Wow, things have been going, going, going around here. I didn’t mean for a whole week to go by without another post. Homeschooling went better after my post from last week.
I shared with my husband about some of the struggles I was having with my older son and his constant questions about off-topic things and my losing patience with him and he gave me a suggestion. (Well, it was more than a suggestion but I didn’t want to call it a command because that makes it sound a little harsher than it was.) On Tuesday morning, I told my son that during school time, if he had a question about something that wasn’t school time, he should write it down and ask me after school time. I would not be responding to his unrelated questions. DH told me I had to be tough with him and really not say a thing and to keep at it.
I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that frankly it was a dumb idea and that it would never work. However, after some initial displeasure, my son was actually able to concentrate better on his school work. He wrote some questions down for me, which I faithfully answered later, but I didn’t have to remind him to get back to his work. I see that I was continuing to allow his behavior and it was such a habit to him, that he didn’t really notice how often he was interrupting.
School didn’t go quite as smoothly for the rest of the week after Tuesday, but there was enough of an improvement that I think I will continue enforcing this to try to break my son’s bad habit. I see that my emotions quickly turn the small interruption into a big interruption, so that is why I have to just completely not respond. I saw that it worked better when I didn’t give him any response. When I started to give in a little, later in the week, the arguing about answering him lasted longer.
In case anyone reading this thinks this sounds harsh, well maybe it is. However, he is allowed to politely ask me for help with his work which I gladly do. I just couldn’t cope anymore with the nagging and arguing between the 2 of us that I have allowed to continue. It was causing too much tension in the home and it wasn’t fair to the other children, nor was it a good learning environment for anyone.
What a great recommendation from your husband.
Hubby and I have been brainstorming ideas to keep school on track and the kids in line. It's been more of a struggle this year, for some reason. Reading your post, I think you hit our problem on the head.
Other things are creeping up and stealing our lesson time! Hubby and I read your entry and it real spoke to us. Thanks to you and your husband.
We'll be implementing your rule faithfully and I can only think we'll have good results.
Michelle32
I'm not allowed to view your profile so I can't post directly to you, but I wanted to thank you for your comment. What an encouragment it is to me to know that some of my struggles may help other people. Even people I do not know. What an amazing God we serve!
I think that was just the ticket! Of course, with every new plan implemented, there is always going to be the "testing of the waters" but that sounds wonderful! I am going to suggest that my friend reads this post. She struggles with the same "off topic things" with her boys. That is a difficult thing, especially if we as moms end up having our train of thought derailed with constant pulls to different places!!
Stephanie@inspired