Things that Seemed to Work But Later Backfired

[lea1]

One mistake I made more than once was to sell something I thought we no longer needed but then ended up wanting or needing it later. There were several things I ended up buying twice and many times I went looking for a book I wanted to review but realized I had already sold it.

I read to my two sons a ton. We were always reading tons of books to them when they were little and I have always read aloud for school. We had tons of books and they read in bed before going to sleep. For some reason, when they moved into chapter books, it became very difficult to keep them reading. The small chapter books were fine; they would usually read those. They loved the Harry Potter series and another series that I can't remember the name of but was kind of a mystery/spy type series for their age group. But they very quickly lost interest in reading. I still read aloud and we all enjoy that but they no longer read anything unless it is required. Sad.

One of the things I am glad I did was beginning cursive instruction as soon as they were solid on printing, and then beginning typing instruction as soon as they were solid on cursive. They would use print, cursive, and typing for different parts of their school work so they wouldn't lose it. It worked out very well.

 

[Servant4Christ]

I wish I would've required cursive sooner. Oldest can write all his letters in cursive so doesn't need a program for that, but he doesn't always remember every letter from memory. We'll be working towards that this summer because I really want to have all written output in cursive next year. I'm seriously considering teaching cursive first with my youngers because of this. I can absolutely see the benefit in how cursive helps with letter/word spacing.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Servant4Christ

[seemesew]

On 5/8/2022 at 5:13 PM, Clarita said:

How are you changing with your younger ones @seemesew and @Not_a_Number in this regard? I had/have a sense in early elementary I'm still "suppose" to be very involved during school time. 

 

On 5/8/2022 at 9:09 PM, 8filltheheart said:

I'm still very much involved with my kids all the way through high school.  🙂  It is interacting with my kids that is my joy in homeschooling.  We have awesome conversations and I get to hear all their interesting ideas.  

19 hours ago, Green Bean said:

Agreeing with 8 here- kids need the parent to teach all the way through regardless of their attitude at the time.

I am still very involved but I have started having them do part without me like a worksheet that briefly goes over what I already taught or a coroling page with things we learned about in history. I feel like by doing this I am preparing them to work more independently without me in small chunks but by no means are they doing most of it alone. by about 4th grade I try to have them be independently working in 1 subject, I do check in frequently and help as needed.

[Ellie]

19 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

This is not teaching time.  This is independent skills time and learning to develop a work ethic.  It would be stunting a child's growth to not expect any independent work whatsoever as they get older.

Exactly.

[Ellie]

When younger dd was about 8yo, we started in the fall with a Scott Foresman math book. I would teach, then wait while dd did her seatwork. It was tedious for both of us, TBH. After a couple of weeks, dd looked at me and said, "Do you have to sit there?" LOL Also, we hated that book. She was a very math-y little person, and this text started out with the absolute very basic stuff. I tossed it after a couple of months because she was starting to hate math.

[Green Bean]

Regarding cursive: At some point your kids will be told to only write in print or type no matter how much slaving and tears you put into teaching them cursive. We live in a Print Only, preferably in all CAPS world. The only words they will need to know in cursive is their full signiture.

I have taught all mine UK joined writing (sorry, American is ugly and dumb with all the letter changes.) but only one uses it. He has pretty much forgotten how to write in print so conversly we are having to go back and re-learn it! Another can't read the words he writes in cursive. 

So one of my regrets is wasting a great deal of money, much time, and ridiculous fights on forcing cursive/joined writing.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Green Bean

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

On 5/9/2022 at 5:01 PM, HomeAgain said:

I think there's a discrepancy in what some of us are saying about needing to sit there all the time and what is being thought it is.

Yep. Right now DS still needs me to “body double” nearly 100% of the time, even when he is doing completely independent work. I’m able to accommodate because he is a singleton, but will have to very intentionally pull back as he gets older. His ADHD means he’s likely to always crave / benefit from that more than is typical, but we can also find ways for him to access the focusing presence of others more independently - such as by studying at a tea shop or in the library. 

[Green Bean]

14 hours ago, lea1 said:

One mistake I made more than once was to sell something I thought we no longer needed but then ended up wanting or needing it later. There were several things I ended up buying twice and many times I went looking for a book I wanted to review but realized I had already sold it.

