And I’m talking full-on, absolutely nothing. At least “nothing” by most of the country’s standards. By the time I got up this morning, slathered my face in green clay and then meditated while that dried… the kids had apparently been fed by Husbeau. I went downstairs and saw that BigGuy’s door was open, but Girly’s was shut and there was music coming from it.
I wish I had a photograph of what I saw when I opened her door. #bloggerparentfail Continue reading Today, we did nothing
So, my sweet girl totally thinks that watching Sesame Street is “schoolwork”. Because I effectively trained her that way. Now when she wants to watch TV, she asks to do “schoolwork”. Wow… Continue reading Girly’s “schoolwork”
Things I did well this week:
Things I did not do well this week:
Other things that happened this week:
Overall, I think it was a decent week. I would love to be downtown drinking with a bunch of happy women celebrating a 40th birthday right now, but I will take a hot bath and soft bed after this day of being on my feet ALL. DAY. and up since early (for a work-related meeting before covering at the sale).
Upshot is that BigGuy is happier and feels like the dynamics of the household have changed for the better with this recent change in who is getting up when and doing what.
I can’t lie that there is a very, very tiny part of me that is sad that Papa gets to connect with the boy instead of me. I mean, I know he loves me and all. I just wish I had the resources right now to connect with him more meaningfully. Or that I was at least gaining something else in the absence of that connection. Like maybe connecting with Girly. They grow up so fast. I just need to focus on the gratitude for having a husband that gives them that rather than my kids lacking it completely.
Needless to say, a morning of scheduled schoolwork is bound to NOT go well in this house. Mama gets all panicky and goes into teacher/project manager mode rather than Mama mode. It’s like a flip of a switch. And then when BigGuy does anything other than sit at a desk and belt out work as if he were in a classroom, I lose it.
Suddenly, he is 20 years older and a bum or a prisoner or living with me for the rest of his life and I’m hearing everyone tell me all the things he could’ve been “if he’d have been in school”… as if this trajectory could be backed by evidence. And of course, if he enters now and fails miserably it will be because he needed to be in school earlier. Of course. Because ya know–it’s not like we had a reason to pull him out, people… right? People don’t see that. And those that do would say “But you could’ve put him back in before now.” No matter what parenting decision you make, it’s just going to be wrong.
Whatever. His complete lack of discipline or perseverance towards a goal (keep in mind that this was all his idea) make me LOSE. MY. SH!T. I know what makes a successful person and it’s the ability to face a difficulty and take it on. Even if you don’t overcome it, just having the ability to attempt getting through it is so huge. And he completely lacks that. And it’s so polar opposite to the person I am at my core that I cannot even understand how he will function in life. Ever.
BigGuy’s IQ puts him in the 99.9% percentile of human intelligence. This is beyond Mensa. There are organizations that I didn’t even know existed for this kind of intelligence. Sometimes, it’s hard to NOT see that he’s a bright kid. But he also has Asperger’s and sometimes the connections between work and reward/success or other relational connections are completely absent. I can’t bank on the neurotypical developmental trajectory that would say “He’ll get it someday… maybe at 22, but it will come” because for BigGuy, it truly may never come. When he was younger, the therapists were so lost because there was no consistent “currency” to work with him–no consistent motivator. There is no carrot you can dangle in front of him to bribe him; and nothing he loves enough to motivate him on his own. Truly. Now, at 10, there are definitely some motivators, but nothing that pushes him hard. Even his strongest interests do not push him to do simple things if he just doesn’t feel like doing them. So losing his Minecraft time is not enough to make him brush his teeth. I don’t think you can grasp the gravity of that statement. It will result in a one-hour meltdown with begging about his being willing to “do ANYthing” to get his Minecraft time, but the offer to let him brush his teeth to get his time back results in him running up the stairs and playing with a Lego or his stuffed Tepig or reading whatever text-based material is within view. And the reminder that this is what he needed to do to get his Minecraft time results in “OH YEAH!”, but no movement.
You cannot wrap your head around this. I know you can’t. And it’s not just frustrating–it’s scary.
I was so thankful to see Time put out an article that (at least a tiny bit) addresses this oxymoron. Even without Asperger’s at play. In their article “How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science” they note that IQ is kind of worthless without self-discipline.
“Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”
How do you teach a kid to have self-discipline? Seriously? How do you instill perseverance? We are not indulgent parents and there is a good structure to how our house operates. We’re not helicopter parents nor permissive parents. We facilitate our kids making their own choices (and having to stand by them as long as the consequence was foreseeable and not excessively/downright cruel or harmful). Some kids are just not going to get it. Especially those with impaired relational skills (and “relational” doesn’t just mean “between people” it means “connecting less concrete things”).
