Thank you everyone for making my job one of the most pleasant and joyous I could ever imagine. I hope you all enjoy the winter holiday in whatever version you celebrate and find time to share in the love and joy of family.
Peace and goodwill to you all.
Warmly,
Julie Bogart, for all of us at Brave Writer
I know it’s Christmas and I know you, like me, are spending too much time in mall parking lots looking for a space. So it seems absurd to remind you to sign up for classes when you really need that one tube of vegan mascara for your college-aged daughter’s stocking, and that’s what is uppermost on your mind.
Still, January 5, 2009 is almost here. Some of our best classes start that day and you’ll want to be sure not to miss them as they don’t get offered every quarter.
Hand-Holders is a brand new Brave Writer class designed to help those of you who love the Brave Writer approach to writing, but still would like the feedback and support of an instructor. You’ll feel great at the end of the month knowing you helped your child write a piece worthy of praise and revealing progress.
One Thing: Grammar is designed to transform how you understand the role of grammar in language arts instruction. In fact, it’s safe to say that you’ll never look at grammar the same way again! In the usual surprise twist that is characteristic of Brave Writer instruction, you’ll discover how grammar is the glamor of language and writing.
Kidswrite Basic and Kidswrite Intermediate are two of our Brave Writer staples. Don’t miss these as you get back into the routine of writing in the winter!
A popular expression: When it rains, it pours.
Write about what it means (both what people mean when they use it, how you’ve experienced it and where the phrase may have come from – for instance, is it true that any time it rains, it pours?).
We spend tons of money on gadgets and games. I know, because we own tons of X Box and Nintendo games and gleefully buy more knowing our boys, in particular, will be thrilled (and that’s my gift to myself: seeing their joy!).
So whether we load up on American Girl Doll clothing, or iPod paraphernalia, or a brand new computer, or the latest gift-toy craze for the holidays, I wanted to remind you of the one gift you can keep giving all year to your Brave Writers: YOU.
Homeschooling parents are devoted beyond measure. We stay home year round to be with our kids. We do it out of love, out of a commitment to excellence and relationship. Still, sometimes that commitment looks more like habit and a battle of the wills than the joy of interaction.
Here are two gifts you can give your kids starting now (and especially following holiday break when you get back into your homeschool routine):
Time? How can I put that on the list? After all, you give loads of it. All of it. But let’s think about the time you give. Is it supervisory? Is it cajoling and nudging? Is it alongside, but without really participating? The time you give needs to be the kind your kids recognize as an investment in them. They know that you are giving them time when they feel happy in your presence. They don’t know it when they are miserable, bored or doing something they don’t enjoy.
Let me put it another way: The gift of time in a child’s life is expressed in minutes devoted to your child’s chief pleasures while you sacrifice your own interests to relish theirs.
That means you will play Mario Kart with your child over having the child bake muffins with you if Mario Kart really is more fun for your child. It means sitting by the fire knitting along with your child, not just teaching that child how to knit and then heading off to throw in another load of laundry. It means learning to ski so that you glide down the mountain too, not hanging out in the lodge with hot chocolate. Find a way to connect individually with each child through the lavish expense of time spent on a child’s passion.
When your child tells you he hates writing, or she can’t bear cleaning the bathroom, or they want to just quit homeschool for good, what is your immediate thought? Do you think: He has to learn to write? Or do you wonder: When will she ever learn to be responsible? Do you immediately imagine ways to get that child to work harder? Or do you sink into parental despair, feeling that you must be failing if your children are so lethargic and lazy about basic duties?
Perhaps, though, you’ve discovered a child’s favorite gift of all: compassion. When a child expresses negative emotions, most of us immediately want to kill the emotion (by putting a stake through it – which takes the form of lectures) and override the complaint with strategies for overcoming the debilitating feeling.
Yet the quickest route to recovered goodwill is not ignoring feelings, but welcoming them.
If you can offer compassion to your child, you immediately give them a partner in carrying the heavy weight of the feeling. The load lifts a little.
Some of us feel compassionate but that shared feeling doesn’t get across the gulf. I’ve assembled a few practices that help kids know you have compassion.
Repeat back…
Ask a follow-up question…
Take a break.
Find new strategies.
Offer to do the project, task together.
Give a hug.
Remember to be that comforting presence during a difficult passage (for whatever your kids consider boring, tedious, hard, painful, or scary), and you’ll give your children the gift of being the “safe parent” – the one they turn to when they need extra care and nurturing (which means they will let you into their world).
Hi Julie,
I’ve been rereading your blog the last several weeks as I am new to Brave Writer. How do you enlist your teen’s interest in becoming a competent writer? My son is almost 17 and sees no purpose in writing because he believes he will not need to use it in his future (even though he isn’t sure what he wants to do). I have tried to persuade him – not in a lecturing way – but he just doesn’t see it. We read a lot. I have read aloud to him for years and he reads on his own, but not much for pleasure because he’s busy reading assigned stuff – including good literature.
I hope that’s enough background for you to answer (if you choose to).
My children and I have recently started having tea time and the really enjoy that – especially my younger two. The older one joins in on his own terms.
Sincerely,
Lorri
Hi Lorri!
It’s pretty tough to get a seventeen year old to see anything that we think they should see. So it may be “too late” for the input to come from you. Is he planning to go to college? If so, he’ll need to write a college application essay. He’ll need to write essays for the SAT or ACT. Sometimes these are motivating enough to take a class or to work on the essay form. He may need to write for an application for scholarships or for an internship. These are real world needs and may be more motivating to him than academic purposes.
Also there is a difference between being motivated and not liking writing. Is it possible that he has never enjoyed writing so he doesn’t know that it can be enjoyable or even satisfying? If that is the case, then we can attack it from another angle. He may need to be given opportunities for writing that are pleasurable.
For instance, does he play online games? There are bulletin boards (forums) where gamers discuss their games. He can read and participate in these.
Perhaps he’d enjoy creative writing prompts or even the chance to use writing to promote his favorite films (through a blog or on his Facebook account).
It’s nearly impossible to “get them” to write. So whenever you can, you want to focus on the real world and how writing fits into it. If they still refuse, you can feel good that you’ve made your case and that that same real world will either validate your concerns (and then your kid will suddenly want to write and may ask for help!) or you’ll find out that you were worried for nothing! (I actually had the latter experience with my son. Every time I forecasted doom for his future, his future changed and my dire predictions were false.)
By this stage, the best thing to do for your kids is to support them, give them guidance and then allow them to discover what it is they want and how to get there.
Julie
