Archive for the ‘Brave Writer Philosophy’ Category

The doldrums, crisis, and other reasons homeschool is tedious right now

Combating the doldrums

Yes, I feel it too. The bleak gray skies, the perennial low temps (unless you live in southern California where I hear it’s 75 degrees and balmy – shame on you!), the slow burn that comes from having gotten past new books and ideas but not yet in the home stretch where you can coast into summer… It’s winter and we’re mad as h-e-double-toothpicks and we wish we didn’t have to take it any more!

In my world, homeschool has had to persist in the middle of personal crisis. I’ve had emails this winter that report similar weariness: sick child, husband who lost a job, divorce, ailing parents. These common enough experiences impact homeschooling enormously. It’s not like you can keep up the imagination and energy for art, nature walks, creative writing assignments and math homework when your mind is racing through health insurance payment options or you’re sending out resumes for a new job!

For the rest of you who aren’t in the middle of crisis, you might be in the middle of the March muddle. Spring isn’t here yet and homeschool has lost it’s spark. When energy is low for whatever reason, try a crock pot approach to homeschooling. Here’s how to do it.

1) Strip your homeschool to bare essentials.

Now is not the time to beat yourself up about your lack of creativity. Rely on the routines that you can maintain with the least amount of preparation. In our house, that means we continue with math, reading and poetry teatimes. We also keep up with our writing. I tend to rely on interest-driven writing, I skip big projects that require revision and focus instead of personal writing (journaling, freewriting, silly writing prompts from one of my many word books laying around the house). We always keep teatimes going because they feel special, include yummy food and make the day seem nicer than it actually is.

2) Get help.

You can join a co-op, hire tutors, swap subjects with a friend (I did that one year – I taught English to the my friend’s daughter while she taught math to my son).

3) Be good to you.

This may not be your best season for home education. Accept that. Instead, take time each day to do something nice for yourself. You might enforce a quiet half hour (light a candle and tell your kids they can talk when you blow it out). Read a book during that half hour. Unplug computer and phone. Or give yourself permission to bone up on a subject to be taught later. Perhaps you have always wanted to do crafts with your kids, but it’s too much to prepare, plan and execute right now. Use this down time to read a little, clip a few ideas and file them. Don’t tackle the whole thing. Just tuck away a little bit of input for the future. It will help you remember that a more energetic time is on its way.

4) Television and movies aren’t the enemy.

You have my permission (in case you need it) to use the TV to help you cope. I swear, your children will turn out just fine. Choose some programs that make you feel like a better mother. Watch Discovery channel, the cooking channel, the Project Runways for fashion production. Watch people realize their dreams and ambitions or learn about history or science or run through as many Broadway musicals as you can. Watch Shakespeare movies or all the Disney films in chronological order. Turn the TV into a secret ally. Pop corn. Trust that immersion into the world of film or television for this season will yield great rewards. (I’ll write a post on that soon to help alleviate your anxiety, because television and film can be valuable to your kids.)

5) Take the long view.

You’re a good mom. How do I know? You homeschool. Only devoted parents (usually moms) take on this awesome task. Trust that what you’ve poured in will sustain your kids through this period of chaos, the depression, the pressure, or the distraction. Remember that anything missed now can be easily caught up in a more alive, less blues-y time.

I’m in a season just like this. It takes a lot of nurturing self-talk to not beat myself up for being less than on top of my game. One way I’ve coped is I stopped folding clothes. I just throw them in a pile and sort through them as needed. Sometimes giving up even one routine creates a little breathing room and for some reason, clothes folding is just too much right now.

I’ve also realized that this is a season to be close to my kids (in that more “along side them” way). So I sit on the couch and watch their sit-coms, I lay on their beds talking into the night, I page through clothing catalogs hearing about the spring fashion line, I make vegan food recipes with the new vegans in my family, or I joke around through Facebook chat with them (even while we’re sitting in the same room!). I have less energy for the prepared kind of learning, so I’m giving my time and heart and availability instead. I still do math each day with them. And I supervise writing. But I’m allowing their interests to dictate right now. They check out good stuff from the library, they have stuff they want to learn. So we’re going where they lead. I’m following along with money, time and heart (just not as much intention).

I hope you all are finding ways to get through this season.

Peace.

