My kiddos are well aware that there is no Santa Claus and no Tooth Fairy, but we still play the games. I really suck at Tooth Fairy, and, as usual forgot to make the transaction until I woke up this morning. Luckily, Josiah was still asleep, so I grabbed a five and sent Sam up to do the deed. Sam was thrilled to play Tooth Fairy, so it all worked out fine. Josiah was thrilled with his five, and pointed out the building on it, calling it The Parthenon. Our History lesson is born! We looked up the Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and learned all about it. What luck! Mom ordered a neat book a while back,
Lincoln Tells A Joke - How Laughter Saved the President and the Country!! Geography: We find DC on our map of the United States. Josiah would like to visit DC now. The book about Lincoln brought up questions about slavery, so we read a book that we purchased at
Stones River National Battlefield this Summer,
If You Lived When There Was Slavery in America.
Ooh! More Geography! Josiah ~ "Why did you tell Mike to drive safely?" Because Mike is in Atlanta, Georgia today. We go to our map of the United States and trace from Rock Hill, SC to Atlanta, GA. We review the states: NC, SC, TN, and add GA to our States of interest! Josiah ~ "Is he spending the night?" Sorry, Josiah, no Pajama Party in Mom's bed tonight, Mike will only be in ATL for the day.
I love watching Jake, our "teen" dog, play Tug-O-War with the pups. (The wood in the background is the boy's building materials ;)
I really love this quote that a friend posted on Facebook today: "When someone in public school excels, it's because of school. When someone in public school struggles, it's their own fault. When an unschooler excels, it's because they're motivated, smart, etc., not because of unschooling. And when they struggle? It's entirely the fault of unschooling. Such hypocrisy!" ~ Idzie Desmarais
Mike coaches Sam's Rec Soccer Team, and we had practice tonight. Shamique came over and played a while after school, and when Sam had to depart for practice and leave his friend behind, he had a meltdown. We had a talk in the car all the way to soccer practice about following through with your commitments and the effects if you don't. Sam was asked five times if he wanted to play soccer again this season, and he said yes all five times. Mike committed to coaching a team because Sam wanted to play, so now we have a team that is counting on Mike and Sam to be at practice and games until the end of this season. There is a difference in trying something new and being absolutely miserable enough with it to drop it, and voluntarily committing to something you are already familiar with, then just dropping out, because you don't want to do the work. I told Sam about how I, after cheering three years at my Junior High, got burnt out near the end of my 9th grade year, and just quit. It left my squad in a bind with a competition we had practiced for. Not okay. I lost some friends. I have an established history of falling through on my commitments. My ex-husband was sent to me as my wake-up call. He was/?is? the expert at falling through on his commitments. I saw myself in him and it was ugly. Thank you Universe, for the ten year mirror! I know my children have to learn by making mistakes, but I don't want to be an enabler.
Nothing wrong with requiring your children to follow through on their commitments. This has been a difficult one for me, because I am surrounded by extremists - a group of folks who will let their children drop out of whatever, whenever, regardless of the negative consequences for OTHERS. And a different group of folks who force their children to perform tasks the child is uninterested in, miserable with, or being hurt by, simply because the child (or parent) made a "commitment"....
ReplyDeleteIf we know our children, are familiar with them deeply, then we can see when they just want to shirk a "duty" or when they are genuinely needing escape from a responsibility (over their head, lost interest, whatever).
Looks to me like you know your kid pretty well. :-) Looks to me like the lesson of commitment is being supported, yet the child is not being FORCED into something he wasn't interested in (for the sake of the parent's interest). This would be a good thing to bring up next time soccer season rolls around - "Sam, do you remember last year when you weren't very enthusiastic about soccer? Maybe you could take a break this year, and try a different sport?"
I am pretty sure my K will not be doing soccer next year. She is enjoying it, but the kids are mean. But who knows? she may surprise me! Whatever her choice is, I will support it. And if she came to me mid-season and said "This sucks, I want out" I would have her sit with me AND the coach, so we could see if there was a way to make it less sucky.
She LOVES her Karate class. Is really good at it. And I suggested that she quit, because she was getting into trouble - she wanted to socialize, and was disruptive in class. She agreed that perhaps it wasn't fair to the other kids that she learned so quickly, then prevented them from learning. She agreed to let me know when she felt like she could focus on the class and less on the socializing. Then she can do the class again.
You did a good thing, Robin!
Thank you for the encouragement. I had a soccer Mom call me last week to let me know that her son would not be at practice all week because he is grounded for getting a behavior note sent home from school. "Soccer is just recreational. School comes first. He has to do good in school or he can't do the extras." I disagree with this as well. There are a million other ways this Mom could have handled this that would not affect the responsibility that she and the child have to the team.
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