I’ve watched other kids with these issues in the schools and I’m not going there. People like to tell me that I don’t know that MY kid will wind up like that, but ya know what? I’m not rolling the dice either. I’m watching a rather brilliant young man who is VERY similar to BigGuy pretty much fail out of high school for the exact same problems and a mother who has given up trying to find his currency. I’m thankful to be able to see how his life is unfolding and seeing how removing the things he lives for or holding them hostage are doing absolutely nothing to move him. Just like BigGuy. I feel like I can learn from this and feel confident that this is just not going to be the route.
But I don’t know what the route is yet for my guy. And part of me is heartbroken because I often wonder if the last 4-1/2 years of moving and my less-than-engaging/encouraging/supportive behavior have squashed any potential inspiration and motivation or willingness to chase after his interests with more fervor. I can’t think about it. That’s over. We were in survival mode. It happened and I can’t change it.
I just need to get back on my horse and leave it alone. I need to focus on Girly. I need to do more with her. If he doesn’t want to work, nobody’s going to make him. Not here and not at school. That Cell Biology lab motivated him and I just cannot find a place like that for him to be full-time. I ache for that for him. Explaining to him that doing this work would get him to such a place is too far out for him to grasp.
Maybe his sister surpassing his achievements will be the motivator. Because that kid’s going to knock it out of the park.
And really, if I go back and look at MY goals for my kids, I could give a rat’s ass about any of this crap. But trying to meet his needs as he has explained them has been rough and it means doing this kind of crap. Maybe I just need to change my attitude about it. I don’t know. I’m having “a day”. And I love him so much. I just want to meet his needs. And hers.
It’s Sunday night. Girly is out cold and Papa is giving BigGuy some reiki (more power to him because I’m so completely unable to wrap my head around that stuff).
Every Sunday night we have a family meeting. The agenda is like this:
As we went through item #2, Papa noted that he goes back to work this week and BigGuy jumped on the end of that with “and we start to do REAL schoolwork this week”. I looked at my husband–whose eyebrows denoted his equal surprise. He asked my son “Haven’t you already done ‘real’ schoolwork?” and I then took over so as to make my life a lot easier and said “Well, we’ve been figuring things out this August and then you had vacation; but we’re ready to get down to business now.” (I GUESS!! *whew* Nice save, Mama!)
But of course, now the pressure is on. On ME! GEESH! This kid is no joke! He wants to do some serious learning and I need to move my ass and get to it. I just seriously cannot figure out how to accommodate Girly! Ugh… I need to get it together. I think I’m going to photocopy some of the pages from the Ancient Egypt coloring book for her tomorrow and tonight I need to sit down and lay out a daily time schedule so that I can work with BigGuy as needed and then work with Girly when I don’t have to work with BigGuy. But I also really need to sit down and plan out HER activities, too.
Wasn’t I just spending the month of August trying to figure this out? Wtf?
Remember back on Wednesday when I told you guys that BigGuy and I had plotted out his work for the week? Well we just had our end of week meeting to go over his week’s work and clearly this was a bad idea as implemented.
Takeaways:
First, BigGuy cannot manage his time. Ummmm… duh. Seriously–he’s 10. Wth was I thinking?
Second, BigGuy needs some learning about actual study skills. Again… duh. And above and beyond being 10, he’s not been challenged to learn like he’s being challenged now… so double duh.
Okay, okay… not horrible. We’re just trying to figure it out. But we will clearly do it differently next week.
Oh wait… next week start’s Papa’s 2-week vacation with a trip to Minnesota for Labor Day weekend in the midst of it. Ugh… Okay… I need to figure this out. We have some faith and tolerance lessons to work on anyway so maybe we’ll redo that which wasn’t done this week on the reading front, learn some study skills and do the remainder of the faith and tolerance lessons over the next two weeks. And maybe I’ll sandwich in a book on audio for the trip to and from Minnesota.
AND… he is not auditioning for the current show. He would’ve missed 3 rehearsals and they said that missing 2 or more means they’re likely to get cut (you have to note any rehearsal conflicts on your audition papers). We’d either have to miss our Minnesota trip and miss just one rehearsal or take the Minnesota trip and miss 3 of them. I let BigGuy decide. He chose to go to Minnesota. I’m really kind of relieved. I’m not sure we could handle the chaos of being involved in a show right now. The parent commitment is really no joke.
Let me just say this: *I* do not motivate my kid. “Kid” singular–because I don’t actually educate Girly at all yet. But BigGuy is 10 and would be entering 5th grade and I regularly see posts from parents who “can’t get their kid to do anything”.
Totally been there.
But I’m usually dealing with that kind of stuff when I’m shoving my own educational agenda down my son’s throat. And really, if I wanted that kind of experience for him, I could’ve put him in a school… amiright?
So here we go… now what do you do, right? Why not let your kids decide? One message board post today expressed frustration with a 4th grader that wanted to do his 6th grade brother’s math work. So what? If he’s not capable he will soon find out and either decide to do the foundation work needed or will realize it’s just not where he’s at.
