Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Taking the Plunge...Starting Homeschooling

Movingup6 - I was soo hoping you'd drop by with an update! And what a great one it is!!!! I have 2 friends who saw similar turn arounds in their kids after removing them from school.

I think they get resentful about lack of challenge that it permeates other aspects of their lives, such as your child's Sunday school. Now that he is happy, his mind is open to these activities.

You have a a local curriculum planner? WOW! I would definitely seek his input about things he wants to learn and take it slow. Advice I read and followed, was I added one new thing every few weeks after the previous thing was routine.

As far as writing, I would have him narrate to you - stories he's made up, narrate about books he's reading, about movies you're watching. When you get a moment, check out www.bravewriter.com about the importance of copywork and dictation and freewriting in helping people break through that writing phobia.

Hey, Movingup6, that's great news! I'm so pleased for you and your little guy. Congratulations!

Narration has been a good tool here, too.

peace
minnie

M6,

I'm glad you came back for an update! It sounds like things are going well. Have you had any resentment from the others?

To deal with weaker areas effectively, a leading GT expert recommended that our family a) make sure DS7 does something that he LOVES every day, and b) spend 3x more time on his strengths than we spend on the weaker areas.

Both these approaches help keep the focus on loving learning without neglecting the weakness(es). Since the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and many of us have our own perfectionism issues to wrestle with ( ), I think it becomes easy to look at what they need help with and forget that NO ONE likes to spend a lot of time on stuff they're not good at!

Just a thought...

P.S. Glad to hear that things are already improving! Yay!

Thank you all for your support and helpful suggestions. I will definately check out the bravewriter site. Even the title sounds encouraging! And, I like the idea of dictation as a breakthrough method.

Shari, generally the other children are supportive of our decision to homeschool DS6 (thanks for asking!). The 21 yr old thinks it's kind of crazy (I think in a cool way), the 12 and 14 yr olds are just glad it isn't them (they love their friends at school), and our other 6 yr old hasn't really thought about it much. The only issue has been with our 8 yr old daughter. She has made a few comments that indicate some jealousy. This is pretty typical for her. I think she's in the right place (at school) for now, because she needs the special support she gets there and she needs social skills in some ways more than book knowledge. But who knows...maybe if this works out, I'll bring her home too. Never say never!

I wouldn't in my wildest dreams ever have though that I would be homeschooling my children. Definately never say never!