What do *you* do when your child takes forever with a subject?

[sandalwood]

What do you do when it takes what seems like *forever* for your child to complete a subject?

 

I have a perfectionist child who will write over and over to make the cursive neat, etc. and simple things sometimes (today was a day, so it's fresh on my mind!) take much longer than normal. For instance, today he was working on direct objects in English and would not go further in his lesson until he put the rules for direct objects in a word document that he wanted to print out for reference. It took him 35 min. to do the word document, so then he pops back to the lesson. I know he's learning by doing the word document, so I let it go and I am happy he does stuff like that on his own. Anyhow, I know I should be patient but it drives me batty when subjects take forever. Math is another long subject for us. He'll look out the window, etc......in math. It seems if even I say, we are going to spend no more than x amt. of time on something, we still go over. Other subjects are still a breeze and "fast". I guess what he likes he breezes through, lol :) This is becoming a pattern. Any ideas?

[Mom22ns]

My son has some LDs that make this a big issue. Sometimes I give him space, but if I feel it is becoming a habit, I will tell him how much time he has, when that time is up, I'll call him on it, then tell him he'll have to finish when the school day is over. "Homework" is an evil word at our house, but it is very motivational.

 

With math, my son actually wants to have the luxury of taking a long time, so he starts at 6 am. We don't start the rest of our day until 8:45. I ask for 1 hour of math, but if he can't get anything accomplished, he can take 2 hours to get 1 hours worth of work done :). It keeps him from feeling stressed.

 

I guess I mix it up. In some areas we work the schedule so that he has time to be pokey, in others I push it. Now give him science, reading or history and he'll accomplish so much your head will swim and you'll think its an entirely different child :001_smile:

 

Debbie

[Hot Lava Mama]

since I am currently working with 2 1/2 kids (the 1/2 is a 4 year old, so we don't "have" to do school, but I do when we can), I usually either move onto another child, or leave the longer stuff for the end of the day when they are doing the stuff they can do on their own. If I let them do that kind of stuff (my dd7 is kind of like that), they are o.k. if they know that can still do it that day, only after everything else that needs to be done with mom is complete.

 

Good luck!

Hot Lava Mama

[helena]

I go make myself a cup of tea, tidy up the classroom, make a snack for the kids.. I just walk away!! I feel like running in place while screaming COME ON!!! COME ON!!!!! AAAHHH!!! But that never works. If they want to get lost in their work I will usually let them. Sometimes I have to say you have to finish this on your own time. I ACT patient, and teacherly...in my mind is another story. Your child is probably getting a deep sense satisfaction from his work when he does this. In the end, for me that's what it's all about! Freedom in a controlled environment. I know dds will get everything done for the week. My cure for the wondering imagination (usually during math) is get it done first, or I say as soon as you're done with XYZ (& I want quality work) we are going swimming, play outside, etc. tedious work gets done much easier that way.

[LizzyBee]

Turns out she has a slow processing speed and a visual-motor integration weakness. Because of her processing speed, it takes her longer to retrieve information from long term memory. When it looks like she's staring out the window, she really is thinking. Until we had her tested, I thought she was just daydreaming. Some days she does better than others, but I've learned not to say, "See, you can do it faster" on her good days, because nothing will make an LD kid stop trying faster than to have their teachers and parents fail to recognize the amount of effort it takes for them to overcome their weaknesses. Math and writing are her hardest, slowest subjects.

[iquilt]

"Homework" gets assigned if there is dragging of feet or gnashing of teeth! My oldest has been known to drag her feet on math, so after 1/2 hour of work she puts it aside and finishes it after everything else is done. That has been a great motivator for her to get it done in the morning.

[Marylou]

I go make myself a cup of tea, tidy up the classroom, make a snack for the kids.. I just walk away!! I feel like running in place while screaming COME ON!!! COME ON!!!!! AAAHHH!!! But that never works.

 

You were probably not trying to be funny here, but this just cracked me up. I hear ya and :iagree:

 

Donna

[DarlaS]

I have an 8 yo dd who dawdles something awful with math. I have no interest in spending more than 20-30 minutes a day for math at her age. We always go over. It makes no difference if I hover or go find something to keep myself from bugging her.

 

She is not absorbed in the subject either. It's all I can do to keep her focused. Today, I bribed her with jelly beans. It worked. The written part of her math (after the "classwork" part of the lesson) was done in 15 minutes. That's better than I expected. Now I know what she's capable of. :001_smile:

 

I know sometimes *I* just need jelly beans! :D

 

Keep in mind you asked "What do you do", not what should be done ;)

[Marylou]

Keep in mind you asked "What do you do", not what should be done ;)

 

Another laugh, thanks!

[EKS]

Yell. Threaten. Yell some more.

 

Of course, if my child who takes forever actually had the motivation to spend 35 minutes creating a reference sheet of grammar rules I'd probably do a little dance.

[Mandamom]

I have no idea if this will work for you or anyone else but I'll put it out there.

 

First off, we used a checklist for ds so that he knew what he had to do each day.

 

Ds and I got together in the morning to go over the lessons that we needed to go over. We would review the work from the day before that needed to be checked and then start lessons for that day, including practice problems. This could take an hour or so.

 

He would then go off and start doing his independent work where upon I would work with my littles or do housework or whatever.

 

In the checklist I would tell ds that at a certain time we would do our together subjects (read a book/story; assistance on some project or lab or discussion/narration of a book/story or whatever) and at that time we would then go over those subjects. This might take a couple hours depending on what we were doing.

 

If he needed help throughout the day he could ask questions and get help but if I was doing something else he might have to wait for me.

 

At what was supposed to be the end of our day we would go over his work from the day and make sure that he had no major errors. At this point he would re do anything that had major errors (remember though he had all day to ask questions if he didn't understand) and if he had an incomplete assignment he would finish that before he could do anything fun.

 

This gave him more freedom to complete his work on his terms but still allow me freedom so I didn't feel totally bound to his schedule.

 

With the checklist I felt like I had control over my day rather. He quickly learned that the dawdling took his time away and didn't affect mine. Ds always preferred to be independent so it wasn't a real stretch to make this work.

 

We started this schedule about 2 years into homeschooling although I started the checklist in 4th grade when we started homeschooling. It worked pretty well the 5 years I homeschooled.

[Catherine]

I have a detailed schedule for my sixth grader and tenth grader at the beginning of the day. I devote certain hours to each child. They know which hours are theirs. The second grader gets mostly one-on-one tutoring. Having clearer boundaries about what exactly was their responsibility and what was mine has been useful. Yes, it makes me absolutely nuts that they spend such an unnecessary amount of time, but the motivation to finish needs to be their own, not mine. I hope that soon they will be more efficient. I offer gentle hints when they seem receptive, but rarely. I just hate nagging and it was driving me crazy so I had to find a way to stop.

[Julie in MN]

I would treat the two things differently.

 

For the English, if he is doing something productive that will help him retain the info in the long run, I would move the rest of his assignment to the following day.

 

For the Math, if he is dawdling, I would give him a simple, nonjudgmental warning -- "Ten more minutes & that should be enough time. The rest can be done at 2:30." (our school day normally ends at 2:30)

 

Julie