I read to my two sons a ton. We were always reading tons of books to them when they were little and I have always read aloud for school. We had tons of books and they read in bed before going to sleep. For some reason, when they moved into chapter books, it became very difficult to keep them reading. The small chapter books were fine; they would usually read those. They loved the Harry Potter series and another series that I can't remember the name of but was kind of a mystery/spy type series for their age group. But they very quickly lost interest in reading. I still read aloud and we all enjoy that but they no longer read anything unless it is required. Sad.

One of the things I am glad I did was beginning cursive instruction as soon as they were solid on printing, and then beginning typing instruction as soon as they were solid on cursive. They would use print, cursive, and typing for different parts of their school work so they wouldn't lose it. It worked out very well.

 

I’ve done this so many times!

[GoodnightMoogle]

6 hours ago, Green Bean said:

I have taught all mine UK joined writing (sorry, American is ugly and dumb with all the letter changes.) 

Wrong Opinion Alert 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 5/2/2022 at 8:11 AM, cintinative said:

So another one I have is that I regret that we spent so many years on primary level Latin. I know this one is controversial, but my kids were totally burned out on Latin by the time we got to the high school level Latin classes in 7th grade.  It's a double edged sword really. The primary Latin really helped their high school Latin, but since we had done it for years (my youngest did both Song Schools plus Latin for Children A through C), they just were tired of seeing it just as we were entering the most challenging year. I'm not sure what the answer is for this.

 

Same here --- my daughter who is excellent in Latin studies is OVER IT -- as in, will not ever pick up a Latin study again. I'm sad, but she begged us for 3 years to drop it. I finally came to the realization that I wanted her to continue because I wanted the head pats. Embarrassing but true. 

I think the answer may be a gentler approach, at a later age? I don't know. 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 5/4/2022 at 5:59 PM, Chelli said:

Skip counting songs for multiplication. It ruined my oldest on actually learning her multiplication and division facts. She still has to sing the songs at the age of 18. Because she doesn't know her facts other math concepts like reducing fractions, factoring, multiples, etc. are extremely difficult. I did not make that mistake with the other two. 

Oh no. I used skip counting songs a lot with my oldest. 😬 And math is not her strong suit. 

[Green Bean]

On 5/10/2022 at 9:44 PM, GoodnightMoogle said:

Wrong Opinion Alert 

That’s your opinion. 😁

[Porridge]

3 hours ago, MagistraKennedy said:

Oh no. I used skip counting songs a lot with my oldest. 😬 And math is not her strong suit. 

Skip counting was the only way my younger child could learn multiplication facts. So what’s bad for one kid may be great for another. 

[cintinative]

13 hours ago, MagistraKennedy said:

Oh no. I used skip counting songs a lot with my oldest. 😬 And math is not her strong suit. 

I think this might be a YMMV thing. We used every version of learning tool for math facts with my youngest--skip counting songs, flashcards, Big Brainz, Xtra Math, worksheets, etc. until something stuck. I think the skip counting songs helped, to be honest.

Edited May 13, 2022 by cintinative

[Not_a_Number]

On 5/9/2022 at 6:01 PM, HomeAgain said:

I think there's a discrepancy in what some of us are saying about needing to sit there all the time and what is being thought it is.

I teach ds everything.  EVERYTHING.  I don't outsource except for music, so it's on my shoulders.  The problem isn't needing me to teach.  The problem this year was literally needing me to sit there to watch as he read, as he filled in a worksheet, as he did an exercise on the computer.....

This is not teaching time.  This is independent skills time and learning to develop a work ethic.  It would be stunting a child's growth to not expect any independent work whatsoever as they get older.

I think the discrepancy is my fault 🙂 . I did say I had to stop teaching DD9 for the time being so she could figure out how to work on her own. But I'm really hoping that's not a permanent state of affairs -- she was just getting SO angry when I'd try to get her to work without me there that we were having a hard time troubleshooting. She's a stubborn kiddo and we wound up locked in very unproductive patterns. So we went to "all independent work" as a hard reset, since the soft resets weren't working. 