The Homeschool Alliance

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, Homeschool Advice, Wednesday Movies | 2 Comments »

Check in with yourself

It’s mid-February. Time to ask yourself a quick set of questions:

1. When was my last poetry teatime?

2. Freewrite?

3. Would my kids enjoy a movie this week?

4. How can I encourage a look at nature in February (bring in twigs or berries from outside? take a short hike in the snow? watch a thunder storm through a window? flip through a nature book?)?

5. Have I noticed and enjoyed a good metaphor lately? Can I find one to share with the kids?

6. Do I have a set of refrigerator word magnets? Can I get those out and play with them with the kids this morning?

7. When was the last time I journaled? Is there some pressing issue in my life that needs the attention of writing? Can I make time for that today?

Make a little space for writing, words, images and feelings today. Just pick one thing. You don’t have to do them all.

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Quick: Grab a pen!

Grab a pen

Write a list of all the stuff you think needs to be done this week with your kids. Doesn’t matter what you use. An old envelope or market receipt will work. Just start writing. Go until you run out of things to put on the list. Include even random stuff like “Find Penny’s missing ski glove” and “Remember to buy nail polish remover” because those get in the way of remembering to jot down “Study fractions on Tuesday night so I can help Aaron with them on Wednesday morning.”

Once you’ve got a list, take a break. Get a cup of coffee or tea. Read a blog or the newspaper. Then come back to your list. And before rereading it, add to it. Anything you forgot. Now reread the whole list and allow it to jog your memory for one more thing. Add it.

Now that should be a good, long, somewhat exhaustive (and exhausting list!). Today, I want you to pick one thing to do on that list. Just one. Pick the one that leaps off the page, gets your attention, draws you. And do it. Focus on it. Here’s how:

1. Prepare for it. Take the time right now to get what you need to do that task. If it means you need to order a book, order the book now. If it means you need to assemble ingredients, get them together and put the rest on a shopping list you will use today. If it means gathering materials on hand, gather them together and put them in a safe place. If this is a task that needs preparation, it may be that you will not do the task today. But you will have done the steps necessary to eventually get to that task by preparing today. And that’s just as important.

2. Execute the task. Once you have what you need, pick a time today (or on that day) to follow through. Make sure that time is uninterrupt-able. That means your laptop is closed, cell phone is on vibrate and your home phone is turned off. Don’t answer the door. It means no TV is on. Email your husband and tell him not to call you during that hour or two. Clear your kitchen table (or your yard or couch or car – wherever this thing is happening). Know that you have a dedicated block of time to do this task and that no other task will crowd it out.

3. Experience the task/event. Be there. Don’t allow your mind to run off to dinner or dentist appointments you forgot to schedule. Don’t resent sitting down and “wasting time” doing what your mind resists. Don’t jump up to change a laundry load because the timer dinged. Do listen, pay attention, dedicate your mind and heart to the moment at hand. Listen to your kids. Feed back to them what you hear. Participate. Become interested and fascinated with what you are doing. Live in this moment and no other.

4. Reminisce. The next hour, or meal, or day, or two days from now, remember this time you had with your kids.

“You know, I didn’t realize how often fractions are a part of my day until we spent those two hours on Monday playing with your cuisinaire rods.”

“I so enjoyed doing copywork with you on Tuesday. Want to read what I wrote? I want to read yours today.”

“Watching Much Ado About Nothing reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom took me to plays. What was your favorite part? Mine was…”

Focus on the experience by honoring it in your memories. Retell the story, relive it a few days later. It will stay anchored in your lives as a touchstone if it becomes worth of your investment, dedication and memory.

This is how you work through the list. Do it one thing at a time and only do the one thing when you know you will really devote yourself to it. Let me know how it goes.

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Repairing the Damage

Repairing the damage

What do you do? You’ve been trying to teach your child to write using the curriculum that your best friend swears by. Your daughter, though, is slowly wilting under the structure, the requirements. She finds herself less and less willing to face the blank page. She says her hand hurts or she hates the topic, or she doesn’t think writing matters. She finally knuckles under and produces three paltry lines of stiff prose, not at all revealing the sparkle in her personality or her grasp of the topic.

In frustration, you tell her to try harder, you reduce the size of the project, you offer to write things down for her… nothing works. She continues to show you her unhappiness and you wonder to yourself if she’s just lazy, willful or both.

