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Children moving slowly


NewIma
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This is both a rant and a question! Lol 

My children are moving SO slowly today. At this rate we won't be done until bedtime. LOL  And so I sit twiddling my thumbs and drinking tea.

Ideally I use this waiting around time to cook dinner, crochet, read, do paperwork, but I don't have it in me today.

What do you do while waiting for kids to do work?

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I try to address the slowness by giving them a break to run to the big tree in the yard.

Or I say "If you're done with your math before 11:30 we'll go get an ice cream before lunch."

 

Or cleaning & house projects.  There's always something.

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26 minutes ago, City Mouse said:

I play games on my phone. 😀

I too find it very difficult when kids (my own or other) work more slowly that I think they should. However, rushing them never seems to work out well for either of us.

Right?!? Facebook is my crutch!

And rushing only ends in disaster so you just have to wait it out!

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6 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

Golly, I spend too much time surfing my phone. 

Sometimes I'll be productive and go toss a load of laundry in. Today I'm wrapping a plastic barrel in duct tape (don't ask - Halloween prep). Mindless tasks. 

Sometimes I do read actual books. 

Me too with the phone! I am so curious about the barrel and duct tape!

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1 minute ago, Katy said:

I try to address the slowness by giving them a break to run to the big tree in the yard.

Or I say "If you're done with your math before 11:30 we'll go get an ice cream before lunch."

 

Or cleaning & house projects.  There's always something.

Good ideas!!!

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It kills me because I can't get a big enough stretch of time to, say, settle in to grade a whole class worth of papers or start a cooking or cleaning project that involves significant thought.  It's like being in stasis - I just have to be, so I have stuff hanging over my head that needs to be done, but yet it's not productive to try to do it.  I can toss in a load of laundry or do a few dishes, but if I tried to clean a toilet there would be an immediate need from both kids for my immediate attention...and so, here I am.  🙂  

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Honestly, this isn't a practical solution, but I have to say my kids went from annoyingly poky to being surprisingly capable of working at a steady, reasonable clip after we enrolled them in school, and it's carried over even now that they're back home, even my kid who has no conception of time.  It's one of the most useful skills they developed in school.  

I'm just grateful, not advocating this as a solution for anyone else.  The pokiness drove me nuts.  It felt like being held hostage, because I couldn't do anything remotely interesting, or it distracted and slowed them down even more.  

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4 hours ago, NewIma said:

This is both a rant and a question! Lol 

My children are moving SO slowly today. At this rate we won't be done until bedtime. LOL  And so I sit twiddling my thumbs and drinking tea.

Ideally I use this waiting around time to cook dinner, crochet, read, do paperwork, but I don't have it in me today.

What do you do while waiting for kids to do work?

With my oldest, who isn't homeschooled now but sometimes needs emotional support with all the online classes, I fiddle on my new ukelele. It has been wonderful! 

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2 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

It kills me because I can't get a big enough stretch of time to, say, settle in to grade a whole class worth of papers or start a cooking or cleaning project that involves significant thought.  It's like being in stasis - I just have to be, so I have stuff hanging over my head that needs to be done, but yet it's not productive to try to do it.  I can toss in a load of laundry or do a few dishes, but if I tried to clean a toilet there would be an immediate need from both kids for my immediate attention...and so, here I am.  🙂  

Yes yes! This !!

I can never get anything done. Ever. 

Like today, I’ve been trying to clean one small bathroom all day.  I put some stray clothes/shoes away during one 3 minute break. I put away the hair tools in another break. I swept in a 3rd break. I moved everything off the sink and sprayed the sink, but got interrupted before I could wipe the sink...so 10 minutes later I had to wash the paws of a cat who jumped on the sink and got covered with cleaning fluid. (Sigh.)

I’ve been working on this bathroom since 10:00 and it’s 4:00 now.  My son FINALLY finished working and now I can get it done.  It really wasn’t worth doing it in piecemeal though.  I should have just waited until now to do it all at once. 

 

I struggle greatly with doing things in pieces.  I end up not doing anything at all, except coming here, because I can’t take the frustration of doing things in such tiny, tiny increments. And meanwhile, little jobs are piled up around me. I stare at them, unable to actually do anything about them, until 4:00. And then I get half an hour until it’s time to cook dinner.  And then next thing I know it’s 6:00 and time to clean up from dinner and after that I want to spend time with DH for the evening.  

My house is always a little dusty or cluttered because I just can’t get anything done in only half an hour a day.  I get most things done on the weekend, but then that makes for a weekend filled with work.  

I did manage to get a couple of phone calls done on my 30 minute lunch break. Still have another call to make though.  

 

So...I’ll make that call now and then clean the bathroom once and for all.

