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OT: do you ever cancel school when YOU are frustrated?
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I stopped with school this morning, because there was no listening happening (ds) or patience (me). Other than bagging it and going on again tomorrow, what else can we do today – that doesn’t require narration? I guess Nature Study… I am so frustrated with the on again/off again listening and narration that has been like pulling teeth, makes we wish we never took a summer break!
Is canceling school for the day on account of me lacking patience really okay anyway?? Seems I should have it more together.
PS. this is week 3 of the new school year for us
It’s okay if it’s not a regular thing!
One thing I love that Charlotte advocated was mixing up lessons so the child is using different parts of the brain instead of overtiring them in one thing. For example, do an activity that uses listening and narrating, then do something that requires using hands or body (handicrafts, copywork, PE, nature walk, playing an instrument, etc). Then move to something that takes reading and narrating, then something that requires careful looking (picture study or drawing), then back around to a listening/narrating subject. And remember SHORT lessons!
Also, I don’t scrap a whole day if I can help it. Just take a break to do something different and then come back to the subject refreshed later.
And I wanted to reassure you that I have lost patience and tossed school before too! Better to preserve the relationship than to push on and damage it but get the school work done.
I don’t cancel it, but I may assign some silent seatwork, so I can go upstairs, grab some chocolate and call my husband for consolation.
moregrace,
Sorry you’re having a rough day. During the first couple of years of our homeschooling, I would just stop school whenever I was frustrated and felt like the day was going nowhere. Then I realized that my behavior wasn’t sending a positive message to my kids. All that taught them was to give up when they’re frustrated instead of taking a break and a deep breath and pushing forward. We still have those days ocassionally, though thankfully much less often. I will usually tell the kids we are going to stop and everyone needs to go to their rooms for a while and take a break from each other. I go to my room and lay on my bed and take deep breaths, pray, and try to refocus. Then I gather everyone back into the living room and try to calmly communicate to them what we experienced and how we can make it better (i.e. It seemed like you two were having a hard time paying attention? What can we do to stay focused? OR I don’t appreciate how you two were fidgeting and messing around during our lesson. That was disrepectful to me and to each other and it wastes our time. How can I help you focus?)
On really terrible days, I will even have the kids go get back in bed and then we just start over.
Don’t guilt trip yourself with the “I should have it all together by now” feelings. I don’t think we EVER arrive at that point, and because we’re human and our children are human, we’re going to frustrate each other for life. That’s just the way it goes.
If you need to just not narrate for the rest of the day, don’t. Read your books, have them do quiet copywork, do a picture study and listen to some peaceful music (David Nevue’s music is very soothing and calming). If the weather is nice, have them go play outside and make yourself some coffee or tea and read a book or a magazine for 10 minutes. Tell them they each need to find five different living things (leaf, flower, a bug or two, etc.) to show you at the end of that 10 minutes. If all else fails, find a documentary on Netflix and watch that this afternoon. Nothing can re-start a day like simply changing from what you were doing before and just doing something different.
Hope your day gets better!
Lindsey
I have on occasion – but yes, it can send the wrong message. I am more likely to try to finish up the one subject without showing my frustration (difficult) – then call a recess or a break… allow myself to regroup then try something else. But that said – I’d rather call it a day then totally blow up on them!
Great advice! I’d like to add that having something to look forward to helps as well. Whether it’s an upcoming quiet time with a warm drink/chocolate or curling up with a favorite book for a few minutes, etc…anything that relaxes you is good for your peace of mind and smooth flow of the day. If things get tense with school, I go to that “happy place” in my mind to look forward to. 🙂
Here are some fun ideas for “starting over” – sometimes you just need to reset your day. Here are some additional ideas I thought of. And here is a SCM forum post with ideas from some of the ladies here.
Thanks for sharing those! My DD and I are already getting frustrated as well…I’ll have those ideas in the back of my mind for us to pull out when we need to!
Rebekahy – that is EXACTLY what I do. lol
Maybe I should grab some chocolate and message you to take a load off my husaband occasionally…lol
Wow. Wish I had read this post early this morning. We are in the 2nd week of our school year and unfortunately I blew up today. No break. I just blew it. Everyone was fighting and I was ready to throw in the towel. I’m not sure I have what it takes to do this. This post would have been helpful. I was actually praying for patience when I blew up at everyone. Feel really guilty! Thank goodness for forgiveness but it doesn’t make me feel any better about my actions.
