Surprising conversation (or lack thereof)

[seawitch]

My kids are DD 3 and DS 4.  (They just turned.)  I don't believe in early academics, and I thought H was on board with us. They do arts and crafts and attend a drop in playschool a few times a week, and we go to the zoo and the Y and parks. They get a lot of free play. DS loves to build with blocks mostly and DD is just all over the house playing with whatever she finds, and is very creative.  They each know tons of songs and nursery rhymes - they've memorized dozens each and will often sing with one another.  They also love making music and have lots of instruments.  Oh, and cooking and baking.  They know a lot of recipes by heart.  And they can identify spices by smell and know what dishes they go in.

However, they don't know how to read, or their letters (although DS is learning some, but I'm not teaching him actively).  They also know how to count some - they can both count to around 10 and DS can recognize the numbers from about 1-5.

A few days ago I showed them one of those map placemats of the U.S. and showing them a few states - where we moved from, where we're moving to, where grandma lives, etc.  This morning DD was looking at it by herself and pointed some states out to me by name.  I was pretty impressed so when DH came out I asked her to show him, and she did.

Essentially, DH said something like, "big deal, by the time I started school I knew [listed a bunch of different things like presidents, planets, counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, reading, writing, etc.]" OK, that's great, I knew how to read as well because I taught myself before school started, but that was never a goal of mine to teach the kids... Ideally I want to homeschool, and wanted to even before we had kids - and DH and I had plenty of conversations about that both before and after I conceived.  I don't believe in pushing early academics, and when I said as much to DH - because this is something that we've discussed before, and he never seemed to care one way or the other, he made a snarky comment about how "yeah, you have different ideas about everything don't you" - or something to that effect.  I was a bit confused and hurt, and asked if he thought that I should be doing something differently, flashcarding the kids or something, and he basically said that yeah, I was too lazy and his mother was a lot more proactive.  Mind, he's never tried to teach them anything himself, and he's home with them just as much as I am.  But when I tried to engage him further, he just shut down.  I was honestly trying to get his opinion and said as much, but maybe I was so surprised and even a bit hurt that he came out of left field and called me lazy and said his mother did things better than I did... well, I probably wasn't really in a receptive mood to hearing his criticisms...

But this was all before his morning coffee. ;)

I'll try to talk to him more about it, but does anyone have any BDTD moments?

[Tjej]

Maybe your DH has other stresses going on right now so he is snippy about this area that is bugging him, but he doesn't know how to talk about it.  Maybe he feels they've gotten older and things should change.  It doesn't mean he should have talked to you like that or belittled your DD's accomplishment, but he and you obviously do need to come to a better agreement as far as how your homelife runs.

HUGS.

Tjej

Edited by Tjej - 6/12/11 at 8:55am

[mom2ponygirl]

Are you starting to field school questions now that your children are approaching 'school' age?  Perhaps it is making him doubt himself and worry about the choices you guys have made?  I know that when I doubt myself it is easier for me to be snippy even with my generally supportive family. :-(

My dh has been wonderfully supportive over our 7 years of homeschooling.  However, we have had moments that made me say to myself - WTH is he thinking? LOL  Such as - perhaps you should just teach her to sit still.  I mean how hard is it to sit still for one minute?  Can't she practice it during the day with you?   Or she's just going to have to deal with boring classes and stupid teachers some day, may as well learn now.  These gems seemed to happen when he was under stress from work or feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities at home, too.  However, they have been few and far between thankfully. 

So, I would wait until you are both calm and happy before initiating conversations.  You may find this attitude to be a rarity rather than a major issue.  

[pigpokey]

If it's just a one time thing, I would not push it.  But you may want to leave some reading materials scattered conveniently around the house about how delayed academics is successful.  I also don't think early academics is important, but with two bright kids a year apart I did start reading instruction when I had an older-3 and an almost 5 year old.  I don't think it's necessary to future success, but if they seem ready, I don't think 20 minutes a day of DISTAR will cause any problems at all.  It can be helpful when they can do a bit of reading independently at 4 and 5, menus, signs.  Again not necessary and I would think hours of forcing it would be harmful.

[briansmama]

Well, I think what you are doing with your dc sounds wonderful. As for your dh, I'd be more concerned with the fact that he's comparing you to his mom and telling you your lazy. I'd actually be pretty upset about that! Something is obviously bothering him but it doesn't really sound like hs is the real issue- could he be frustrated by something else? I know my dh gets irritable when he's really stressed at work and I've known friends whose husbands hate coming home to a messy house. Those things can be related to a hs lifestyle but I still don't think anyone should be telling you you're lazy.

Just my 2 cents...