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4 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

It kills me because I can't get a big enough stretch of time to, say, settle in to grade a whole class worth of papers or start a cooking or cleaning project that involves significant thought.  It's like being in stasis - I just have to be, so I have stuff hanging over my head that needs to be done, but yet it's not productive to try to do it.  I can toss in a load of laundry or do a few dishes, but if I tried to clean a toilet there would be an immediate need from both kids for my immediate attention...and so, here I am.  🙂  

Yes!!! It is just like being in stasis! I'm tied to the table twiddling my thumbs!

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2 hours ago, Garga said:

Yes yes! This !!

I can never get anything done. Ever. 

Like today, I’ve been trying to clean one small bathroom all day.  I put some stray clothes/shoes away during one 3 minute break. I put away the hair tools in another break. I swept in a 3rd break. I moved everything off the sink and sprayed the sink, but got interrupted before I could wipe the sink...so 10 minutes later I had to wash the paws of a cat who jumped on the sink and got covered with cleaning fluid. (Sigh.)

I’ve been working on this bathroom since 10:00 and it’s 4:00 now.  My son FINALLY finished working and now I can get it done.  It really wasn’t worth doing it in piecemeal though.  I should have just waited until now to do it all at once. 

 

I struggle greatly with doing things in pieces.  I end up not doing anything at all, except coming here, because I can’t take the frustration of doing things in such tiny, tiny increments. And meanwhile, little jobs are piled up around me. I stare at them, unable to actually do anything about them, until 4:00. And then I get half an hour until it’s time to cook dinner.  And then next thing I know it’s 6:00 and time to clean up from dinner and after that I want to spend time with DH for the evening.  

My house is always a little dusty or cluttered because I just can’t get anything done in only half an hour a day.  I get most things done on the weekend, but then that makes for a weekend filled with work.  

I did manage to get a couple of phone calls done on my 30 minute lunch break. Still have another call to make though.  

 

So...I’ll make that call now and then clean the bathroom once and for all.

Right? My house is always chaotic but I feel like I can't really clean it in 5 minutes increments. So I stare at it and feel demoralized! LOL I probably could make progress, but doing it in such small spurts doesn't seem feasible.

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At this point it's mostly just my younger.  My older is usually very diligent - like, today kiddo did all work for the co-op classes (due Thursday) - writing a paper for English, a reflection for music theory, and doing several Latin translations.  But, kid likes to do the work in a specific order, and the things that need me apparently need to be done in the afternoon...which is fine, but younger needs me all day until finished, so basically we ran straight through from morning until we headed out to today's extracurricular (where I was able to sit in my car for an hour and grade a lot of work from my co-op class, so that was good!).  I had tons of spare time, but none of it with predictable interruptions!  

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First I try to evaluate why they are working slowly.

Are they struggling with the work?  Then I give them some M+Ms and praise them for their perseverance.  My kids are 2e and really struggle with executive function and frustration tolerance, so any sign of diligence in the face of adversity is HUGE.

Are they overwhelmed?  Then I sit with them and help them develop a step-by-step plan of attack.  Sometimes they need ridiculously small goals and firm time limits to keep them moving:  "I will be back in 2 minutes.  I want you to have read your math problem through twice and underlined what exactly it is asking you to find."

Are they not able to focus?  Realistically, there are many subjects that my boys simply cannot complete in the hour before or half hour after their doses of ADHD meds.  We try to arrange their schedule accordingly, but if anything slows them down and they end up trying to do a harder subject closer to med time, then their progress slows to a crawl which drags it out even closer to med time.  It is a downward spiral.  It is a life skill for them to gauge their level of focus and adjust expectations accordingly.  If that is the reason something is going slowly, then I coach them to set it aside and do something else productive that they can accomplish like exercise or a chore.

Or, are they just plain old dawdling.  If that is the case, I tend to pay attention to a different child.  So, if one child is making his 7 into a vampire instead of finishing his math, I calmly, and slightly disapprovingly, say, "well, let me know when you are done and we can check your answers" and then I pointedly walk away.  I find someone who is working diligently and sit with them helping, engaging, laughing.  If I feel the point needs to be driven home a bit less subtly, I might hand out Hersey's kisses to anyone working productively.

In general, though, my time and attention are scarce resources, so there is always someone who needs my help or wants my help or could benefit from my help...I rarely have to worry about filling unused time.

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10 hours ago, NewIma said:

This is both a rant and a question! Lol 

My children are moving SO slowly today. At this rate we won't be done until bedtime. LOL  And so I sit twiddling my thumbs and drinking tea.

Ideally I use this waiting around time to cook dinner, crochet, read, do paperwork, but I don't have it in me today.

What do you do while waiting for kids to do work?

We finished math at 11.30 today and didn’t get it all done.  Doesn’t help that it’s the day after a long weekend and we just switched to daylight saving time.

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