But yes, I in no way regret TEACHING DD9 and we both really hope that we can pick it back up minus the power struggles sometime soon (we're working on it). I love teaching my kids -- I homeschool so I can teach my kids! 

[Clarita]

On 5/10/2022 at 12:57 PM, Green Bean said:

Regarding cursive: At some point your kids will be told to only write in print or type no matter how much slaving and tears you put into teaching them cursive.

I don't plan on teaching my kids cursive if they don't want to do it. So, watch me come back in 10 years to regret this decision. If I do I'd probably going with Copperplate, because that's my favorite "cursive".

[8filltheheart]

On 5/10/2022 at 3:57 PM, Green Bean said:

Regarding cursive: At some point your kids will be told to only write in print or type no matter how much slaving and tears you put into teaching them cursive. We live in a Print Only, preferably in all CAPS world. The only words they will need to know in cursive is their full signiture.

You must live in a different world than I live in. My kids have never been told they cant write in cursive and I most definitely have never seen a preference for printing in all caps. Now, most out-of-class report/essay work is required to be typed, but cursive is definitely faster for taking notes and writing in-class essays. And, knowing how to read cursive is also a good skill to have bc someone may expect them to be able to read it.

[Slache]

41 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

I most definitely have never seen a preference for printing in all caps.

This was required in the Navy, I believe due to my generation's atrocious handwriting, but I have never seen it in civilian life.

[HomeAgain]

13 minutes ago, Slache said:

This was required in the Navy, I believe due to my generation's atrocious handwriting, but I have never seen it in civilian life.

I can tell you that in the Air Force, the goal right now is simply legible, quick writing in proper format.  In the past two years I have been privy to lessons on how to address an envelope (for families and basic recruits) and how to hold a writing utensil/form letters (for LTs who were never taught proper format as children and hold their pens in very weird grips, like toddlers).

I don't teach cursive writing because I expect the rest of the world to write in cursive.  I teach it to work on a number of other things:

-fast writing (we move to a hybrid shorthand for notetaking)

-ease of learning other languages (oldest ds is learning Russian right now and is grasping the letter forms faster than his friend who was taught all print)

-spelling assistance (creating memory blocks of letter patterns)

-a proper signature

 

It's just like I don't teach Latin to expect my kids to converse with Julius Caesar. I teach them because of the added benefits and no real drawbacks to learning the skill.

[Servant4Christ]

49 minutes ago, Slache said:

This was required in the Navy, I believe due to my generation's atrocious handwriting, but I have never seen it in civilian life.

My father and many of his generation only write in all caps. I don't know if that is how he learned in school or the military, but military makes sense.

[El...]

13 minutes ago, Servant4Christ said:

My father and many of his generation only write in all caps. I don't know if that is how he learned in school or the military, but military makes sense.

My father, too. He writes in really consistent, beautiful architect-style all-caps. He's a computer programmer by training, and I think began writing that way in college/grad school. 

[Clarita]

5 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

My kids have never been told they cant write in cursive and I most definitely have never seen a preference for printing in all caps.

Maybe it's a public school thing, starting in high school cursive was not allowed on essays only typed (take-home) or print (in-class/homework). Then for every form I've had to fill out as an adult print or all caps was asked for. 

[Servant4Christ]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

Maybe it's a public school thing, starting in high school cursive was not allowed on essays only typed (take-home) or print (in-class/homework). Then for every form I've had to fill out as an adult print or all caps was asked for. 

This actually makes perfect sense to me. I was taught cursive in public school and all assignments were expected to be done in cursive from third grade on through highschool. Typing/keyboarding was a recommended elective in highschool. My younger brother, on the other hand, was also public schooled and was not taught cursive or spelling because typing and spell check were at their disposal. So it makes sense that anyone my brother's age (mid 30s) or younger might not be able to write or read cursive.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Servant4Christ

[Ellie]

On 5/13/2022 at 12:29 AM, WTM said:

Skip counting was the only way my younger child could learn multiplication facts. So what’s bad for one kid may be great for another. 

I bought the skip-counting tape (in the 80s, it was a tape). We danced to it, like the dancers in the Music  Man who did the Ode to a Grecian Urn, lol. ANd I think that was the last time I played it.

