ELITEANDLOVINGIT Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 (edited) Today was my first truly frustrating day in the classroom. Warning: Streaming thoughts... My daughter has hit that stage where she is thinking (perhaps over-thinking, if that is really possible) about each and every question we come to. I am not sure she was ever not in this stage, but now I am panicked because I feel some need to have ALL the answers, or even half the answers that she has. I know you'll be surprised...but sometimes I don't have them and have to do extra checking. I wanted to check to see if a word should be considered an adjective or a noun, I consulted OED, then two friends who were English teachers and we all agreed that in its usage, it was an adjective I felt she was really disrespectful, so disrespectful that I had her face the wall for five minutes. A first for us - EVER... . Meanwhile as she is vocalizing her frustration that "I don't have a teaching degree, and I am not "qualified" to teach. All of these sirens go off inside of me because I just know the minute she sits down to take a standardized test she will fail due to "out of the box" thinking that will take her off a cliff and into some alternate universe. Of course, in that dimension I am a complete failure and the worst mom ever for thinking I could do a better job schooling at home. I feel so much responsibility for her success or failure...gahhhhhh The truth is my daughter is amazing, and we hit some really hard places today including a grammar program that is horrible, and the fact that she will be required to show SOME math work...(she uses ALEKS most of the time). Hence my question...What was your hardest day ever schooling your gifted child? Edited September 25, 2012 by kerryfrank73 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Meanwhile as she is vocalizing her frustration that "I don't have a teaching degree, and I am not "qualified" to teach. :001_huh: I see you are somewhat new here, and I don't know the age of your daughter or whether you have pulled her out of school, but OMG! Where is this kind of comment coming from? I think you need to stop everything you are doing -- all academics, and start fresh. Your dd is not in the right frame of mind for the self learning / communal learning that is required and desired in a gifted homeschooled child. You need to sit down and have a long chat. And not a one way monologue. You need to find out what exactly she wants for her education, because you will get nowhere with this kind of anger and frustration. Ruth in NZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Ok. I'm not in any way, shape or form an expert here... How old is your daughter? What grade would she be in? What kind of homeschooling approach are you taking? Are you doing a school-at-home, boxed program, Charlotte Mason, etc? Did you just pull her out of school? I have to take special approaches with 2 of my kids. For my oldest daughter, I tell her that "we are probably going to be learning this together" :D (AOPS pre-algebra being a great example). She actually likes this and thinks it's exciting when she can find the answer to a problem before I can. She's also a very friendly/social kid and would probably prefer someone to work with. For my 7 yro, I have to basically stay out of the picture. She doesn't like help. She wants to steer her own ship. I always took sort of an unschooling approach with her until this summer. In July, I decided it was time to do some formal schoolwork. Well, it's September and she's back to unschooling. If she wants to spend 4 hours building machines with Physics Workshop, I'm not going to stand in her way. It's not a battle I'm going to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 All of these sirens go off inside of me because I just know the minute she sits down to take a standardized test she will fail due to "out of the box" thinking that will take her off a cliff and into some alternate universe. Of course, in that dimension I am a complete failure and the worst mom ever for thinking I could do a better job schooling at home. No! Don't start thinking like that! They're allowed to hang out in alternate universes until high school. :tongue_smilie: Did she do any deschooling before you started homeschooling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Meanwhile as she is vocalizing her frustration that "I don't have a teaching degree, and I am not "qualified" to teach. Hence my question...What was your hardest day ever schooling your gifted child? :grouphug: Yeah - if mine ever made a comment about me not being "qualified" to teach, she would end up standing in the corner, too! Though, really.... that sounds like she is echoing something she heard you or someone around you say. Try not to take it personally - sounds like she's jsut pushing your buttons. OK - our hardest day ever? Those type of days happen here when DD is getting sick. She wakes up crabby, grumps at me and everyone else all day long, and pokes through her work, taking all day to get finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELITEANDLOVINGIT Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 My daughter is 10. She was HS for two years and then spent two years in PS which she hated because she is an independent, self guided learner for the most part and did not like having to follow the curriculum the rest of the class was using because it bored her and was not at level. We struggled and attempted to accelerate her within the district, but our school is not in the habit of acceleration and rather prefers to do abilities grouping / differentiated learning. We are using curriculum that we chose together: English - Grammarloges / Word Voyage / Story Weaver / Wordly Wise Math - Aleks (which she chose), Ko's Journey, Minute Math Science - SOS, Hakim Book 1 w Quest Book and Teachers Guide - Art journaling of lesson concepts. (Waiting on Intellego to arrive for more experiments) Art - Coop PE - Rock Climbing History - K12 AH1, Part 1 We use Homeschool Planner Basic to schedule out our day and she checks her assignments independently. I score her work (Minute Math) as we go along and require that she corrects all errors in computation and spelling. Its laid back, but we are definitely not unschooling. She does independent reading and is allowed to choose any book she wishes from the library or amazon. She should be in 5th grade, is now moving into Algebra and wants to be a theoretical physicist . She seems better today, but just is so resistant to all feedback, even after she asks. Will have to look at Physics workshop...what is that? Sarah is not a social kid, she has one close friend and does not enjoy peers. She likes teachers and adults typically, we have always been close, so