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feeling blah about homeschooling


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Hi all,

I've been on this board for years. My oldest two are in high school and my third is at a one-day-a-week coop (for mental health reasons) that assigns her most of her school work. I've got two kids at home still fully homeschooled, ds9 and dd5. And I just feel... blah.

Homeschooling ds9 is like taking a St. Bernard for a walk who is determined to go home. I use all my energy trying to pull him along. When I get brief bits of excitement, he "jumps" (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally) and knocks me over. I'm exhausted.

Dd5 is sweet and fun, but I'm so exhausted by the time I get to her that I am doing a bad job, at least compared to what I did with ds16 and dd14.

How do I get that excitement back? My coop disbanded, too, and most of my friends who homeschool do CC, which I'm not a fan of. There aren't homeschool support groups near me.

(You may have seen me posting on the Main Board about career counselors...)

I'm feeling the exhaustion, too, of being ruled by the public school schedule (see big kids) while being a homeschooler. I'd love to just pack up and go somewhere, but there's public school.

Argh.

Emily

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Sounds stinky! Here are some random ideas that may or may not be anything you haven't already tried!

Could you travel for a few non-coop days and leave the high schoolers to do their thing? Maybe 3 nights at an Airbnb with some nature activities nearby and cereal/sandwiches/hot dogs every day.

Alternatively, or additionally, can you change your approach with the 9yo to make it less exhausting, even just temporarily?

What about doing some high quality work with dd5 before picking up the St Bernard's leash? 😁

Sorry to hear about your coop disbanding. That kind of shift often requires some mourning on my part.  Can you still do some outside playdates with a family or two?

Some other random ideas are a week of super easy meals, a day a week for 3 months of teaching housekeeping skills (tricky way if getting some help with the tedium), find an enjoyable, reasonably educational tv show for the three of you to watch regularly, institute a morning walk or bike regardless of the weather....

 

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3 hours ago, SusanC said:

Sounds stinky! Here are some random ideas that may or may not be anything you haven't already tried!

Could you travel for a few non-coop days and leave the high schoolers to do their thing? Maybe 3 nights at an Airbnb with some nature activities nearby and cereal/sandwiches/hot dogs every day.

Alternatively, or additionally, can you change your approach with the 9yo to make it less exhausting, even just temporarily?

What about doing some high quality work with dd5 before picking up the St Bernard's leash? 😁

Sorry to hear about your coop disbanding. That kind of shift often requires some mourning on my part.  Can you still do some outside playdates with a family or two?

Some other random ideas are a week of super easy meals, a day a week for 3 months of teaching housekeeping skills (tricky way if getting some help with the tedium), find an enjoyable, reasonably educational tv show for the three of you to watch regularly, institute a morning walk or bike regardless of the weather....

 

Great idea about working with dd5 first. That might be less overwhelming.

Ds9 says there are, "so many things [he] wants to build," so I'm trying to think of ways to give him things to build in our day.

I've thought about documentaries. That might be something to build into our days.

Ds9 loves baking and cooking. Maybe I need to harness more of that...

Thanks for the ideas. I think not having a coop has been really draining, since normally I would have been sorting out issues with them. Now, things just seem alone.

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12 minutes ago, EmilyGF said:

Ds9 says there are, "so many things [he] wants to build," so I'm trying to think of ways to give him things to build in our day.

Maybe some cardboard rivets and a pack of flat boxes from a U-Haul store.

14 minutes ago, EmilyGF said:

Ds9 loves baking and cooking. Maybe I need to harness more of that...

Ye-es, if the mess level is mentally manageable. 😉

 

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I love the St. Bernard analogy.

My DD9 is also really difficult to HS. She mostly wants to do what she wants to do, and she can’t be bothered to do most other things well.

Where we’ve gone to with this is that she’s mostly unschooled and she gets lots of choice about her daily work. We got a fair amount of buy-in that way… but at that point, she’s supposed to do her part and do the limited stuff she chose WELL. We’re constantly experimenting there.

I’ve never really tried incorporating her interests into school… she just does she feels like most of the day and I’m ok with that for now.

