Mom and Child Personality types

[TracyR]

Okay. I had been reading a post about moms who have an A personality type. I'm an in between an A and B if that is even possible. I can be nit picky and want perfectionism at times , yet be very cool , calm and collect at the same time.

I was a good student in school. I loved to study , read , and write when I was a child. I think most of my education came from self education and not so much from my public and private school education I had growing up as a child.

I always had good grades in English classes in general , history was so so , science was always good , math , well , eh, not so good. But I loved studying.

 

 

Then I have three daughters that I will be homeschooling this year. They balk , they cry , they will do anything and everything to get out of studying. If I'd let them watch t.v. all day they would . I have tons of books in the house as both my husband and I love to read and they rarely pick up a book. We don't have video games nor do they play with the Gameboy that we do have. Their minds are always on wasteful things like Pokemon and Neopets. If they could take that knowledge and use it for studying they would be geniuses.

 

 

How does type A/B mom relate to type I-don't-want-to-do-anywork children? They are just not at all like my husband or I were when we were children. I do work hard at finding their learning styles , trying to do fun things. But If they were left to their own devices they wouldn't read a book ( I have to ask them if they've read anything ) , nor would they write , nor would they know math. Where did I get these children and why are they so academically lazy? I have always homeschooled them.

Maybe I try to hard. My parents were never involved in our education. Maybe I need to be the opposite? I don't know. From the very beginning both my husband and I have always tried to instill the love of learning by reading to them alot , coloring , all those things that they say you should do with your children to give them a best start in life. Is it just a personality conflict? I just can't seem to figure this one out for the life of me.:confused:

[Rebecca in VA]

I have a daughter like your three! She's very good at schoolwork but claims to hate it. After-school activities -- ballet, piano, sewing, art, knitting -- rule in her life. I just keep plowing on with the schoolwork, trying to make it as interesting as possible. It's discouraging, though, to listen to the complaints.

 

Maybe someone else will have some suggestions?

[unsinkable]

Tracy,

 

1st point: Were you and your dh homeschooled? B/c if you weren't maybe you are overestimating what you learned in school.

 

I went to a brick & mortar school. I found the work so easy I was bored. I used to read books in school all. the. time. Most of my teachers looked the other way. My love of learning did not come from school. It came from boredom. My point is to really examine what instilled your love of learning.

 

My 2nd point: I was lucky enough to hear SWB speak. She made a point that in most families there is something that is non-negotiable. If you are having a difficult time w/schoolwork, think of what is non-negotiable in your family and apply the tactics you use to schoolwork. Perhaps it is brushing teeth. You might have trained your kids about brushing their teeth to the point they don't even question it. They know when, where, how and why. How did you train them/teach them to get to this point? Examine that and apply to hsing.

 

3rd point: Take a break from trying to figure out why they don't love learning and just teach them. Sometimes the answer to the question comes when I am not thinking about the question all the time.

 

Keep on keepin' on! You sound like a great mom!

[Peela]

I think to some extent it may not be personality, but the culture in which they are growing up. My kids don't choose to do their school, either, and my teenager would much rather be socialising.

Is it possible that your children have a fair amount of access to popular culture? We are not an overly conservative family, our kids watch movies that are rated for older kids and adults, they play computer games- but these things are still quite severely restricted. Neopets was banned several years ago now- I see nothing redeeming in it. Pokemon came and went- we never encouraged it but it also didnt seem too bad, and it seemed to teach some good values, so we let that one ride. We ended up banning all online games and only allowing ones on CDRom, because the attitude that came with the online participation was positively scarily addictive, along with massive tantrums at restriction.

Your kids are young enough that you can take control.

My son is very computer oriented and would really like to play computer games after school every day but we restrict it to weekends and holidays, and usually only 2 hours a day then.

The effect of these things, and TV, on children's brains, on their ability to truly play freely, on their ability to entertain themselves, is well documented, and its something dh and I discuss regularly. Ds12 was recently quite disturbed during the holidays when, after a day of going way over his 2 hours of daily computer time, he was told he was to have a computer free day- he was very upset and couldn't conceive what he would do with his time, and tried to make us responsible for his misery. He ended up going for a long bike ride, spending some time with me out and about, and reading, and returning to his sweet personality.

Do you still read aloud to the kids? I stil do, and mine are much older than yours.

You are in control, and you will bear your children's fury if you restrict the activities they indulge in that you don't feel are good for them. It's hard being the bad guy, but it's worth it.

Also, your children are quite young. My older always read, but my younger wouldn't have been a reader had I not worked at it really hard (well, i do take credit, I did work very hard at it !). He was almost 10 before he suddenly realised reading was ok, and then he was off like a rocket and hasn't looked back. If your oldest is only 10, take heart and don't give up. I compromised when enticing my kids into reading, and really looked hard for books that would appeal to them, twaddle or not (but not much twaddle).

It is disheartening when kids don't love to learn- but they probably do love to learn something. It may be that Calvert doesnt suit them? I still learn "with" my kids for some of our schoolwork, rather than have them work too independently- they much prefer it and it keeps it human.

I was like you. My husband wasn't- he hates school and didn't do well due to undiagnosed dyslexia (not to mention the ADHD!)- so he has a LOT of compassion for our kids when their mother pushes them too hard. My dyslexic son has made me soooooo patient!

Your kids are probably very normal, healthy kids who just want to play instead of do their work. I dont think its very unusual!

[TracyR]

Oh yes. I read to them all of the time. They love to be read to , just not reading to themselves. I'm sure its cultural. We've cut out cable. I've been really limiting computer time to only educational games. I can't rid of our t.v. My husband would shrivel up and die if I did. Otherwise I could live without it.

I guess it all will just take time and we'll just have to keep plugging along.

As for the Calvert. No it hasn't been a good fit ,but its all we had at the moment since we were cyberschooling and couldn't afford to buy school books.

I'm hoping this year will be a better year.

[Tree House Academy]

My oldest son is like you describe your daughters to be. He whines and hates to do school work of any sort. He was not this way in ps...which leads me to believe he is seeing how much he can get away with since we have changed it up on him all of a sudden. We too are using Calvert, but I find that I don't stick 100% with what the lesson manual says. There is nothing wrong with shortening assignments, allowing them to type instead of write, even occasionally letting them dictate and you write for them. Not that you want it to become a habit, but my son struggles with penmanship as well as spelling, so for him, if I let him dictate and I write, he takes off! He is so creative. But, if he has to do it on paper himself, he does it the most simple, least creative way he can think of just to get it done. For me, I had to discover what I wanted. Do I want penmanship and spelling right now, or do I want him to enjoy writing and being creative and the rest will come as we go forward. I chose the latter.

 

I think this generation and all of the stuff kids see on TV, all the stuff they have at their disposal (TV, DS, Wii, Pokemon, Transformers, etc), they have forgotten how to go outside and shoot hoops till dark, or read a good book for entertainment.

 

This is going to seem drastic, but we turned off out TV. Completely. We disconnected the cable. It is not there and he cannot watch it. It has been a struggle, but over the course of the summer, it has grown on the kids and they are finding more and more things they like to do that do not involve sitting on the couch for hours watching mindless nothing.