Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments My imperfect homeschooling exeriment

Hi to all.
I have been homeschooling my 7yo DYS since October and it's... just not going that great.

Some of you probably remember me from last year, when he suddenly went from the gifted/overexcitable kid so many of you have to, well... bonkers-- then back and forth-- until he was finally diagnosed with an autoimmune condition related to chronic strep that was causing swelling of part of his brain.

I pulled him out of school after two weeks this year to protect his health (school looks like a huge microbe pit to me now) and also because he is such an unusual kid.

But sometimes I literally sit up in a panic in the middle of the night when I realize how little work he is actually doing.

Every day when it's time to settle in to do something productive, he starts whining/avoiding etc and I often have to shout at him to get him to do anything.

He already seems to know everything I try to introduce as subject matter. Sometimes we play trivial pursuit and I am shocked at what he knows. He knows e v e r y thing.

But he hates writing and doing math problems.

I am afraid I am sabotaging any chance he might have to develop reasonable work habits. It's just too hard to get him to do what he doesn't want to do.

Often he spends whole hours lost in a fantasy world, narrating elaborate story lines to himself... and this fantasy world seem to be a very important place for him to be, so I often let him stay there-- a mental-health luxury he would not have in school-- but am I just giving in to his obsessional tendencies?

I don't want to send him back to school, because there's no way he could sit in a regular second grade at this point... and then there's all those microbes... and the overcrowded NYC classrooms... but he's definitely not "reaching his potential" either.

Advice?

Could you redirect narrating a fantasy to writing a story? Maybe he could dictate to you at first.

For math: maybe a more investigative approach with manipulatives would suit him instead of doing problems?

Have you looked into Descartes' Cove? It's a fantasy math game...

I think CFK's advice is good. If he does seem above grade level, then a good period of unschooling may be called for. And you've got all the time in the world right now.

I'm not a homeschooler, but I've thought about it. I could see that I would feel like I need to have some productive plan for each week and that it would be helpful at times to rely on a formal curriculum. But, the great thing about homeschooling is that you can do it any way that you and your child want. This might be a sign that your DS needs to homeschool in a more casual way right now. And really, he is only a 7 year old little guy, and to top it off one who has been through a lot this year. Maybe you can wait until next year to teach him reasonable work habits!

If you are wanting to encourage academic activities, what about playing off of your son's fantasy world? Can he dictate his stories to you? You could ask him questions about his stories and perhaps do some research to get more information on his topics of interest. You could encourage him to make lists -- of characters, of locations, etc. You could encourage him to draw maps of his inner worlds (I'm not sure if his difficulty with writing is motor-related or desire-related) and label them. You could encourage him to type up his stories or even e-mail you his latest story developments. On the e-mail note, you could just have him e-mail relatives to practice composing and typing.

As far as math goes, you could just try to work math into your everyday conversations. You could cook a lot. Give him a small allowance and have him keep track in his journal of his income and expenditures. Give him a watch and have him figure out things like elapsed time. You could have him figure out the ratios or fractions of good guys to bad guys in his fantasy world. At least around here (Everyday Math), the formal curriculum is about math skills you encounter in everyday life, so you should be able to "sneak" these skills in without him having to do formal math.

Most importantly, don't be too hard on yourself! Any time you're spending with him is educational in some way.

Hmmm... thanks guys.
For the record, I have tried to funnel all the fantasy play into stories- without success. I tried having him dictate the stories to me, and also tried voice-to-text software... but it definitely seems like it's the process of committing his words to a specific form (rather than the physical act of writing) that causes the problem-- turning an obviously therapeutic activity (fantasy) into unbelievably counterproductive distress.

He is certainly at least at grade level.

I guess it's the unwillingness to sit down and do anything that bothers and worries me.

Also, here in NYC the homeschooling requirements are fairly strict... I would have to significantly fudge the truth in order to unschool.

Which is no big deal I guess. I'm a scofflaw just like he is...

Okay, so now I'm thinking that you should give up on trying to turn his fantasy play into some sort of writing activity. As long as it seems like a healthy diversion for him, let it stay fun for him. He's 7 and there's a lot to be said for having a rich fantasy life.