[Ellie]

42 minutes ago, Servant4Christ said:

This actually makes perfect sense to me. I was taught cursive in public school and all assignments were expected to be done in cursive from third grade on through highschool. Typing/keyboarding was a recommended elective in highschool. My younger brother, on the other hand, was also public schooled and was not taught cursive or spelling because typing and spell check were at their disposal. So it makes sense that anyone my brother's age (mid 30s) or younger might not be able to write or read cursive.

Although I taught my dc to write in cursive, I also encouraged them to continue to have good manuscript handwriting, as most forms ask you to print. (Also, apparently, you're supposed to label maps in manuscript, not cursive. I don't make the rules.)

[Servant4Christ]

3 hours ago, Ellie said:

Although I taught my dc to write in cursive, I also encouraged them to continue to have good manuscript handwriting, as most forms ask you to print. (Also, apparently, you're supposed to label maps in manuscript, not cursive. I don't make the rules.)

Yes, yes, and more yes. I teach both for this very reason. I never would've thought to label a map in anything but print. Lol

Edited May 15, 2022 by Servant4Christ

[goldenecho]

Hey everyone...I totally forgot I asked this questions (oops), and got busy and didn't come back to this group for a while.  THANK YOU EVERYONE!!  Everyone's answers I read so far are so interesting and I'm enjoying reading it, but it's going to take me a while to read everyone's so I just wanted to stop and thank everyone now.   Amazing wealth of experience here. 

[goldenecho]

On 5/2/2022 at 5:04 AM, cintinative said:

Mine was like this--before the first year I started homeschooling I located and downloaded 1,000,000 resources and then I printed them. In color. Okay, I am exaggerating, but only a little. I had a whole shelf of binders with pages in those sleeves.  My husband would ask me if I was printing the Internet again.  I would like to apologize to the trees I killed that year.   My lesson learned is don't print it until you are sure you will use it. Also, get a laser printer. LOL

Oh yeah.   The amount of things I printed and didn't use...and my idea that these things were free until I started adding up how much I was paying on printer ink.  Oh man. 

 

[goldenecho]

On 5/9/2022 at 3:01 PM, HomeAgain said:

I think there's a discrepancy in what some of us are saying about needing to sit there all the time and what is being thought it is.

I teach ds everything.  EVERYTHING.  I don't outsource except for music, so it's on my shoulders.  The problem isn't needing me to teach.  The problem this year was literally needing me to sit there to watch as he read, as he filled in a worksheet, as he did an exercise on the computer.....

This is not teaching time.  This is independent skills time and learning to develop a work ethic.  It would be stunting a child's growth to not expect any independent work whatsoever as they get older.

It depends on the child though.   When we learned my son had ADHD-attentive type it didn't change much.   Most of the stuff they suggest we had already figured out just through trial and error.  But the idea that some ADHD kids just do better with someone sitting with them, or even just in the room, even if they aren't teaching or helping, while they do their work...that was good to know.  Because I used to think the same thing...that I was stifling him by not pushing him to do more independently.  But on the other hand, I could tell that doing things independently just did not work for him...it was obvious, so I was torn, and that answered it for me.

He has dyslexia too...and even when he got where he preferred to read silently, he wanted me in the room (just in case).  He'd ask for help with words a lot at first but then it was less and less I would be sitting there for a half hour while he read without him asking for help once.  Eventually, he didn't need me to sit there...but I'm glad I didn't push that sooner and gave him as much time as he needed.  Cause he got there and he's doing so well now.

Edited May 21, 2022 by goldenecho

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, goldenecho said:

It depends on the child though.   When we learned my son had ADHD-attentive type it didn't change much.   Most of the stuff they suggest we had already figured out just through trial and error.  But the idea that some ADHD kids just do better with someone sitting with them, or even just in the room, even if they aren't teaching or helping, while they do their work...that was good to know.  Because I used to think the same thing...that I was stifling him by not pushing him to do more independently.  But on the other hand, I could tell that doing things independently just did not work for him...it was obvious, so I was torn, and that answered it for me.

He has dyslexia too...and even when he got where he preferred to read silently, he wanted me in the room (just in case).  He'd ask for help with words a lot at first but then it was less and less I would be sitting there for a half hour while he read without him asking for help once.  Eventually, he didn't need me to sit there...but I'm glad I didn't push that sooner and gave him as much time as he needed.  Cause he got there and he's doing so well now.

