My biggest struggle

I wrote this post when we were first starting the homeschool year. Since that time things have changed, and I'll post about that next, but I wanted to post this in case this could help other homeschooling parents to realize they are not alone in some of the frustrating days.

Patience. And letting go of my own agenda. I struggle with them daily. I start out thinking I will let go and allow Sean to just move through his day on his own, working at his own pace. But I inevitably cave in to my fears and start directing him to do work.

I'm typically a take-charge person when taking charge is needed. If someone else is already in the position of leading, I gladly follow.

I've been a Montessori mom for eight years now, and I've loved learning about the philosophy and how to present materials.

We have a shelf devoted to our materials, and I lovingly gaze at them and long for the days when Sean would excitedly use them.

Those days are gone, and I realize that as children approach Upper El they are more interested in abstract learning. I get that.

I also know that as a Montessorian I am to trust the child, follow the child, and prepare the environment. Since there are few materials being used now with our Upper El homeschool, that part is reduced somewhat. I try to prepare myself, and guide him to prepare for his day.

But when he wanders around aimlessly, not working on anything, I'm not sure if I can really hold it together. Can I follow (metaphorically, not physically) him wandering around aimlessly? Am I supposed to nag and cajole and threaten to take away privileges if he doesn't complete a work plan? Am I supposed to trust that he is learning in spite of not doing what I consider "school" work?

Some days I'm totally on board with following. I feel in my heart that he will naturally take off on learning and ask me for information and trips to the library.

But on days like today I fear he will just be a bum, wandering around aimlessly, not completing work, and ultimately not succeeding in life.

And really, it all comes down to fear. Fear that I will be judged if he doesn't learn what we have on our curriculum plan; that he will be "behind" if I have to put him back in school. (But may I just say that he is "behind" according to the testing that was administered last year, and he has been in a school setting for the past three years.)

This child is an opposite of me. I am a list person. I make a list and I check things off. Chuck is also that way. So we struggle because we don't understand his way of doing things: haphazard, no plan in place, things strewn around and out of order. This child who has only ever been in a Montessori setting is so NOT Montessori in some ways that I can hardly believe it.

He will quickly organize things if I ask him to do it, but he is not naturally that way.

So I argue with myself. Should I direct him, or should I allow him to wander around and come to it on his own? Some days I can allow him to wander. Some days I start to get anxious and find myself directing. We're still finding our way here in this homeschooling Montessori journey.

Oh, What a Wonderful Day

I'm a doer, so when we get a lot accomplished in a day it makes me feel really good.

Today Sean was able to fill out a work plan and work through each task to completion. For those of you who have children who do this naturally, hats off to you! Please, please, know that you are blessed. It took us a few weeks to get to this point.

He is not a person who can start working first thing in the morning, so we structure our day with outside time first, then we come in and work.
We start each day with taking care of our environment, and our pets. He feeds all of the animals, and plays with the dog and loves to pet the chickens. Today was another laundry day. We usually do it on Mondays, but we didn't get all of it finished yesterday.

When we first started on this homeschool journey last month, he would do work, then write down what he did in his work plan. I realized it was not really a great way to set a goal and work toward it. It was more like, do some stuff, then record what I did.

A couple of weeks into school I had him change that pattern. Now he writes his own work plan, and completes what is on it. He has started out slowly. He usually completes three works. I've decided that we will add on work as the year goes. Not that I will tell him to add anything, but I'll do a lesson in something that he hasn't written on his plan yet.

Today he did FOUR works, plus all of those chores of feeding the cats, the dog, and taking care of the chickens, and doing his own laundry.

The one thing I added today was writing. We are beginning to study the structure of a paragraph, so I told him he could write about anything at all that he wanted to write about. That would be our topic.
He chose the new game he is getting in a couple of weeks.

I asked him to tell me what he knows about that game, and as he told me, I wrote it on our small white board. I numbered each sentence. Then he chose which sentence should be first. I told him to imagine he was writing this for his great-grandma, who is 92. She has never played a video game in her life, and knows nothing about them.

He did a great job of choosing the sentences so that they flowed in a nice order.

This exercise was to get him used to brainstorming, and also to help him feel successful.  It took a long time, probably almost an hour. And he felt really great about his work, and made a comment afterward that he worked really hard on it, and he would be upset if that paper somehow got ruined.

He also said they never had time to do that last year. He said they had about 30 minutes to write two paragraphs, and he always felt he didn't have enough time to do it.

I think we'll do this many more times, before I have him start revising and rewriting.

It was such a great day!