I like to say in workshops, in my writings, that writing problems are reasonable. We parents don’t really want to believe that because it would mean that there is some solution we haven’t yet thought of that will get our kids writing again. It’s almost easier for us if the problem our child is having is seen as a character flaw (then we can require things, punish, reward, or shame our kids into “behaving”). We are much more adept at moral lessons than creative writing solutions. We can lecture and model diligence, discipline, hard work, and denial of feelings much more easily than we can make meaningful suggestions about how to get that pen moving again through some writing solution.

Yet if it’s true that your child is generally cheerful (you know, apart from the normal doses of grouchiness that all kids and adults feel from time to time), listens to you reasonably well in other areas (will hop up to grab the napkins for lunch if you ask, helps you unload the groceries, doesn’t mind feeding the dog, will come when you call while at a store, etc.), and is mostly willing to do other areas of schoolwork (math pages, reading, history, handwriting), a problem with writing really can be understood to be a problem with writing (as in, writing feels overwhelming, hard, confusing, painful, stressful, or perplexing).

Rather than the moral lectures, let’s start over and help our kids tackle writing with a different strategy.

Repairing the Damage

1) Apologize for any way that you’ve not taken complaints seriously as a writing problem.

You can simply say, “I know I’ve been hard on you about writing and it occurred to me last night that you really are struggling with writing, not with self-discipline. I see how eagerly you tackle the games you play, how you willingly help me with the dishes, how you play with your siblings and try to help them have a good time. So I know you’re a great kid. I’m realizing, however, that the way we do writing in this family is not workable. I’m going to help us shift gears and figure out a new way to do writing so that it is no longer the painful torture it has been for you. I’m sorry for being so hard on you.”

2) Write down a list of complaints.

To take your child seriously, write down a list of his chief complaints about writing. Help him to be as specific as he can. Let him see you taking him seriously by making a nice long non-judgmental list. At the end, ask him to reread it to be sure you got it all down. Then sign and date it together. Let him know you take these complaints seriously and are going to do what you can to tackle each one.

3) Take a break from writing.

Together, decide that you will take a break from writing. You can determine a time length, if you like, just be sure that you don’t make it so soon as to not be meaningful. So a two day break is meaningless. But a month is more of a real break. For some kids, a month will feel too soon. I have one child who took three years off of writing. That’s right – three years! (In that time, however, he wound up doing some writing initiated by his own imagination and desire that I supported… by the end of the three years, he told me he felt ready to tackle writing again in a more systematic way.)

4) Determine whether the list includes possible learning disabilities or language processing disorders.

Here are things to think about: Does your child mostly complain about handwriting (holding the pencil, making the letters, hurting hand, tires quickly, etc.)? If that’s the case, it is possible that your child has dysgraphia or some other handwriting impediment. Does your child complain about the struggle to think of anything to say? If so, ask if that is also true in speaking. Does your child struggle to get the words out in talking? Does your child find it difficult to recite an experience or to sequence her ideas verbally? If so, the problem could be a cognitive processing issue, not a writing one. If you suspect some issue that impairs the writing process, get an evaluation done to rule out any of these problems.

5) Research writing.

Finally, you need to get your own philosophy of writing nailed down. The Brave Writer website is chock full of help for you. I strongly recommend the Brave Writer Lifestyle section as a way to immerse yourself in the benefits of this philosophy of writing. You’d also do well to purchase The Writer’s Jungle so that you can educate yourself about how to nurture your young writers. You’ll find step-by-step support and advice for teaching writing to your kids.

Learn more:
Listen to our “Manage the Damage” podcast.

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All they want for the holidays…is YOU!

Brave Writer

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):

1. Time

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.

2. Compassion

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…

    …what you heard: “So you hate homeschooling. Gosh that is awful! I’ll bet you feel sad about the fact that a big part of your life is such misery for you.”

Ask a follow-up question…

    …that invites more discussion: “How long have you felt this way?” or “What makes this task so miserable?” or “How can I help you?”

Take a break.

    Seriously. Anyone who expresses genuine unhappiness about any activity deserves a break. If you offer it immediately, you give your child a chance to see that you take his feelings seriously and are prepared to help find a solution for a happier future.

Find new strategies.

    If the old way isn’t working, try something new. If you can’t think of anything on your feet, make a list of what is wrong with the current experience and then commit to brainstorming and researching ways to alleviate the pressure from the current situation.

Offer to do the project, task together.

    When something is hard or boring or long or tedious or difficult or smelly or exhausting, it can make all the difference in the world to have someone who loves you share the task.

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).

Happy Holidays!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice | 4 Comments »