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A veteran homeschool mom told me to set an amount of work to be done before lunch then refuse to allow lunch until it is done. I thought this seemed cruel but now that I’m doing it, it works fabulously. In addition to this, if my nine-year-old gives me grief, I just say OK that’s fine and I move onto the next child. I don’t just sit there and argue with her or fight with her. This is because I did not want to take any more from the six-year-old because I’m arguing with the nine-year-old plus I didn’t want the younger child to see me constantly having to argue with the nine-year-old and think that I would engage in the arguments with him too. But it’s had an excellent side effect that after she’s had time to sit on the sidelines and wait she becomes more willing to work.

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This is reminding me of a few things.

1) DS9 loves working hard if he can see immediate results. He, for example, likes cleaning the kitchen and scrubbing the baseboards. Much of school is NOT immediate.

2) DS9 loves helping people. Cooking has immediate results AND feeds hungry people.

3) DS9 really wants to build stuff.

These are really great personality traits that I'm not harnessing right now. I've been focused on things like his lack of desire to read and trying to deal with his lacks instead of harnessing his strengths. Thanks for helping me refocus.

Emily

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It helps me to read something that reminds me what I want - Brave Learner? Wild and Free? Rethinking School? Gatto? 

With littler kids - maybe sidestep to a unit study you can all get excited and do together about with a fun field trip? 

I love to assign an audio book kids can listen to while walking and hiking. Then take them out to do that. 

Does your library have a maker space?

Can you buy a model - like theres some cool knex sets tied to science projects that build multiple things or the roller coaster ones - for 9 year old to work on?

I just bought a book of paper Da Vinci models for my 16 year old for days when he needs something aside from.books and lectures, there will be a point where he needs something... last year he built a model.of Notre Dame for one of those aside projects. And learned to make Celtic knot artwork... As a sophomore studying medieval history. 

Can you get 9 year old in a hands on class? I know our forge offers blacksmithing classes that young.

Edited by theelfqueen
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32 minutes ago, theelfqueen said:

Does your library have a maker space?

Can you buy a model - like theres some cool knex sets tied to science projects that build multiple things or the roller coaster ones - for 9 year old to work on?

I dunno about her kid, but I know that with my kid, I stay OUT of her hobbies. If I try to get her to do things, it goes badly. They need to be her idea 😛 . 

So, I might buy a set, but I couldn't possibly make it a required project. Plus, again, I don't know about her kid... but my kid doesn't need encouragement to build things. She builds things all the time anyway. What I need is a way to get her to finish her math without handing in nonsense 😛 .

I don't know if these apply to the OP, of course! Just a comment. 

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Recognizing that other interests can be school rather than just 'hobbies" was a part of my point. Letting kids' interests drive schooling choices is a well rounded approach a lot of people find useful, especially with kids who are challenging to find 'buy-in'. Let them feel that their interests and preferences are heard, that they have choice and a role to play in their education - that can go a long way. 

Some kids need a hands on real world approach not strict academics. More making and doing, less "assigning".  It can be for a season or as a lifestyle. Kind of falls into the "strewing" idea of unschooling - but instead of just stewing books - strew projects and other directional things AND give them time to pursue them. 

I dont know about Cardboard Box Engineering specifically  but I do remember some books called Junk Drawer Engineering or science or something that one of my kids liked at that age. Also something about Engineering Fails  or Epic Engineering Disasters? Something like that -- that had a discussion of something that was built and failed then a project to do.  And the Klutz lego books like Chain Reactions and Contraptions were something cool. 

Edited by theelfqueen
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6 minutes ago, theelfqueen said:

Recognizing that other interests can be school rather than just 'hobbies" was a part of my point.

I know, but while I find my kids' other interests valuable in and of themselves, they couldn't be school in a realistic way for us. When I tried to make them more structured in ANY way (like, scheduling times for them, or even giving small suggestions), DD9 totally lost interest. It's not fun for her unless it's her idea. 

Or do you mean that hobbies can be considered part of school time even if you stay well out of the kid's way? I kind of agree with that, I suppose 🙂 . 

 

7 minutes ago, theelfqueen said:

Let them feel that their interests and preferences are heard, that they have choice and a role to play in their education - that can go a long way. 

We do that more than anyone I know, lol. At this point, DD9 gets to choose what she gets to do every day (from some limited set of options, granted, but it's all tailored to her, since I write all the lessons.) But we still had to put our foot down about the choice ending after she GOT the work, because if her choices extended to either doing it or not, she would simply not do the stuff she wasn't interested in, even if she'd picked it an hour before. 

