Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: Motivation, Perseverance

This topic has 20 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 2 months ago by amyjane.

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April 8, 2014 at 11:53 am
amyjane
Participant
My 10yo ds is struggling with the mundane of school. The subjects that he doesn’t love but are necessary for his education. He is gaining speed with regards to his love for learning but it seems that these speedbumps and quite frustrating to him. Any ideas how to champion him to press on. We have had many of the “this is just a part of life” talks to no avail. I have also disciplined his attitude. But we all know how hard it is to do the things in life that we don’t like. So my desire is to motivate it out of him rather than discipline. (if possible). Any ideas, thoughts?
Amy
April 8, 2014 at 4:00 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Amy, I sure hope you get some good responses to your question. I am having a similar issue with both of my kids. After working on the habit of attention, carefully choosing books I really believe they’ll love, and keeping our readings short and concise, I am still struggling with getting them to pay attention when we read from our history spines. I have used so many different ones, thinking that it was just a certain book that wasn’t working for us, but alas, I think it’s history period. It’s been so hard for me, and I find myself lecturing them about it more than I’d like to. It’s one of those things that is, as you put it, necessary for their educations, so throwing it out isn’t an option. I’m very interested in this topic as well. Thanks for posting!
April 8, 2014 at 6:28 pm
Linabean
Participant
I am going to be keeping up with thread as well, as I could have written Amy’s post. Also, history spines seem to be one of the hardest for us as well.
Hope someone can answer your questions, Amy!
-Miranda
April 8, 2014 at 6:51 pm
TailorMade
Participant
From the All Day Charlotte Mason Seminar:
fortitude – bearing up under pain or discomfort

April 8, 2014 at 6:59 pm
amyjane
Participant
I will confess that this year we ditched the history spine mid year and it has been fabulous. Here was my reasoning: I plan on doing a second round of these modules and my children will be older with more ability to grasp history. So we decided to read the fun family books for the age group and I added a couple in as well. This has given him an idea of history in that age and he has loved that it is not so fact based. Once I let it go history has been so so so much more plesant.
April 8, 2014 at 7:12 pm
LindseyD
Participant
We are on mod 4, and I opted not to use the Famous Men books recommended. I did want to use Foster’s Colombus and Sons, and at first, it was great. Now, not so much. I’m learning a lot from it, but my kids got NOTHING out of the reading this morning, and I walked out frustrated because I wasted my time in reading something that they could not narrate one lick of, nor did they really care about. I made them both re-read it without me and do a written narration instead. I also plan to repeat the modules, which I remind myself of often, but I still feel like our history is missing something. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like something just isn’t there. We had a talk at lunch about having a strong will and making ourselves do something that is necessary even when we don’t want to. That discussion has worked with ds, who strongly dislikes dictation. I hope that it has the same effect for this history reading. If we don’t read from the spine, then all we have are the independent readings, which then means history is no longer a family subject, but becomes an independent study with even bigger gaps. That is why it is important to me to have a spine–just not sure I know which one. Christie has recommended CHOW to me, which I am looking into today. We may not incorporate it into this year, but I’m definitely looking into it for next year.
April 8, 2014 at 11:41 pm
amyjane
Participant
what is CHOW? Also, I have been reading some of the independent books with them as a family. For example the spartan cousins and the athenian cousins. Not sure what we will do for module 4. I agree that it is not a comprehensive history but I really believe they will enjoy it more later when they can better put it into context. In the same boat here my friend and I have no good answers. To be honest it doesn’t help that I don’t LOVE history!!
April 9, 2014 at 1:36 am
LindseyD
Participant
Child’s History of the World. It’s another history spine, and Christie says it’s her favorite. Christie and I are a lot alike and communicate often via text and phone, and usually if she likes a resource, I like it as well. We spent over an hour today texting about my history woes.
April 9, 2014 at 2:41 am
amyjane
Participant
ok Lindsey so I just read about this book. Does it cover all of history? Do you just read sections each year? I am curious? :):)
April 9, 2014 at 5:32 am
Wings2fly
Participant
What helps us love history is field trips that make the books more meaningful. Museums, re-enactments, festivals, and films help bring history to life for us. I, too, used to not like history much. But we all love it now.
April 9, 2014 at 3:19 pm
JenniferM
Participant
If the child can read independently, he may be more attentive to the reading by doing it himself rather than listening to the read aloud. Some people, myself included, just need to “see it” to grasp it. Just some thoughts….
April 9, 2014 at 3:36 pm
missceegee
Participant
I would recommend sections of CHOW to correspond with whatever time period being studied. The first couple of chapters talk about cave men, but I skip those. It goes through the end of the Cold War. It’s simple enough for ages 9+ to read independently. I intend to return to this book next year. I used it with my oldest very successfully for grades 1-4. I have a friend who added it to her high schooler’s reading list one year for a simple overview when the rest of his load was heavy. Yes, it’s a simple book, but I’ve learned a lot myself as an adult. I like it bc it’s Christian friendly, chronological, makes a good reader or read aloud, and I learned and retained from it as did my oldest.
I just stumbled on this page when looking for something else. I haven’t read at length yet, but I see we share reasons for liking it. I thought if put it here to add to the CHOW discussion – http://harringtonharmonies.com/2012/06/10-time-periods-for-a-childs-history-of-the-world-reading-list.html
Going forward, I will likely skip the spines as family reading, but have my dd13 complete on her own. She does well with them on her own. I find my kids prefer the majority of their work independent.
April 9, 2014 at 4:21 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Christie, I’m so glad you joined this discussion!
Amy, do you think it’s the books he’s not interested in? Or the time period? Or?? Maybe if you could pinpoint the source of his boredom and frustration, you could look for alternative resources. Is he able to be more independent? Would he prefer to do more work on his own? Just some thoughts.
I’m in the same boat, except I’m the one who’s dealing with the mundane, not the kids.
April 9, 2014 at 4:34 pm
amyjane
Participant
While I have really benefitted from the history discussion, our struggles are more with spelling and writing. Part of the issue is his vision struggles. Writing is a very exhausting thing for him and I limit it tremendously. And the spelling/dictation part as well. Some days I just make him spell them out loud. But because they are challenging he often gets frustrated. But as I have thought more and prayed over how to handle it I feel that I need to give a little more weight to his handicap. We are always trying so hard not to handicap our boys because of their vision. And in most areas they thrive. But I have watched him when he hasn’t known I am and he is constantly massaging his eyes, rubbing his head and squinting to focus. Honeslty, I am grieved this week. Though I don’t want to handicap him any more than he already it I have to accept that we have finally met an area that is really challenging for him and I have got to figure how to help him be succesful in these areas with his capapbilities. Does this make sense? I mean he has to learn how to compose a paper – not yet but soon we will need to start. I think he needs to learn to put his thoughts into writing. He does a fantastic job narrating but the actual act of writing anything he hates. He has occular albinism and he is legally blind and it can not be corrected. But the worse part is he has nystagmus. That is where his eyes “dance” back and forth contantly. To slow them down he has to work REALLY hard. So imagin trying to see the little words on a piece of paper. As I type this I just feel awful because I have had this “suck it up” mentality with him but after watching him and prayer this week I have to figure out a new way. So you can be in prayer for me and offer any suggestions if you have them..
But we have had the same history struggles and so the route this thread went has helped me as well!!
April 9, 2014 at 4:35 pm
amyjane
Participant
sorry about all the typos above. 🙁