Needing encouragement and advice

[MrsH]

This is our first year homeschooling my 9 year old daughter and the first 6-ish weeks were AWESOME.  The past 1-2 weeks... not so much.  I'm looking for some encouragement and also welcome advice you might have.  Basically, we had a really really busy week recently during which we basically spent any of our time at home doing bookwork (we usually aim for about 2hrs per day).  The rest of the time we did really fun field trips and stuff.  My daughter LOVED the trips but began resisting the work.  Then last week I tried to tone it down but she ended up still really resisting the work.  Pouting, whining, having complete melt-downs.  Granted, some of it was a little too hard, and I was happy to adjust it but because she was so rude about it I felt really torn.  I didn't want her to think it was because of her behavior, so I might have drawn the line a bit harder than I would have otherwise done. 

My thought is that we need to take this week off from doing a whole lot of book work.  I'm thinking we'll do a few math lessons, only a couple of spelling lessons, and keep reading the book we're working on but not do any assignments about it.  If we're up for it we can head to the art or science museum, but if she'd rather be home we can just do that.  What do you think?  Is that "giving in" to her inappropriate behavior, or is it meeting her need for a break?  She hasn't said she needs a break, just shown me through her behavior.  Right now we're both frustrated. Her responsibility-levels are down to about zero (meaning she isn't cooperating in any chores or anything, it's not just schoolwork, though it seems centered around school).  She still says she loves homeschooling, but I really want to get her through this rough patch and back into a place where we're having FUN.

Ideas?  Thoughts?  Suggestions?

Thanks!

[SweetSilver]

She's old enough to have a frank talk with you.  Tell her you want to tailor her studies to her needs, but she needs to think about what about her schoolish work she hates.  You need to tell her that even though she loves homeschooling, even as it currently is, you need to be enjoying yourself, too.  And right now you just aren't happy with the fights, so she needs to help you work out her day with you.

By all means, look to different philosophies about homeschooling to see if an even less academic approach would work, but I think just dropping the fight entirely without having some kind of dialogue  with her might leave you feeling like you are indulging her and leave you resenting it.  Deschooling can be a fabulous, healing process.  Unschooling can be a wonderfully vibrant way to homeschool (we are unschoolers).  But to just drop everything on your end without talking about why.....

So if you like that as a possibility, bring this up with her.  You can let her know you still have some expectations, or whatever but I think your next step needs to be one you make together.

[MrsH]

Thank you so much for your helpful advice.  She and I had a great talk and made some changes to how we're doing things this week.  Most helpful, to me anyway, is to know that if it's still not working at the end of the week, we can talk again and make some more changes.  She seemed to really hear my concerns, and she had some great ideas for how to make things more manageable for her without sacrificing the amount or quality of work. Thanks again!

[montessorimama1]

I can also suggest linking the "bookwork" to the real-life experiences she's getting through the outings.  So for example, if she just learned about dinosaurs at a museum, she can work on a timeline at home in order to calculate how much time passed between eras, which was the longest era, the percentage of time human beings have been on the planet vs. how long dinosaurs were on the planet, etc.  All of these research opportunities use math skills without forcing a child to do rote workbook activities that take all the fun out of learning.

[mamabutterfly]

Just wanted to chime in to say we're in a really similar situation here. Also my first year homeschooling our 9 year old daughter, and our first month was definitely better than the second, so very literally could have written your post, lol! :)

Not sure I exactly have any answers therefore. It sounds like you're on the right track with talking it through with her, figuring out what's going on on her end and letting her know where you are coming from too. For my DD the big picture does seem important - as in a very concrete sense of why she is gaining an education. We have interesting talks about her career goals (such as they are now), the idea of college and why some people go (I went, her Dad didn't, he regrets that a lot), and also the comparison to the situation for folks I work with, because I teach adult literacy classes.

We have a big issue with things being "relevant" to her - or not, in her opinion. It isn't doing *any* work, but her idea of what feels significant to her.

One thing on the schedule is that when we had a very lax week (because of my stress-y work schedule) it was really hard to go back to more structure, so I"m struggling with that.

Anyway, I have to run now but would be glad to hear more about your journey with your DD and what has been working so far.