Hs’ing the CM way with boys

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  • March 30, 2008 at 5:36 pm
    SandiNC
    Member

    My children are 10 (ds), 9 & 8 (dd’s) and while I know I could successfully incooperate a CM style education for my girls, I could use some encouragement that it can be done with boys! My son is very distractable and he doesn’t like a bunch of busy work. Of course, failure to plan is planning to fail – and I just know in my heart that our time for change has come. Now is the time for me to grab hold of my childrens hearts and really make a change. I learned so much from the SCM conference yesterday, and feel that this would really make a difference in our hs’ing. Can it be done with my – doesn’t like to read, wants to conquer the world – distractable son?

    Blessings,

    Sandi

    March 30, 2008 at 9:15 pm
    Bookworm
    Participant

    Hi! I only have boys, no girls. 🙂

    I feel that CM methods are perfect for distractible boys!

    NO busy work. 🙂 There is a good reason for everything! I’ve found it useful to have to make the case, for example, why copywork is good. And when I explain it properly, my sons generally see why I insist on some. However, they know the time is short–I set what he can do in 10 minutes, and if he does his best in ten minutes, he can go do something else! That distractibility–reading and narration begins to gently work on that right away. You read for just short bursts at a time–with one son we began narration with ONE sentence at a time. 🙂 Now he has “moved up” and has improved a lot.

    Handiwork is TERRIFIC for boys. Boys LOVE to make things and get dirty. True, it’s not usually embroidery and things like that, lol, but if you are willing to adapt handiwork to the boy you can have great success.

    Nature study was very possibly INVENTED for boys. 🙂

    Not all children may end up loving to read like so many of us moms would like to see. What you want to see is can he do it, and take what he needs? Show him why the stuff in books is worth knowing before you go try to conquer the world! Once, to convince my sons why instructions were good, I bought something for them to build, kept the instructions myself, and told them to have at it. After a couple hours of frustration, they came to me and begged for the instructions, read them themselves, figured it out and finished!

    (Warning–I did try this once and have the son be SUCCESSFUL at building the thing with no instructions–whereupon I told him to write better ones than the company sent. LOL)

    Yes, it can be done! I once had a misconception that CM was all poems and sketching wildflowers and having tea. Now I know that CM can also include raising snakes, getting dirty, shooting potato cannons, and lengthy discussions about where exactly Napoleon messed up (after one son initially admiring him, lol) Perfect boy fodder! Sometimes you need considerable patience though, to get there. Have faith, keep praying so you know where to stand firm and where to bend, and good luck!

    Michelle D

    March 31, 2008 at 3:31 pm
    SandiNC
    Member

    Thanks Michelle! I feel much better! 😉 I had to laugh with the story about your boys and the instructions! Patience is something that I’m steadily working on, so we’ll just work on it together. I may be back to pick your brain! Sandi

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