Thanks for letting me vent.
YES! Last year was our first year and while it didn’t do it often I did stop schooling due to my frusteration. I’m human and some days were just not going to happen!
I think we all go through seasons of frustration. My first couple of years were filled with trying to figure out our routine/style, let alone, the new title I was wearing. That was a big change for us and definitely took some getting use to. Now we/I get frustrated because I know they know what we’re doing, they know I know what they are capable of doing, and they know what our routine is. Well, some days it seems like this is the first they’ve even heard of homeschooling/school and we have to get back into the groove. I guess that’s when we’ve hit burn out (that’s why we do 3 on/1 off)…we all need the break and mom needs to weed out binders, learn how to use a new program, correct some work, etc., and mom just needs a break from keeping it all together.
I would say my frustrations have changed over the years as well. I am less frustrated with my dc and their abilities and am more frustrated with a program that I was so looking forward to using ended up not working for us, meaning, time wasters. I am completely aware and have embraced my title, and so have my dc, but still have to take one year at a time…each year brings its own challenges/joy/excitement and I hate to spend it frustrated or angry.
I am more frustrated with the clutter that I am constantly decluttering (which I love to do) than I am with our day not turning out as planned. I have learned to just move on to the next subject, take a few minutes break, do several 5 minute lessons (thanks to Tristan), laugh, remind myself we are all human, etc., than to let a whole day go down the toilet.
I’m probably way off track by now, but wanted to say that we all become frustrated. It’s a part of being alive….I expect to have some level of frustration for the rest of my life, but the way I respond to it should become better…that’s the goal anyway.
I am so grateful for this forum!! Thank you all! I’m printing out the ideas to save. We did some of them yesterday, and when I read Lindsey’s post it made me laugh, my dh was working from home yesterday and came into the living room, took one look at them – and sent them right back to bed – saying they were too tired to concentrate. They didn’t sleep but it seemed to take the edge off. The toddler took 2 naps himself and was the happiest of the bunch. We also did a copywork page idependantly, literature & poetry (no narration) and nature study. Then they spent the rest of the morning outside before we had to go gerocery shopping. So the day was salvaged to a degree. There was round of apologies on everyone’s part and my son sighed at dinner and said “Tomorrow’s a new day”.
You’re all right, we are human and no one has it all together but like my3boys said, I feel I should be able to handle frustration better than I did. I managed not to yell, but was plenty irratated, so that it came out in my tone of voice and the whole family knew it. I have a habit of not dealing with a problem, and not dealing with it and then sort of trying to fix it, but not enough that it’s really solved – and then I wonder why it makes me so upset!
Narration has been one of the biggest struggled since we started school and the “not listening” was particularly bad the last couple days. I should know myself well enough by now… to realize I should really DO something SOONER. And even though yesterday it was far better to stop school and do what we did, I don’t want to teach my children to give up easily when facing difficulties either. So thank you all for your understanding, kind words, and great ideas!@morgrace, and you don’t want your dc to get it in their minds that if they are bad enough, or whatever, then you will just give up and they get out of school. They will learn to wear you down.
My kids are probably a bit older than yours so reasoning with them or just asking them if they are tired, hungry, upset, not “into” the book we’re reading, etc., usually opens up to the real problem. Sometimes I just have to know the difference between disobedience or true physical issues (tired, hungry, needing fresh air) and go from there. Sometimes it’s “that time of the month” for me and I’m just off my rocker and can’t seem to concentrate, get my words out, tolerate anything, or answer with a kind word. And, that’s not good or their fault.
I’m glad to hear your day went better and your son is right, “Tomorrow is a new day.” Sometimes salvaging what we can and having that knowledge can make it all better. Plus, I pray alot about my own words, attitude, and what I am contributing to the situation. (We all, kids included, contribute to the breakdown, which doesn’t seem to completely end as they get older, it just evolves.)
Have a great day today!
Narration has been one of the biggest struggled since we started school and the “not listening” was particularly bad the last couple days. I should know myself well enough by now… to realize I should really DO something SOONER. And even though yesterday it was far better to stop school and do what we did, I don’t want to teach my children to give up easily when facing difficulties either. So thank you all for your understanding, kind words, and great ideas!- The topic ‘OT: do you ever cancel school when YOU are frustrated?’ is closed to new replies.