My oldest is eagerly racing ahead in all his interests right now. He wants to go further and deeper but gets frustrated with his own lack of supporting skills abilities.
The things that most seem frustrating to him are
1. Writing - it has come on beautifully now that he sees the need, but he is not yet eagerly writing anything longer than a couple of sentences.
2. Auditory distraction - he was diagnosed by an OT last year with auditory discrimination issues and he is getting upset because he is so easily distracted by noise around him. I don't really get this because I don't have this issue.
3. critical analysis skills - While I keep explaining to him that these take time to develop, and I do believe that he is ahead of most 7 year olds in this area, he gets frustrated that he doesn't how how/where to start on comparing information, compiling the best of the info on a topic without endless sifting through repetitive information and how to know what is valid and what is not.
4. Ability to sit still - since we more unschool I am quite okay with him working as long as he is able/wants to. Again he is expressing frustration in only being able to get through half of what he wants to before needing a physical break. (esp in Music and science right now)
These are mostly supporting skills from what I can tell. I think he will grow into most of these, and I already see drastic leaps weekly in these areas.
My question is this - how can I help him take the general leap into the higher level of where he wants to be with these asynchronicities? How do I support the strengthening of these skills, and is it necessary to offer this or will it happen on its own?
The frustration is definitely a sign that he uses to express the need to take the next step - we have seen it often thus far in his little life; I think that he has made huge bounds of progress since he was in therapy when leaving school two years ago, and so the curve seems so steep and that's okay for us... I just want to help him get to where he is comfy and wants to be without making things harder for him if that makes any sense.
I think right now he is on the cusp mostly of the leap from foundation phase to intermediate learning phase (ie grade 3-4/5), some of his thinking, definitely his reading/comprehension skills and definitely maths skills are already higher than that, but he seems to be reluctant about moving fully into the intermediate phase of overall "stuff".
Perhaps my brain is still too "Schooled" to see how to help him, all I can come up with is "he should be able to write at least a few paragraphs on something!" so I need your help
Any ideas, sharing of thoughts, opinions, stories, anecdata etc welcome.
