60-day returns • free shipping on USA orders $129+
helping the non-teaching parent "fit"
- This topic has 13 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by
.
Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
- Posts
How does the non-teaching parent fit in your homeschooling scheme?
In our house, when we try to bring my husband up-to-date over dinner, he quizzes the kids, usually with stumpers rather than re-inforcers. They get frustrated; he wonders what they learned. He worries about their progress. He worries about how little he feels like he knows about what we do. He feels left out. There’s a reason I’m the teacher, but it isn’t right for that reason or this arrangement to exclude him.
In some areas, such as Scripture Memory, we long for his involvement. Our Scripture Memory box gathers dust because we haven’t gone on without him (he leaves before we awake, misses dinner weekly, pulls all-nighters so we don’t see him at all some days, lives in an up-tight no-time-for-your-ideas state of mind). How do I pick a time for the Memory Box?
It is this way for many aspects of our family life. When he is here, he secludes himself from what really matters. When his support is not clear through action, it is unclear period & the kids drift ever further from him.
Can anyone help me with stories about your own family working through this dilemma, guide me to books, magazine articles, or add your prayer to mine to see us through?
Thanks, Amy & Kids (ages 6 & 9)
I have a similar situation here. When my husband is home and able to have dinner with us, I ask the kids to tell about their favorite thing they learned that day. That way they’re not being quizzed so that they freeze up.
Also, I learned long ago that just because my husband hasn’t stepped up to the plate as being the spiritual leader in our house, it doesn’t mean that the kids go without a spiritual leader. I do all that is necessary to fill that spot for them, It’s not God’s design and it is not ideal, but until the Lord works in my husband’s heart, that is what I must do. No amount of cajoling will work. It will only make him resentful. We just have to pray for our husbands and pray that we can maintain that quiet spirit that is so pleasing to the Lord.
I have friends whose husbands are very involved, even choosing the curriculum that their wives then teach or teaching a few subjects themselves. For us neither of these works. My husband has little enough time in the evenings and weekends. We don’t feel he could consistently teach a core subject (he does play games with the kids and things when he is home). When I asked him if I should be consulting him more on what to teach, he said no. He feels he has delegated that to me and he is happy to think through things with me if I have problems but he mostly gives me free reign in what and how to teach. This is what works for us.
I have found that when my kids are asked specifically about what they are learnign they seem unable to come up with answers but I know they are learning things. It can just be hard to produce things like that on the spot. If he wants to see their progress could they maybe narrate things for him?
Nebby,
Maybe I could impress upon him some basics of narration (it is a time to listen, not teach, quiz or share personal stories, but to support the child’s process of developing language skills). If he were better able to listen to the children they would be overjoyed.
Everything requires my love & patience. Right now it seems like everything we do is something we are just beginning to learn about.
Thanks for your idea.
Amy
My dh is super supportive of our homeschooling but he is not involved. If the girls want to show him some of their work he will take an interest, and he gets excited with them about their new abilities – like learning to read, which all my girls did “late”, but it’s really not something that gets talked about in a “this is what we did for school today” kind of way. He does watch all the educational documentaries with us – this usually happens during dinner. We’ve *all* learned a lot about Egypt and pyramids. lol Knowing my husband, I think asking him to sit and listen to a narration would be like torture.
He and I discuss the scriptures daily and my husband is very open about his faith and love of the Lord, so my girls do see that concerning him, but he doesn’t lead any kind of family bible time. The girls and I do our scripture memory work during school time while dh is at work.
Nebby,
Yesterday my husband called as he was on the way home from work. He is more predictable about this call more routinely than any other thing he does. During that time, I casually found each child & reminded them about what we did during the day, just in case their dad should ask. It was a nice way to wrap up the day, to remind ourselves that we’d done something, and to think about how they might say something to dad or share something with dad (my daughter & I had worked on reading using CM methods–we laughed & laughed over the sentences we’d built–reviewing Humpty Dumpty I made “All the king’s horses sat on Humpty Dumpty”). Turned out he tossed down some dinner then played & played with the kids while I caught up on dishes & laundry folding–calling for them to pitch in at crucial times. No sharing was done.