When my kid pushes back, I have to really ask myself the following:
1) How does this particular thing contribute to my child’s stated desires and goals? If it DOES contribute, I just need to explain the “how” to him.
2) If it doesn’t contribute, is it something he NEEDS to learn? Like, ever? I’m sorry, but my son never needs to learn that papyrus was one of the first wannabe paper products. It will serve no useful purpose in his life. Same for the year of any given battle of the American Revolution.
3) Let’s assume he NEEDS to learn it. Does he NEED to learn it NOW? In the grand scheme of things, is it something that “needs to be learned before being an independent adult” and therefore can maybe wait 2, 3 or even 5 years? Who NEEDS to read before the age of 9?
4) Okay… you get past all of that and decide it’s something they NEED to learn NOW. Well, then your challenge becomes the METHOD of teaching it. Because the current method is clearly NOT working.
Out of the box thinking, y’all. It requires a serious willingness to step outside of the mainstream and their expectations about what a child should learn and when. Believe it or not, that is not exactly as cut and dry as the education community would have you believe. Sorry, folks–but even among your very own children, some will do addition at 4 and some won’t do it until they’re 10. As long as they can do it by the time they have to balance a check book, does it matter?
Tomorrow: we have some company coming for an early dinner; and then we’ll do our family meeting. After our family meeting, I hope to sit down with BigGuy and plot out his week.
Monday: There is NOTHING on the schedule. This bodes well for accomplishing some actual schoolwork as planned; and walking the kids through their chores. Speaking of which–I need to make chores for Girly. That evening is BigGuy’s first drama class and the school is holding an audition clinic afterward. Not sure if he’ll go.
Tuesday: BigGuy actually has a paid session with his choir instructor from last year’s homeschool co-op. She coincidentally has taught at the school where he will do drama classes; and therefore knows the audition process with them pretty well. I’m just really kind of hoping to get some stuff done before he goes to that after lunch. Like BigGuy’s biology lectures. There’s a park date on the calendar for the morning, but we’ll see.
Wednesday: I have an appointment midday near my home (during Papa’s lunch break), and dinner with a girlfriend; but otherwise–the day is open. Again: bodes well for trying to get into a new routine. BigGuy has his biology lecture.
Thursday: We always have a sitter for Thursday afternoon; and this week–he will stay until 9pm instead of 5pm so Papa and I can go out to dinner for our 15th wedding anniversary. BUT… I’m hoping the morning gets some dedicated routine time and at this point, I’m kind of hoping that we’re finding our stride. BIG DREAMS, PEOPLE!! GO BIG OR GO HOME!
Friday: At this point I’m hoping that I can sit down with BigGuy for our post-mortem and determine how the week went, do his accountability questions and thinking questions for the Tapestry of Grace portion of his work; check his other work and give him whatever corrective instruction he needs; then enjoy an afternoon hike facilitated by a local forest preserve. It will be tricky getting home to take a client phone call.
Here is what my calendar (altered to protect the innocent) looks like. We don’t usually go to the chiropractor Monday AND Tuesday but I killed my back last week and it’s still slightly noticeable–so I scheduled an appointment for Monday and Tuesday is the standing appointment:
But then John Lennon said “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans…”
This morning, we got up and out of the house–smoothies in hand–and got to the library for the books we need for this week’s lessons. Egypt. Blech. I’m seriously all Egypt’d out. I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that my son actually CHOSE for us to start our history studies in the classical education model’s “Year 1”. I mean, the OCD person in me is jumping for joy to start at “the beginning” but the woman who has been parenting my kids for the last several years is like “Seriously… I cannot handle another pyramid or mummy”.
I am congratulating myself that we managed to bring BigGuy’s Information Resources workbook.
I am congratulating myself that when BigGuy pushed back on doing his work, I fought the initial reaction to hold his electronics time captive until it was done. I reminded myself that he knew everything he needed to know in life–enough math and reading to live off of–and that this rigor was his request. So I calmly told him that he didn’t need to do this. I DID explain WHY it was on his plate to be done and reminded him that it bothered him that his brain was lazy–but that it was his choice to do it.
He did it. Actually, he did most of it but not all of it. Whatever. He also negotiated for doing his Mod Design I coursework three times per week at least for this week and next week. He absolutely loves it. I don’t want to restrict him any more than I have to and he doesn’t get docked electronics (fun) time when he does this. So we’re walking a fine line. We’ll try this for 2 weeks and see how it goes.
Getting out the door so early comPLETEly threw pretty much everything off this morning… no character building story and discussion… no snuggles. BigGuy managed to some element of his bathroom chores, but I’ll need to go up and see what exactly did and did not get done.
Now I need to can the 30 pounds of organic green beans I bought last week. The kids await 4pm by popping off the ends of each bean. Off I go!
Educated Adventures 