And these last 3 weeks look like they are going to be agony for the whole family. My son's Social Studies project that I knew about all year has finally materialized. It's a great project just hits all his buttons. He has to research about poverty & hunger in an emerging nation and try to understand what is being done about it. It is easier the entire project is supposed to be done in less than 3 weeks, as more time doesn't help the situation. (Homework like this can fill out all available time.) Unlike the non-honors classes that drag the thing out most of the semester. I guess it's good that this was assigned after we figured out that intervention was needed, because I've been able to be proactive about helping him get organized. But this is normal a busy time of year with end of year activities like band concerts and studying for finals. I am frustrated that most of the other classes have already finished this project, this teacher is only in her 2nd year.
We have started his intervention but it hasn't been going on long enough to help much yet, so it looks like I will be babysitting my son's work on this project. Something I should NOT have to do in H.S. Last night I sat near him for the 5 hours it took to churn out one paragraph that was due this morning. Most of that time spent agonizing about what he was going to write, and how he had nothing to say. At first he wasn't convinced he needed to do more research to understand the geography more than look at a few maps. It's like he believes that he should just know this information.
It feels odd because he needs the most help at the pre-write stages but once he finally gets writing, the only thing I'm needed for is to be right there so he stays on task. He doesn't need this for either math or science. What is the most frustrating is I insisted that he work on it in the afternoon, so hopefully he could go to his evening extracurricular. That gave him 2 1/2 hours, what I would estimate to be a reasonable time to finish the task at hand. Most of the afternoon was spent in avoidance techniques and he didn't really settle down with it till after dinner & the extracurricular had been nixed. And he had to study for a math & science test the next day.
Not looking so much for advice here as a chance to vent. My kid seems to have so much promise. And then he just gets stuck and sucks us all into this world wind of his agony. I know what I need to do to get him through this project without doing it for him. But he has been doing project likes this for years and I would have expected he could have done them mostly independent by now.
Last edited by bluemagic; 05/30/14 09:36 AM.