I am not sure what's up. Ok. I'm not in any way, shape or form an expert here... How old is your daughter? What grade would she be in? What kind of homeschooling approach are you taking? Are you doing a school-at-home, boxed program, Charlotte Mason, etc? Did you just pull her out of school? I have to take special approaches with 2 of my kids. For my oldest daughter, I tell her that "we are probably going to be learning this together" :D (AOPS pre-algebra being a great example). She actually likes this and thinks it's exciting when she can find the answer to a problem before I can. She's also a very friendly/social kid and would probably prefer someone to work with. For my 7 yro, I have to basically stay out of the picture. She doesn't like help. She wants to steer her own ship. I always took sort of an unschooling approach with her until this summer. In July, I decided it was time to do some formal schoolwork. Well, it's September and she's back to unschooling. If she wants to spend 4 hours building machines with Physics Workshop, I'm not going to stand in her way. It's not a battle I'm going to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELITEANDLOVINGIT Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 Good thinking! Her sister was sick yesterday...maybe it is creeping her direction too... That is why I joined this forum, for a breath of sanity. :grouphug: Yeah - if mine ever made a comment about me not being "qualified" to teach, she would end up standing in the corner, too! Though, really.... that sounds like she is echoing something she heard you or someone around you say. Try not to take it personally - sounds like she's jsut pushing your buttons. OK - our hardest day ever? Those type of days happen here when DD is getting sick. She wakes up crabby, grumps at me and everyone else all day long, and pokes through her work, taking all day to get finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELITEANDLOVINGIT Posted September 25, 2012 Author Share Posted September 25, 2012 Agreed. We did talk some yesterday, but it was definitely one sided. I should give her some space to say what's on her mind. :bigear: :001_huh: I see you are somewhat new here, and I don't know the age of your daughter or whether you have pulled her out of school, but OMG! Where is this kind of comment coming from? I think you need to stop everything you are doing -- all academics, and start fresh. Your dd is not in the right frame of mind for the self learning / communal learning that is required and desired in a gifted homeschooled child. You need to sit down and have a long chat. And not a one way monologue. You need to find out what exactly she wants for her education, because you will get nowhere with this kind of anger and frustration. Ruth in NZ :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted September 27, 2012 Share Posted September 27, 2012 (edited) My worst day was when my 5yo kindergartner -- after a truly horrid homeschooling day -- jumped out his 2nd-level window. The ER folks found no actual damage, thank goodness. Horrible, heartwrenching day: this child (Button) really requires a chunk of formal work to be well, so the homeschooling wasn't the problem per se. Also late this summer when the same child (now 7) screamed at me for ordering the wrong flavor ice cream and then hit me (well, it was a little tap, but he was very consciously crossing a line). There's a thread about THAT one somewhere on this board. In both cases we retrenched on the discipline front, "discipline" being broadly conceived to include our positive and enthusiastic behaviors as well as our corrective ones. At the moment Button is thriving -- our family unit is thriving -- but it takes an incredible amount of work. And I have no social life to speak of. I agree with Ruth about the need for a general (re)evaluation and communication with the child. I am so sorry she was obnoxious to you! and will say that I have been helped by many Charlotte Mason resources: that methodology places character and a well child at the center of homeschooling; ideally a strong family is the base of our work, I think. (note that "strong family" is not meant to imply a certain style of family -- just a family unit, of whatever shape or size, that is a healthy, building-up place for its members) What resources have been resonant & helpful for your family? have you revisited them? just a thought. :grouphug: Edited September 27, 2012 by serendipitous journey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang!Zoom! Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 The first thing that rolled through my head had I heard that was: "Wow, brilliant observation, let's discover together just what a qualification to teach means..and I'll guide you through an essay about that.." lol Seriously Kerry, have you read Susans book, The Well Trained Mind? Too much to go into here, but it sounds like a logic stage response to me on the surface. Good luck getting through this, sounds like a battle and a half. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbara H Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 "Wow, brilliant observation, let's discover together just what a qualification to teach means. Yes, I love this. I think it is great when you admit you don't know the answers and you seek out information from others. Pretending you know everything is the worst approach for a good learner. When you admit you don't know everything you are providing a good model of how to learn. Knowing what you don't know, knowing how to ask questions, knowing where to search for information.... This is what it means to be a good teacher and a good learner. My one other suggestion is if you are finding she's regularly overthinking or getting into conflict with the material, try bumping up the level of the difficulty maybe a couple of grades. It may sound totally counter intuitive, but it often works like magic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonshineLearner Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 I would remind her that she didn't like learning from teachers who were taught how to control a room of 30 children at the same level. Good observation that you are a highschool? college? graduate and you know that her time can be better used learning one on one. When she gets a bit older, perhaps you can have "Master Teachers" mentor her. That would be great :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in SW WA Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Today was my first truly frustrating day in the classroom. :grouphug: We're with ya, Kerry. Hang in there. You have received great advice already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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