Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Tell me I'm not the only one!

The only one homeschooling an obnoxious 6 yo, who has seriously considered finding the most boring, authoritarian, school they can find to send them to, just so they might realise that being asked to dress themselves is not the worst thing that can happen to them?

Ha! We're not homeschooling, but I really need to work on insisting that DD9 do more for herself--although she does dress herself. But we did have a boring, authoritarian classroom last year, and it was just awful--in no way was it worth any of the angst it caused DD and all of us too. I'm sure you know that, of course--take heart! I think when DD was about 6 was the most difficult she's been (combined with the emotional overflow from the horrid classroom). We've kept working and kept working and reminding and giving consequences and rewards and it really has gotten better, if s-l-o-w-l-y. I hope you take some time off every now and then to reward yourself for all your hard work.
Take care,
Dbat

Your kid dresses themself?

I could never homeschool. Not because I have a wonderful career or fear my patience wouldn't last, or because I couldn't teach myself pedagogy, but because I get shouted at for trying to demonstrate shoe lace tying. I just can't even imagine the hell homeschooling would make our life. If people who accused me of teaching my child things only knew...

(must remember to ask school to cover knots at some point)

Hmm. Well, I just don't put up with it.

You don't want to get dressed? Okay, fine. Don't get dressed.

Oh, and, BTW, you can forget about going to Susie's birthday party this weekend.

The decision is yours.

My kids know I mean it. Also, my only homeschooler has been to school and he knows what he's missing. So if I tell him, "This attitude will not continue if you want to keep homeschooling," the attitude stops. So depending on circumstances, maybe it's not a bad idea to send a child to school for a while. Who knows? Some kids like school, and maybe the child will want to hang around there for a while. If not, she'll definitely know what she's missing when homeschooling starts up again.

Remember that she's never been to school and has no idea about what it's like. You may see the bigger picture, but there is no way she can.

LOL! I'm glad its not only me! If only it was a simple as applying consequences - it would have been fixed ages ago!

I am still thinking about the school thing, just for a few days. DH is not particularly keen on that, but me telling him I was thinking of it, mentioning names of schools I would try, etc, has at least got him to realize how much of a problem it has been, and got us working on some other plans.

My twins don't really care about consequences. One of my six year old twins had a full scale melt down today when I asked him to get dressed. The other asked me what would happen if he didn't, LOL (his kindle was taken away for the rest of the day for asking that questions, by the way Must be something about being six. They see getting dressed as "a waste of time."

Later, when I had to ask the one who had a melt down earlier to put on shoes and socks, I offered him a hershey's kiss if he did it quickly, and it may have been the fastest he ever did. I don't normally use bribery, but I may start using it more often...

How did you get to see into my life and speak about Aiden (6) so intimately?? LOL!

Never mind dress himself - he wants me to write for him including maths answers, I should make his bed suddenly too and a few other odd things.

Is this getting dressed thing an interesting consequence of spending more time at home? My kids regularly have "pajama days" on the weekend or in the holidays. It's really hard to get them to dress themselves on weekends in fact. But really they just accept that on "school days" one gets dressed before breakfast... Well my child with ADHD I still physically dress her if I want her dressed before breakfast (which is before medication).

Reminds me of Flylady admonishing us all to get dressed "to the laces" every morning... So you know you mean business...

Check out Miss Nelson is Missing for your child. It's a funny story that matches your proposal. Miss Nelson is a sweet teacher whose children won't listen to her kind requests. She goes missing and is replaced by a witch (really Miss Nelson in disguise). This causes the children to appreciate Miss Nelson.