Second guessing is killing me...help! (warning crazy woman vent inside)

[proudmamma]

How do you keep from forever second-guessing your curriculum choices? I am so tired of this...I don't know why I do this to myself! It really is draining for not only me but for my family too. I just don't know how to kick this habit. I guess I care too much, :confused:!! How do you make yourself just be content with your choices so you can just go on with life...I mean homeschool just seems like it consumes me and my time. I am just never satisfied and forever fretting and flipflopping!!

 

My oldest daughter (17) takes most of her classes online and self- teaches the rest. She does awesome and I don't have any problems with her schooling...probably because she is self-motivated and so I just let her be. My younger two are the problem. My son (6th grade) and daughter (8th) are the ones I am having problems with. My son is severely dyslexic and so takes all of my time basically. He is several years behind and will probably never "catch up" so I feel so committed to making sure he gets all the help he needs...praying that I won't let him down because there are just certain things he has to be able to do to get along in life!!! I literally do school with him from 8:00 till 4:30 (which includes a half hour for lunch and 45 min for music practice). There is very little he can do on his own. My daughter (8th) is super fast and super hyper and doesn't apply herself or strive to do her best (which breaks my heart and drives me batty because she is clearly capable).

 

History is the issue for me and it always has been, everything else is okay! I have been using SL core 3/4 with my son which is working wonderfully! I have been using core 100 with my daughter which is not working so well. She says she likes it okay but she can't answer any of my questions and I feel like she is not retaining anything. I would love to be able to do history together but my son is so slow that I feel like it holds her back and she is so hyper that it distracts my son! But I feel like I should slow down and teach them together (for history only) and try and bring back my daughter's love of learning (because she has none). But I really wanted my daughter to start a 4 year cycle for 9th thru 12th and if I change this then that won't happen. I would really like to put her in Omnibus next year but with the economy the way it is, I don't know if I will be able to afford all these online classes. I don't know, I am just driving myself CRAZY!

 

So, low and behold I have spent my ENTIRE day in my school room trying to reinvent my history program and have accomplished nothing because I keep going from telling myself...stay with sonlight and what you are doing and quit second guessing to... but your daughter is not getting as much out of it because you are not interacting with her, you should make it more like a unit study...to that never works out like you want it to and it takes ALL your time on the weekends trying to plan..and round and round it goes!

 

Really, I could go on but this is too long as it is. I guess I just needed to vent and ask how to you make yourself be content?

[LG Gone Wild]

I will say this, you grow as well as your kids. I mean, when I started out, I didn't think I could do it on my own. I wanted to follow SWB but was too unsure and frankly, clueless. So I joined a charter which is essentially public school taught at home. While my son enjoyed it, I realized that I could do it without the charter. So I went independent. Still quite confused about schedules and coordinating materials, I went with Sonlight. I really got a lot out of it. Then I realized that I wanted to follow WTM and put a RC element into our homeschool. After a couple of years of Sonlight, I think I learned (through countless errors) enough to follow WTM like I wanted to do since the beginning. So I am in the process of weaning Sonlight from our homeschool. I am even beginning to unclench and try lapbooking :eek:. (I hate the messiness of crafts)

 

One of my kids is super hyper as well and boy, what a boy! I find the I've got to keep attacking his learning blocks from different angles. It feels flaky, it feels like I'm second guessing, it feels inconsistent but all the while, I am really just trying to problem solve. Does that make sense?

[Peela]

Lol, I am in my 6th year and putting my hand up as flaky too! I know I probably appear flaky to others, but I am just learning on this journey, and I dont think it hurts my kids to change curriculum. We have often tried things that dont work for us. The one thing I am good with though is history. We all love it.

 

My ds13 is dyslexic too, and takes a lot of my time. I am learning to give him things that he CAN do alone, at his level, even if it is below where he supposedly should be. It keeps him feeling successful, and i just burn out sitting with him all the time.

My dd14 is independent and bright and academic- but a bit lazy too.

I find that when I hand her books to read etc, often she doesn't get anywhere near as much out of them as if we do them together. I have tried many times- we did Story of the Greek and and Story of the Romans this year- both kids several disliked them and felt they weren't retaining or learning anything. So I read them aloud- and we all loved them! They came alive for us. I have always done history together with my two, at least the spine, as well as at least one book for literature, and it has always been our favourite part of the day.

