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Need some last minute advice
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Tomorrow is our first day of homeschooling, and I’m nervous! I thought I’d ask for some last minute advice in case I meet resistance from my 6 year old son. He has a tendency to decide very quickly that he doesn’t like something because it’s “not fun”. For quite awhile we would take him to church very upset and sometimes in tears because he said Sunday school was “not fun” (although I think this may have been related to not having any friends there yet… and he is doing fine with it now).
Here is what I’m afraid may happen, at some point during our first day or week he will not feel like doing whatever it is we are doing at the moment, tell me he does not like homeschool, and stomp off to his room.
My son does NOT act like that all the time, but when he does I usually break out the “Make a better choice or face the consequences” speech.
Do you punish your kid for refusing to do a lesson? What do you do when you meet resistance? How do I make it mandatory that he do a lesson or subject he doesn’t like without making homeschool into a forced and negative thing?
I believe I have brought this up a little bit before but I was wondering if anyone had some practical advice for me before we start tomorrow.
Thanks in advance. 🙂
One piece of advice is the “It is preparation for you to be able to have a job and provide for your family” speech – followed by a “if you don’t want to prepare for a job that requires an education, you better prepare for a job where you work with your body” speech…. then start teaching him to wash toilets, baseboards, walls, etc…..
My DD is like that as well. This is our first year of homeschooling, but she has 3 years of PS under her belt. I usually just tell her that it won’t get any easier if she’s not willing to work at it, and that she needs to try and push through. Try to make it as short and interesting as possible, but at the same time, yes, make sure he knows that education is important and he needs to give it a chance.
I try to keep it short and sweet when I run into that type of resistance.
First I agree and sympathize- “I know honey, it doesn’t seem very fun, and you don’t like it right now.”
I try to figure out if there is something causing them to balk- is it too hard, is he tired, hungry, etc?
Then I explain reality “Not everything is going to seem fun at first, and thats OK. Not everything is supposed to be fun, but there are some things we h.ave to do anyway. Somtimes we end up likeing it a lot after a while”
I try to show the upside- “I am setting the timer for 2 more minutes, lets see how much we can get done before the timer goes off”.”
If I get stomping/huffing and puffing or other display of rebellion I address that. “It is not OK for you to stomp to you room when I ask you to do sschool work. Please sit in time out.” After the time out I ask why he was in time out. If he can tell me I ask him to do the work for the 2 miniutes, if he complies I give lots of praise, if he doesn’t I keep doing time out til I get compliance.
Good luck! For me the key is showing empathy for how they feel and helping them comply and be successful, and NEVER letting them think they win by refusing to comply.
I encountered that once or twice ( ok, maybe more…) with my daughter when she was 6. I will admit that I did not handle it gracefully.
However, I have learned that in our home having a school schedule seems to be the antidote. I don’t mean a specific hour by hour schedule, but a simple “9-11 is school time. That is when we do our school work. When we finish, you can choose your own activity.” We also have storytime and art in the afternoon, but I have never met resistance to those!
At age 6, school is still new to most children. I think sticking to it, with kindness, is generally best!
One thing our private speech therapist tells our two children, 7 and 6, who work so very hard for every word and sound they make is this:
“Rememer, Ms. T. doesn’t allow you to say ‘I can’t’, but you can say “this is so hard Ms. T.”
She always says this if they say, “I can’t do it, Ms. T.”
And after she tells them they can say this is so hard, they 99% of the time repeat after her and say, “This is so hard Ms. T, but I can do it!”
So, I borrowed it from her. It is so CM anyway! I think often when they say this is “not fun” they might really mean something else like “I’m scared” (thinking of the church story you shared) or “this is hard” or “I don’t understand” or “I’m bored” or any other number of possibilities including not fun.
My point is that I have learned the hard way that validating our child’s feelings, whether rational or not, usually does work to bring them back in and conversely, not validating them, often will push them away. I have learned this like I said the hard way.
If I were you and your son does the scenario you mentioned, give him a few minutes to cool off, and then approach him and say something like “Tell me why you think this is not fun.” He may at that point try to redirect and say he didn’t mean that or didn’t really say that, but just keep repeating this “why do you think school is not fun?” He may not answer in that moment and he may get a little more agitated before things get better, but he will quickly realize that you validate his feelings and more than likely, he’ll express them in a more positive and productive way more and more.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but I have one child in particular who I have to use this technique with often. It really does work from my experience! And he can be a door slammer, so that is what prompted me to share this with you. I get it!
LDI Mom, I am so stealing that technique to use with my daughter!
I read once of a elementary classroom where everyone (including the teacher) wrote a long list of things they couldn’t do like “I can’t get my daughter to return the car.” “I can’t hit a baseball” “I can’t remember the multiplication tables” or whatever. Then they put all these lists into a box, buried it, and the teacher gave a eulogy that included explaining “I Can’t is dead. He is survived by his brothers: I Can, I Will, and I’m Going To Right Away.” They had a sign on the wall the rest of the year that said “RIP I Can’t” and the teacher would point at it anytime the kids said they couldn’t do something.
Thank you ladies, for taking time to respond. I will be putting these techniques in action, for sure…and I needed the reminder to empathize with my son and validate his feelings. He takes after me in being “sensitive” and I vascillate between wanting to toughen him up (to avoid being completely dependent on others to handle negative emotions, like I was until adulthood) or just comforting him and walking him through it (which is what the Mom in me really wants to do!).
Hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, so if I run into issues I will keep your advice/tips in mind. Just what I needed before we start tomorrow! 🙂
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