I don't know anything about the NYC homeschooling requirements, unfortunately. Are there specific documents you need to provide that show his actual work, or are you required to document his time and activities specifically relating to each particular grade-level academic area?

When did he turn 7 & what grade is he considered to be in? NY requirements do look pretty formal from looking on the HSLDA's website.

Are you comfortable with taking him out to places like a science museum or is his health still too fragile to be exposed to the germs there? Maybe you could design some math or science lesson plans around the exhibits at the museum and do them while you are there -- visit the exhibit, sit down to eat lunch and review & read the brochures from the museum, & then pull out a pad of paper and pencil to work on math problems related to things in the exhibit.

If you find out info about the exhibits ahead of time, you could for instance do some math problems related to blood flow (stroke volume x heart rate = blood flow) if you had just seen the Body World's exhibit at a science museum. I'm just throwing random ideas out there; this may not be an appropriate math lesson for what your ds is needing to learn right now.

I think going the unschool route sounds great. Maybe sit down with him and find out what he wants to work on? If writing is an issue for him, maybe getting him something like Handwriting without Tears and telling him if he can do one page a day, that would be good. I've found just by doing that one page a day, my kids have gotten much better and much more comfortable with writing and it takes like 5 minutes. Manipulatives and computer games work well with the math.

I have 2 homeschooling kids and as long as they're at least at grade level I often let things slide. My DS9 has decided to unschool science for the time being. He clicked with writing out multi-step math problems earlier this year, so my evil plan with stalling to get to "real" algebra has paid off. I let him do one math exercise a day, but then he does programming or other math games. I don't have a GT kid that clamors to get through a math book (although he had one 2 week period where he got through about 1/2 year because he was enjoying it). My 5 year old is often done with her "work" in 15 minutes. Often it involves oral math or games. We do a lot of hands on field trips and activities.

Hang in there! To me it sounds like you're doing ok, but I totally understand that feeling of wanting something "concrete" that they're working on. I think whether they're in school or not, they ebb and flow.

I wonder if you could try instilling good work habits with non-school related things? Putting his own clothes away, setting the table, and so on? Maybe coming at it more obliquely like that might help a little.

Writing is just a hard one for little boys, I think. Mine have liked the Getty-Dubay Italic series quite well (and like the previous poster who uses HWT--which I hear is also very good--they just do a page a day, and there has been some progress, all right).

Have you seen Julie Brennan's Living Math site? www.livingmath.net She has all sorts of lists of story books and history books about math; it might be an appealing way to tackle it for a while. Or games, maybe? There's a neat company called MathArtFun that has a lot of cool stuff. www.mathartfun.com

There's more than one way to skin a cat, as my Nana always said!

peace
minnie

I speak from experience: if you have to shout often to get him to work, you're the one who has to change. BTDT.

What he's telling you in the best way he knows how is that either he's not on board with homeschooling in the first place or the approach you're taking is not working for him. Either way, you're not going to have luck with him until you change something. You can't change him, you can only change you.

Unschooling is totally valid, especially since he's had such a rough time the past year or so. Relax.

If you need more structure (I do), then I'd definitely recommend that you talk with him about what he wants to do. Do as much of the things he wants to do as you can do. Explain to him that there are certain things that must be done--writing, math, reading, etc.--but that HOW you complete those tasks is open for negotiation. Make an agreement *together* about what school will look like. Get his buy-in by letting him have more say, but then hold him responsible. He might be willing to do 10 problems a day if they're really challenging if he also gets to do something educational that's enjoyable for him.

Or dump math problems completely and go "off road" for a while. DS8 was growing to hate math when he was about that same age in our first year of homeschooling, mainly because nothing we were doing was hard enough. I finally threw my hands up and we started doing geometry. We liked "Painless Geometry" by Lynette Long. It's "real" geometry, not the "this is a circle" stuff, but it's accessible to HG+ young kids. Plus we did a lot of stuff with dice and pattern blocks. After a year or so of this, he was ready to go back to math problems. Think creatively.

Finally, I have finally (!) learned that when I don't challenge DS8 enough, he rebels. If you can find something that is truly hard for him, you might get better cooperation. It sounds to me like he's telling you he's bored.

If you want more specifics about any of this, let me know. I'm happy to help in any way that I can.

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