I think its good for my dd14 to be patient while my ds13 expresses himself or takes his time. She speeds ahead in other subjects. We do a lot of history orally, and he can discuss things as well as her- it is his writing that is way behind.

Dont give youself a hard time. I have so much unused stuff on my shelves- mainly because of my son. I keep trying. He does keep moving forward.

I dont think you can really stuff up history anyway. And I dont think its important that your dd does the 4 year cycle in highschool starting with ancients in year 9. Theres nothing wrong with starting it in any year you end up in. My priority is for us to stay in the same year for history, rather than it all fitting neatly with ancients in year 9.

[Another Lynn]

My kids are on the other end of the age range - 4th, 1st, and K grades, but I understand what you're saying about trying to do some things together... etc. I keep thinking back to my oldest ds's 1st and 2nd grade year when I read to him "all the time." We were loving learning! I want that again for everyone, but I can't seem to find time... or else I can't find the right books to satisfy myself for everyone's needs. If I try to duplicate the same 1st grade year for my 2nd ds, then my oldest will want to listen in and not do his work and his school will last. all. day.

 

We are already on Christmas break because the older two have gone to the National Chess tourney in FL with dh. So I've been rolling all these thoughts around in my mind trying to think what to change.... I don't have a good answer for myself yet.

 

Hope you find what you are looking for! (I say splurge on Omnibus if you know it's the right thing.... peace of mind is priceless and digests better than filet mignon, LOL!) :grouphug:

[proudmamma]

Ahh...you guys are wonderful! Thanks for taking the time to reply. One of the things I have trouble with is wondering which is better...reading the history outloud and discussing it with both of them together, or having my daughter read it by herself so I am not spoonfeeding her and she actually gets the benefit of reading and thinking. I read on AO that CM says once they can read, they should be reading their own history so that their mind does not have a chance to wander and they see the spellings, etc. BUT, then again, if she gets more out of it when I read it aloud and then we all discuss it how can it be better to just have her read it on her own? If I have her do it all on her own I really feel like she literally just does it to hurry up and be done with it. I guess the answer would be to to some together and discuss and then let her do some on her own.

 

I really have a love/hate relationship with Sonlight. I love that it is all planned out and I can just open and go, but I also hate that it is all planned out and sometimes I find myself arguing with the IG because I would have done it differently :tongue_smilie:. Then I struggle too, wondering if the break neck speed is good just to get an overview and a general understanding. Then come back in the following years and fill it in with details. OR would it be better to slow down now and relish the details and really understand the Revolutionary War and why it happened and how our government was formed and why. The way the core 100 set up is to have you go through all of American history in one year and boy does it fly!

 

Then I think which is more important, spending all my time planning so I can teach history really well or just following someone else's plan so I can spend time being a mom. Then again, if I try and follow someone else's plan I end up spending time trying to "fix" it.

 

Boy, homeschooling is really difficult sometimes (and I have been at it for a LONG time, you think I would be efficient by now). Why in the world do I have to have such different kids (lol)...nothing works the same for all of them :D!!! Well, here's the bottom line...right now I am thinking for sure I should slow down and do history with them together and just enjoy my time with them because they will be grown before long. History is important and I want to enjoy it together and discuss and laugh and learn! But the really sad reality is, 30 minutes from now, I will think the opposite...just follow the IG and quit worrying about history so much so that you have time to be a mom!!!

 

Round and round I go...indecisiveness is a curse! I'm all ears :bigear:!!!! Tell me the truth even if it is painful because I have to get off of this merry go round once and for all...I'm extremely dizzy :confused:!

[Wendi]

You're getting a lot of good advice. Hang in there! I am a lot like you; I second-guess a lot. And I have bought a number of things that didn't work. Our struggle, though, is not history; it's math. My ds is way behind in math, and so emotional about it, that it's hard to work with him.

 

But I realize that I'm like that in other areas of my life; it's my nature to second-guess my decisions, or have trouble making up my mind because I keep thinking "the perfect thing is out there somewhere; what if I buy this and then find out there's something better". Oy. So I have learned that thinking that way is not necessarily a sign that I need to change; it's just how my brain is!

 

Wendi