for a lot. Our school motto of late has been "your very best work for a very short time." Do 5 minutes of reading (or whatever it is hes grumpy about) and then you're done. You can slowly up the time after he's feeling pretty confident with 5 minutes.

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Doesn't sound like he is grumpy about learning, just about calling it "school". He might be old enough to appreciate the Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence story. In any case, for the moment, taking the approach with him that Tom took with his friends is likely to result in a lot of learning just by not calling it school, just as the fence could be fun... Reward other things with Fiar story, for example.

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My kids resist and don't like it when I call it "school" either. So I don't. Probably because we don't operate in a school-like way and there's a bit of cognitive disconnect there, or something. Anyway, so I call it "our morning stuff" or "math" or "writing practice" or "table stuff" or even "curriculum".

 

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and all that. :)

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Thanks for your support and suggestions. It's just so hard to know when to push and when to back off. It's also hard because he was in ps kindy last year and I think he is regressing since being home. :001_unsure:

 

Anyway, pushing him didn't work with potty training and I have a feeling it's going to be the same here. The more I think about it as I'm writing this, the more I am sure that this kid just needs to do things in his own time.

 

Thanks again one and all, I've re-read each post and take them to heart.

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Unfortunately, sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do to get to the fun stuff. I'm not one to try and make all of school fun. We do fun things occasionally, but math is still math and writing is still writing. (History and science are the favorites here. So, we discuss how we need to be strong in math to do science, etc.)

 

Whining and complaining is not acceptable here because it is disrespectful. I don't ask for a lot. Our school motto of late has been "your very best work for a very short time." Do 5 minutes of reading (or whatever it is hes grumpy about) and then you're done. You can slowly up the time after he's feeling pretty confident with 5 minutes.

 

:iagree:

 

I make our days fun - but sometimes work is work. I don't allow whining or grumbling. From the students or teacher. LOL. I think that part of life long learning is training oneself to do that which you don't love because it's what needs to be done - without making everyone around you miserable.

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When he asks if this is for school, I would be tempted to ask "Who cares if it is for school!?! Do you like the book?" I have told my dc before that one of the good things about HSing is that we get to pick out our own books.

 

 

I would also tell him that I count his sports as "PE" in school, and drawing & coloring & crafting as "Art," and listening to his favorite song as "Music." So - why not count FUN books as "Literature and reading?"

 

 

If he really has a bad taste in his mouth for school, those things will not work and you may just need to spend some time de-schooling.

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My dd is a bit like this even at 13. She won't read a "school" book in the evenings if she can avoid it. She'll keep a separate book for evening "pleasure" reading.

 

My answer to "Is this book for school?" would be "Books are for reading." I'm not sure his level, but I would explain that learning is something we do all the time. We learn about things we love and we learn about things that we aren't really interested in. Sometimes it is a lot of fun, sometimes it isn't. Calling it school doesn't change that. Sometimes you'll love it sometimes you won't.

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:iagree:

 

I make our days fun - but sometimes work is work. I don't allow whining or grumbling. From the students or teacher. LOL. I think that part of life long learning is training oneself to do that which you don't love because it's what needs to be done - without making everyone around you miserable.

 

I would be careful trying to "disguise" things for him. I don't think a bad attitude toward anything should be dismissed or hidden. You won't always be able to make school not look like school. He will figure it out eventually.

 

:iagree: You are setting yourself up for trouble down the road if you continue to try and make school "fun" all the time. Sometimes it's not going to be fun. He needs to learn this at a young age, and also learn that he will still do whatever assignment you give him without whining or a bad attitude.

 

And I say this gently as a mom who has been homeschooling three kids exclusively for the past 18 years (oldest two are now homeschool grads in college)...you are setting yourself up for a world of hurt if you cater to his whims on what schoolwork gets accomplished each day. You are the teacher...you make the rules. Otherwise he will just fall behind in his work, because NO kid ever says, "Yes, mom, I want to do the hardest, most boring assignment you have. Bring it on!"

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Our school motto of late has been "your very best work for a very short time." Do 5 minutes of reading (or whatever it is hes grumpy about) and then you're done. You can slowly up the time after he's feeling pretty confident with 5 minutes.

 

I love this motto!

For what it's worth, I have rather obnoxiously taken to calling our work time "schoolie." The term annoys even me, but the kids seem to like it as a way to differentiate between bricks-and-mortar school and what we do at home.

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I gave up trying to be fun. My daughter is a "get 'er done" type of gal. She doesn't care for school but understands it is necessary to reach her goals in life (and she has some lofty aspirations, as is). She does grumble and roll her eyes - but that's rather recent, along with the crying over math (also recent). Puberty... lol.

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