Reya Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 Oldtimers will remember me. I don't stop by often because I've pretty much hit my stride with homeschooling. I'm not really searching for new curricula, and I'm happy with what we have, mostly. I've tried a number of different things to motivate my DS9, who is VERY able to dawdle 8-12 hours a day. The cause has been his ongoing War on Writing. He has always hated writing. HATED IT. Many of his subjects therefore require writing only about once a week. Others don't require writing at all. But he needs to write enough to do math, to cement certain things in his head, and to stay at grade level in handwriting and composition, so I do require that much of him. In all honesty, he does less writing per day than in a 4th grade public school class, despite his higher-level subjects, so I really don't have that much sympathy for him. Problem is that if there's any task that involves writing, he daydreams instead of doing it--sometimes for hours, and corrections or interventions are always purely temporary. I would come up with a new system, and it'd work GREAT for a week every time and then dissolve into battles over him working again. I got tired of having to do a carrot-and-stick dance and finally told him that he could either do his work or go to public school. He threatened to call CPS and tell them that I was going to commit educational abuse by denying him his instruments, languages, and advanced math by sending him to public school. (He spent half a day there last year to prepare for standardized testing day, then he spend the next two months in a cold horror at how awful it was.) I explained that homeschooling is not a right. He chose homeschooling. With it came this warning: "I don't care if you never play again in your life. Do your work without me constantly on you, or you don't play. I'm done breathing down your neck, but I'm not going to change your assignments because you are lazy." He then spent four months working slower and slower and sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr. First he used up all his evenings, then his Saturday mornings, then his whole Saturdays, and then Sunday afternoons, too, until he never saw his friends for a solid month. I did nothing but say, "I guess you don't want to play then, huh?" Then, suddenly, he turned around and is getting his work done in less than the allotted time every day--for three weeks now. Including lunch, he's taking 5.5 hours per day for everything, and he's prioritizing math and science for the morning because he realizes he's faster with them when he's least tired. I asked what made the difference. He said, "I decided I really want to play." Hmmmm. Imagine that. I'm trying to teach DD4 now. She's so easy compared to DS that it's easy to get lazy and not do it! Shame on me. I am also preggo with #3! We've made it to 19 weeks now, so I'm pretty positive about a take-home baby. So pregnancies 1, 4, and 10 look like winners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halftime Hope Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 Glad to hear that the current "baking project" is going well. Wishing you all the best in the next 20 weeks. : ) I've got two in college now, and I can't stress enough how critical it is that we stand strong on writing, both on comp and on handwriting, although technology can often fill the gap if a student is credibly dysgraphic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted December 11, 2012 Share Posted December 11, 2012 congratulations on the baby! I had several of my kids hate writing at that age. It was such a battle and I'm sorry to say Ididn't push it like I probably should have. However, with my oldest (who despised writing - and she was a terrible speller and I think that made it worse) I put her in a small English class with several other homeschooling friends - somewhere around 8th or 9th grade. Suddenly she came ot love writing. It helped that the teacher was excellent, there were only girls in this hsing class and several of the other girls loved writing. It was like the light came on and the heaven's opened up for her. AFter that she just took off. Loved her English classes at cc. And even wanted to major in English. Of course, that seemed like a stretch since she was obviously a sciency person and an English degree is not so helpful on the job front (she didn't want to be a teacher). But, long story short... your son can change once he gets older. Keep plugging along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 He does have mild dysgraphia. Not serious, and as I was crippled by not overcoming mine in college (despite the amount of writing that I did in school, I couldn't do a decent job of keeping a lab notebook in college :( ), I really wan him to overcome rather than just work around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Congratulations on the new little one on the way. It sounds like you've had a rough few years pregnancy wise--I hope it's all smooth sailing from here. We're working on building more independence here. My biggest challenge is that what works well to motivate one child doesn't work at all for another, but they don't think it's fair if I try to use completely different systems. My oldest likes a standard schedule every day with boxes to check off. My second child...well, he does amazing things when he's self-motivated, but if I try to direct him externally he digs in his heals so hard I think they've grown roots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Nice to see you again. Congratulations on the newest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twigs Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 It's kind of weird to say he hates writing because he actually LIKES the composition part of his composition work. It's purely the mechanical act of pencil-to-paper that he hates. :p An English class really wouldn't help him with the mechanical side--he avoids physically writing in group activities, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Congratulations on the baby and on the progress with your son! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halftime Hope Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Reya, one of mine was functionally dysgraphic. The assessors were in disagreement whether he was or not, according to test results, and finally the one who worked with him on his language therapy for dyslexia over nine months' time "educated" the diagnostician and pulled rank on her. LOL! All that to say, although the child was credibly dysgraphic--I had always called it "being allergic to pencils"--he is grown up now and writes constantly at work, as there is simply no other way to do some of the work. It isn't easy, but it is necessary, and he's developed an ugly but legible scrawl. So there it is...practice helps. But you knew that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 Yeah, I'm dysgraphic and dyslexic, and I'm a novelist! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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