But I do think the kids & I felt more relaxed for having prepared our thoughts for sharing. (not true narration)
Rene,
Thanks for giving me a look at the ways your day fits together. Seeing a couple of moms who say Scripture Memory is a part of the school day (not family time) eases me over the hurdle. Yesterday we reviewed our meager collection of verses & started on Coriell’s character building book. It did not feel sneaky as it had before, just practical. We can build from there.
Who knows? I may also be able to get past my dream that he will play his trumpet for us while we do the Hymn Study. This has stalled me for months. My “Sunday afternoon” idea has never worked. That seems to be a time when nobody wants to be called together for any of mom’s ideas. For now, I can plunk out melodies on the piano for the kids. Dad may join us some day.
I agree, narration could be torture–esp until my dh gains some skills for listening to it. Also a factor is the time delay. If we read & narrate early in the day, we must recapture that mindset again in the evening. This is a skill to build.
Amy
My husband always asks them what they did in school, and “I’ll ask them to tell daddy about ____.” If I have an errand to run and he is home, I’ll have him supervise the girls doing their math or copywork. Otherwise he has not much involved since he works a lot of hours. He does want to know how they are progressing . He does take them to swim class on Saturdays and bike rides in the warmer months so you could say he is the P.E. instructor. 😉
I agree with what Heather said above. 🙂
Tara
Thanks to all who posted. I’ve gained insight into the workings of some other homeschools & have seen the need for my own ideas to evolve to match my situation. You’ve really helped. Amy
Why not put the memory box on the kitchen table? I know when/if ours sits there my dh will pick it up and use it with the kids. Ours has verses, poetry, and even questions about various Bible stories.
I’m actually considering starting another one, and instead of dates having categories. The idea would be to write down questions about what we’re learning. It could be true questions or thought provoking discussion items. If you did something like that your dh would have questions he could ask that would help him see what’s been learned.
Do your children make lapbooks or notebooks? We make one or the other and on Fridays when dh comes from work my children tend to clamber up in the chair with him and they all look at everything they’ve done. It’s a very sweet time for them, but if something happens where this time is lost, there’s no tears. They simply take advantage of showing him at another moment.
I’ll also encourage the “chatter” at the table, by saying things like, “Oo, you guys should tell Daddy about *enter topic*.” This helps Daddy feel included and up to date on what happening around here. If he asks a question the kids don’t know I’ll just gently say, “We haven’t quite gotten that far yet!” Daddy will giggle and say, “Whoops!” 😉
My hubby is currently in a MBA program and working 60+ hours most weeks. A couple months ago to keep him involved in our scripture memory and Bible study (because this used to be done as a family with dad prior to him being in school) I printed some of our verses on cardstock in a large font and cut the words apart. I paperclipped them to the back of the scripture memory cards and daddy would leave one out for us to work on….we would then glue it on a piece of construction paper in order to re-create the verse and most nights leave it out for him with dinner….the kids are often in bed before he gets home.
so really….I did the work of having it ready for daddy to leave out but it made him feel involved and the kids love it because it was like a game. Sometimes I also have a corresponding coloring sheet that they color while I read the Bible to them. They love leaving those out for dad to. I find most of them here http://children.cccm.com/site/curriculum.htm
Laura
While I would like for dh to learn the verses from our Scripture Memory Sysytem along with us, it is just not possible at this time. He has so many other things going-I’ve just scheduled our verses for M-F and left the weekends empty-except for the numbered days of the month-those are a problem-haven’t trained myself to work those in yet, so they are skipped.
I do have one student that is eager to tell Daddy what he learned or read that day-all the others are off the hook since he is so verbal. By the time he is done-dh’s ‘listening tank’ is full. It’s usually an update of whatever biography he is reading.
I love the lapbook suggestion-we have a monthly co-op with other MFW users and we’ve done a couple of simple lapbooks there-one on the human body last fall. We started Exploring Creation with Astronomy today and I’m having them do some notebook pages as we go and I bought one Notebooking Journal for them to do together. Hopefully that will give them something to tell Daddy about at supper.
I haven’t read all of the responses, so you probably have already recieved much encouragement. I just want to add to the encouragement. For a long time I had similar struggles, and learned to prayer for my husbands involvement and leadership (he’s always been encouraging) and over the last year I have seen a wonderful change in his heart turning towards home! I give that all to God!
I will pray for you too.
Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
- The topic ‘helping the non-teaching parent "fit"’ is closed to new replies.