Thanks, Grinity and graceful mom.
Thanks for sharing your story graceful mom. That is a lot like my son. What worries me is I don't know if it is a phase or a symptom! Since he isn't going to go to school, if it is a symptom, I need to deal with it.
I did need the back to basics lecture, Grinity, and the one on one time, which is actually rather sporadic, not planned. Planned would be a better idea! I'd love to get a family members help, but we live a long way away from family.
I agree that four is very young, and because of that I have been reluctant to really push him. Plus I am unschooling and montessori at heart, so I am trying to let things be child led. I have been coming to the conclusion that perhaps his capacity for learning is exceeding his ability to think up things he wants to learn. If he can't immediately think of what he wants to do, he will gravitate towards eating or screen time.
Actually, while all that is not untrue, there is issues about me that are interfering. I have discovered that we are expecting a surprise third little one and I have been going through the usual first trimester joys. That is almost gone as I am leaving the first trimester now - thank goodness - but fatigue is really making it difficult to keep the novelty level up!
Yesterday I asked him how he would like to keep learning at home, and he said he would like to join more clubs and for me to tell him what to learn.
The clubs is difficult! At his age, he isn't always welcome at the types of clubs he would be interested in. Being in Australia, where homeschool groups are less prominent, there is very little in that way, and what he has found so far has been great fun to socialize, but not too much learning. (At his gifted group, he burst in to tears crying "When are we going to learn something!" This was before he started to get more turned off. The gifted group is only about every three weeks on average.)
As to me telling him what to learn, I have trouble twofold. One is what I do when he says, "I don't want to do that Mum", especially because he is starting to get adverse to challenges. The other is telling where the line is between keeping him appropriately challenged and pushing a very young child into formal learning before he is ready for it. How do I know?
I realize as I am writing this that things are becoming more and more obvious! I really appreciate this forum to get this out there so I can look at it a bit more clearly.
One tired-out mamma, who really wonders where the energy to do more is going to come from!