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4 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

This is reminding me of a few things.

1) DS9 loves working hard if he can see immediate results. He, for example, likes cleaning the kitchen and scrubbing the baseboards. Much of school is NOT immediate.

2) DS9 loves helping people. Cooking has immediate results AND feeds hungry people.

3) DS9 really wants to build stuff.

These are really great personality traits that I'm not harnessing right now. I've been focused on things like his lack of desire to read and trying to deal with his lacks instead of harnessing his strengths. Thanks for helping me refocus.

Emily

Can he practice reading recipes?

Also, assign readings about various ingredients. Can you create by copying and pasting small sections for him to read about things like cocoa, sugar, flour, butter, etc.? 

My kids loved this book 

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/science-experiments-you-can-eat-revised-edition_vicki-cobb/270607/item/23637623/?gclid=CjwKCAjw-ZCKBhBkEiwAM4qfF7q2ODZ_iz-M5fM6smfO8sKXIAb6UAtU2Xuk36RmLz6hk3OcMvONuxoCJLkQAvD_BwE#idiq=23637623&edition=9441042

My son loves documentaries about the building of pyramids and dams and bridges. Also, David McCauley's books about buildings were interesting to my ds.

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For cooking - can he watch Alton Brown? His cookbooks, too, have loads of info on the ingredients, the chemistry etc... I'm Just Here for the Food was a good one. Cheap used copies on amazon and its older so your library might have it. 

I'm Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0 https://smile.amazon.com/dp/158479559X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_BSDNM9PB3V59ZK58SGFY

 

Here's that Engineering fails thing I mentioned up thread. There are also others in the series apparently. 

The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters: 33 Thrilling Experiments Based on History's Greatest Blunders (Irresponsible Science) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0761183949/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_DZAFYZRW1MQ22BN932DM

Would he like to build a catapult for Punkin Chunkin? (Small pumpkins like the ones in a bag lol) 

Rubber Band Engineer: Build Slingshot Powered Rockets, Rubber Band Rifles, Unconventional Catapults, and More Guerrilla Gadgets from Household Hardware https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1631591045/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_0YXHXEP4262GA8AVXQ1G

I remember a snap kit similar to this being a big hit

Snap Circuits “Arcade”, Electronics Exploration Kit, Stem Activities for Ages 8+, Multicolor (SCA-200) https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00VKRK7K0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_fabc_J6D80QPCQGJ916JN84QT?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The Knex kit I was thinking of was the Renewable Enrgy one which seems to have been retired. But there's some cool stuff. 

Edited by theelfqueen
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I am not much help here, but came to say my St. Bernard is in school and at least half the day here is absolutely peaceful. I, as a true homeschooler at heart, detest what I see at his PS, but mental health for all involved here is taking precedence. I held out until high school. In retrospect maybe I should have sent him to school sooner. 

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3 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I am not much help here, but came to say my St. Bernard is in school and at least half the day here is absolutely peaceful. I, as a true homeschooler at heart, detest what I see at his PS, but mental health for all involved here is taking precedence. I held out until high school. In retrospect maybe I should have sent him to school sooner. 

How's school going? What are you disliking? 

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16 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

How's school going? What are you disliking? 

It’s a mixed bag. He likes being around kids and not being lonely, but it’s a massive time suck and not academically as good as what we could have delivered at home. So his extracurriculars are suffering. But socially (keep in mind we are rural and fairly isolated), it was a right choice. I am also happy I don’t have to be prostrating myself to find AP test sites and such. 
We shall see how it goes. I told him I would allow him to make a decision one year at a time.

I mean for entering public universities, which in all likelihood all we can afford, PS is the way to go. 
 

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1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

I am not much help here, but came to say my St. Bernard is in school and at least half the day here is absolutely peaceful. I, as a true homeschooler at heart, detest what I see at his PS, but mental health for all involved here is taking precedence. I held out until high school. In retrospect maybe I should have sent him to school sooner. 

We sent ours to school for kindergarten and he was one of the star pupils. He actually was seated next to TROUBLEMAKERS to help them focus (who knew???). I'm starting to think about sending him to Catholic school next year, but DH isn't such a fan. He does well with extreme levels of clarity and order. I'm not so good at that. I got too frustrated with the public school by the end of the year, though, to send him back.

Emily

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