I agree w/ what everyone has said ha ha ha. Seriously, I've been right where you are. I gave up. For 2 months. This was our first year HSing, DS was in 3rd grade. I just gave up. Things were fine when we started and then went down hill. I've since learned that Jan and Feb are the worst months of the year. I don't know if it's Seasonal Affective Disorder or what but we were both on the edge. I needed to step away so I did. It was the best thing I did. I think it takes a good year to settle into HSing. It's now year 2 and things are sooooo much better. So much better. I was told do not base anything on the first year. It's a huge learning curve for you both.

Also w/ my DS, by January i had a feeling for where he was, started challenging him and soon as he started getting problems wrong, he shut down.....school being so easy had bred a perfectionism monster. It was a huge blow to his ego and he never fully recovered from it.

If you think he is having trouble converting his thoughts to words on paper (I believe you mentioned it wasn't the physical act of writing), then look into narration and dictation. I've done a program called Writing With Ease with both my boys and I definitely see an improvement in getting words on paper and formulating their thoughts. Having him narrate from passages he's read or you've read to him, gives practice in formulating this thoughts w/out the creative component. Dictation helps with spelling, grammar, short term memory, and good sentence structure - again separate from his own creative writing. My son would give these elaborate stories and as soon as i try to write it down, or turn on the tape recorder, his words would get stilted, etc. Once we started working on freewriting, that changed. Your son is 2yrs younger than mind so I'm not suggesting this is something to work on now, but to keep in mind.

But if he knows everything you're introducing, skip ahead....it could very well be he's not being challenged enough. I've just being PMing w/ Kriston on how I still think I'm not challenging my son enough, in areas that are important to him. It's not easy but we'll get there!

Dazey

Last edited by Dazed&Confuzed; 03/30/10 06:07 AM.