Yeah, it's really interesting how different kids react differently to different stuff -- that's the beauty of homeschooling 🙂. I can see how kids who have trouble with attention or have trouble reading would want their parent nearby for comfort. And with my kids, it's just the opposite -- what they have concrete trouble with is regulating their emotions (especially frustration), and having another person nearby when they get stuck keys them up, so it makes the emotional regulation harder. So then not being there works better for them. 

I've recently been tutoring lots of kids on Zoom, and I would say my kids are in a definite minority -- most students I tutor work well as I watch and do well with interactions around their work. For the kids with ADHD, keeping them on task is in fact crucial and is part of my job. But I also have 2 students who are just like my kids -- if they sense ANY pressure whatsoever from me (and that pressure can be a hint, or just looking at them the wrong way -- something small!), they get frustrated and angry and retreat into their shell, and we may as well not even finish ther lesson, because their brains aren't working anymore. 

[goldenecho]

9 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, it's really interesting how different kids react differently to different stuff -- that's the beauty of homeschooling 🙂. I can see how kids who have trouble with attention or have trouble reading would want their parent nearby for comfort. And with my kids, it's just the opposite -- what they have concrete trouble with is regulating their emotions (especially frustration), and having another person nearby when they get stuck keys them up, so it makes the emotional regulation harder. So then not being there works better for them. 

I've recently been tutoring lots of kids on Zoom, and I would say my kids are in a definite minority -- most students I tutor work well as I watch and do well with interactions around their work. For the kids with ADHD, keeping them on task is in fact crucial and is part of my job. But I also have 2 students who are just like my kids -- if they sense ANY pressure whatsoever from me (and that pressure can be a hint, or just looking at them the wrong way -- something small!), they get frustrated and angry and retreat into their shell, and we may as well not even finish ther lesson, because their brains aren't working anymore. 

My oldest was like that.   When he was struggling with something he didn't want help...he wanted to figure it out himself and he wanted people out of the way so he could struggle without them seeing.  People nearby were dart boards for his frustration. It was both a good thing that he learned how to figure things out by himself, but also a problem when he really did need help. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, goldenecho said:

My oldest was like that.   When he was struggling with something he didn't want help...he wanted to figure it out himself and he wanted people out of the way so he could struggle without them seeing.  People nearby were dart boards for his frustration. It was both a good thing that he learned how to figure things out by himself, but also a problem when he really did need help. 

My kids are even more irritating. They WANT me nearby to help but they can't handle me being there and do better if I insist on leaving. It's really frustrating as their teacher, to be honest!

[goldenecho]

On 5/15/2022 at 11:16 AM, Servant4Christ said:

This actually makes perfect sense to me. I was taught cursive in public school and all assignments were expected to be done in cursive from third grade on through highschool. Typing/keyboarding was a recommended elective in highschool. My younger brother, on the other hand, was also public schooled and was not taught cursive or spelling because typing and spell check were at their disposal. So it makes sense that anyone my brother's age (mid 30s) or younger might not be able to write or read cursive.

This is how it was for me...papers had to be either in cursive or typed (but typing was not expected because not everyone had a typewriter at home, and even less had a computer). 

 

 

On 5/15/2022 at 9:44 AM, Clarita said:

Maybe it's a public school thing, starting in high school cursive was not allowed on essays only typed (take-home) or print (in-class/homework). Then for every form I've had to fill out as an adult print or all caps was asked for. 

Wow...it's come full circle.

My son wanted to learn cursive at first, but I insisted on starting with printing.  Later, he lost interest and we never got around to cursive.   I am not sure if I regret that or not.  On the one hand, there's some definite benefits to cursive for dyslexic kids...but on the other, printing is more useful because so many people don't even know how to read cursive anymore, and his "stamina" for learning things was in short supply in the elementary years, so I'm not sure if it would have been better to take that time to finish learning it or not.

[goldenecho]

25 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

My kids are even more irritating. They WANT me nearby to help but they can't handle me being there and do better if I insist on leaving. It's really frustrating as their teacher, to be honest!

That's rough!