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Schooling as a family: effect on the younger kids?
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Hi all,
I’m about to start SCM with my son. I’ve been slowly buying the necessary resources.
I was drawn to SCM because I loved how Sonya arranged the curriculum so the family could cover most of the material together, prior to everyone being sent off to do individual studies. It sounded perfect for me and my family.
Some friends are doing AO and talking about grouping students together to make it easier. They linked to this article, in which some homeschooling mothers talk about the unexpected downside to grouping children together. This one section in particular hit me hard:
However, we had just spent a couple of years (the younger child’s first two years of school) with them doing most of their subjects together, and I began to notice that it was wearing down the younger child. She perceived that no matter how much she applied herself, she was never as good a student as her older sister. Naturally, her narrations were immature by comparison, which was made the more obvious and painful for her by the fact that they were narrating from the same material. I was pleased with her narrations – but she never was, because she could tell her sister’s narrations of the same material were more advanced. When they did identical mapwork side-by-side, she could see that big sister’s was always better… on and on.
She plugged on outwardly, but inside she was really struggling. It was not apparent to me for quite a while that anything was amiss. She was easily performing up to my expectations, and so I perceived that things were going well. What I couldn’t see was that she was forming a powerful perception that she was not as smart as she should be. This is such a shame, because she is, in fact, a very bright child.
It is very damaging to a child to feel inferior on a daily basis, and to feel that there’s no hope for anything to change. Children who are trying to do their best should feel that they are doing the right thing and doing well. It’s hard to feel that way when every time you do something, there’s always someone around doing it better. After two years of this, she began to dread school and become apathetic about her studies. She lost the boundless confidence of her preschooler years. She was only seven.
My heart broke for that little girl.
Has anyone experienced this? Is there a way to avoid outcomes like that?
We have not experienced this, but something that started naturally happening for us is that when my students started having independent reading (around 4th grade) they narrated those, orally or written, and the younger took over the family book narations. So the oldest they were comparing to was not that much older than they were so narration were not that much more advanced. It also helped keep family reading time managabe for me 🙂
I think it can also depend on the child. Some children naturally struggle with comparison with siblings and others not as much. I think it is wise to keep it in mind to be aware of and sensitive to the children, but also that many students do very well with subjects as a family I think there are many different factors and also why there is no one way to homeschool 🙂
Sometimes only one student narrating a selection, not each student doing every reading, can help as well. I also have to remember that so much comes from my attitude as well, how I am responding and instructing as well because they pick up on my attitudes and comments before I realize what I have even said.
For us, we have not experienced this issue, but I could see how for some families it could be a struggle that would have to be adjusted for.
I could see that happening. I’ve had this problem myself when it comes to doing art with the kids. The little ones obviously can’t paint or draw as well as the olders so they sometimes got frustrated when we did the same project as a group.
My solution has been to separate what the littler ones do from the older ones. For example, if you read history altogether and want each child to narrate, have them narrate from different parts of the reading, or send the other children to go do something else while one narrates alone.
Or have the older students write down their narration instead of doing it orally so that the younger ones don’t hear them. That’s what I have always done. Have the older ones do oral narration from subjects that the little ones aren’t involved in.
I think it is still possible to learn together as a family. It might just require some creative planning ahead.
You’ve received some wonderful responses. I’d like to add just a couple of thoughts into the mix.
First, I was reminded that a feeling of not measuring up to others is not exclusively in family settings. Sadly, many children in classrooms experience constant comparison and often lose their joy of learning. As Sarah mentioned, a lot of it depends on the child.
Second, of course, we want to do all we can to protect and nurture that love of learning for each child, and that’s where a family setting can be so valuable. It’s a hard fact of life that there will always be someone better than we are; but in a family setting, we can cultivate the important atmosphere of encouraging each other and recognizing and celebrating each child’s unique strengths and achievements even while that hard life lesson is being processed internally.
And don’t forget that hearing more experienced narrators is a great way for a younger student to grow in that skill. As Erin mentioned, perhaps having them narrate different parts will work best at times, but there is much our children can learn from each other as they do life together.
A few thoughts, haven’t read others’ posts yet… sick kids are everywhere here and I have a moment between someone needing me.
I’ve found personality matters! Some kids are more naturally negative (seeing negative instead of positive) or competitive or easily frustrated. These children may notice and compare themselves to older siblings. My task is to remind them that when older sibling X was younger they didn’t know how to do things as well as they do now with XYZ years of practice. And that God gives us different gifts, because he likes variety. If we were all the same it would get very boring.
That’s it. They learn from each other. I learn from them about things they enjoy. We all take turns being the leader in some activities.
(Oh, and I have 10 always homeschooled kids, ages 1-18. So lots of narration with mixed ages.)
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