I don't know where else to go, because even though we are getting my daughter (shes my step-daughter, but her mom is missing so she calls me mom) mental health treatment, nothing seems to work for school. I had to take her out of public school because her doctor felt she could not mentally handle being with all the kids and not having enough attention to complete school work (ADHD), and she was refusing to do anything at school but get in trouble. So, the first month I was homeschooling her before Christmas break she was doing okay, she would have a day or two where school work was hard and we had to fight tooth and nail to get it done, but after the break....I can barely get her to do anything. When she does do something, she just guesses. I don't know what else to do. We tried doing to slow, stopping when she is upset, we also tried exercising/showers/breathing for when she is upset, but now it is progressing. She just wont do it, she will cry ALL day and not do anything, then say I am evil because I wont spend time with her. I dont know what to do! I cant send her back to her school til we are in another district, but its either she does it or fails, she wont find a middle ground. Does anyone have advice?
would it be possible for now to learn through life? We do a lot learning through the books I have my son read, the shows and movies we watch, basic conversation in life. We don't do a lot of worksheet type school, we do some but we do a lot of living lessons. Math in our everyday life, science in our everyday questions, I think learning this way lends itself to them becoming more independent learners in the long run too because they aren't afraid to question things and find the answers but they often don't realize I count it as school either.
How old is she? The advice for a very young child would be very different for a teen. Although I won't claim to have the advice, someone else might.
She is 7 years old. And I would love to be totally interactive with her school work, but that would require me to drop out of college. She does not normally have very many papers, but even one paper today she threw a fit before she even started. For science and social studies, we do field trips and arts to help learn it, but with Math and Language Arts, its sheets.
My son is 7 and I let him do a lot of his responses orally with me. Yes it takes a little more of my one on one attention but it really doesn't usually take more than a few minutes each with math and grammar. Or I only ask him to do half of the problems on the page just to show that he understands the concept being taught. I don't know if that might be an option for you. Honestly his school takes him about two hours a day and about an hour or so include my time working with him or correcting things etc. The rest of the day is his to play and run around and watch shows that he may or may not realize are educational.
I tried doing work with her, and she does this thing where she act like she doesnt know anything and wants us to answer not her. I normally with math, if I notice she is just NOT wanting to do it, I will walk through each one with her. I am able to do it now because I took time off school. I can't do that all day though. She is going back to regular school next year, so I don't want her to get use to doing papers with just me because I wont be at her school and I am going back to work. The thing is, she gets this work. She just wont do it, she wont even try so I cant tell if she actually understands or not.
Perhaps you should try an online program that will take you out of the equation. Look at time4learning.com, for example. They will let you try the program for a couple of weeks for free. It was originally designed with ADHD/ADD kids in mind. You can set it up so that she does 'x' amount of work and then gets 'x' amount of game time in the 'playground' [area of computer games].
Welcome to the Spot. First of all, take a deep breath, relax and know that you can not mess her up. I totally agree with finding things online for her to do. I have one who has the attention span of a gnat if it's not "moving". He does great when school looks nothing like school.. he liked videos and games on the computer. I have heard great things about time4learning. I have never actually looked at it, but we do use other online programs and he really soars when we do.
I agree - visual stuff might help her - even a tablet with apps. If she can read - let her just read books for history. Math - do math for the store.... things like that. There are a lot of things that can be done that don't require her to write it down... my daughter COULDN'T write her answers - seriously - she froze every time and it was such a headache. At the time I got her a tape recorder and she answered the questions on the tape recorder if I wasn't around (now I could use her iPod touch if needed). She gets a lot just by listening to books as well.... not as much reading them (unless it's about vampires and teen girls right now <G>) A different approach might be needed and it might be something to look into next year when she goes to school!
Thank you so much for answering you guys. I am going to look into time4learning. I never thought I would be homeschooling a child, let alone my step-daughter. It has been really hard for me because this all came at the worse time, and just doesnt seem to be working Where I live is very open about homeschool, there isnt very many laws in the line of homeschool in Texas. Thank you for helping, really. I was running out of ideas
Oh! We got her a tablet for christmas for her reading. It also has a program on it that lets me monitor her reading levels as she needs to move on. She knows how to read and reading is like not our problem subjects. She does that work in 5 mins, but everything else.
If you go with time4learning, keep in mind that you get access to 3 grade levels [the grade level you select plus one grade below and one grade above - e.g. if you choose 3rd grade, you get access to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade materials]. I don't typically suggest time4learning as a core curriculum; but as you're looking for a temporary solution and your stepdaughter appears to be very visual in her learning, I think this would be a fairly decent fit for your current needs. I strongly recommend doing the free trial to see how it goes.
Is the work to hard for her? It may be that you need to take a step back and let her deschool for a while.(Take a month or more off and start fresh.) If the work is to hard step back a grade level or ditch what you are doing now and try something completely different.( we just did this ourselves.) She may very well be a child who could benifit from an unschooling situation. Try letting her pick what she wants to learn about for a few weeks and see how it goes.
I'd suggest deschooling (read about unschooling) for a while. A couple of months at least. Let her decompress and adjust to not being in PS. Any change like this (one school to another, or PS to homeschool) is stressful for a child, even if it's a good move. Positive events in our lives can cause stress too. And if she's crying, her brain isn't open to learning new info, so pushing her will just stress her even more and you too.
First, Josie is right about the deschooling. Second, how long have you been her step-mom? I think you said that you're really the only mom she knows...? How close is she to her birth-mom? It could be that her little life is in upheaval right now, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. It could be that she needs to seperate things: stability (which it sounds as if you're doing your very best to provide :love and some amount of control. It sounds as if everything has been happening "to" her, and she has no control at all. By fussing about her school work, SHE is taking control. Is there any way you can allow her to have some say in what's happening to her? Are there ways you can give her appropirate control over things? Just a thought.... ETA: What I MEANT to say was that I felt she needed TWO seperate things (stability and control), NOT that she needed to seperate things (which really doesn't make sense!) SORRY for the typo!!! (PS I was a step-mom with full custody of two boys, so I REALLY feel for you!!!)
Abeka has a sale right now on their dvd programs. http://www.abekaacademy.org/Offers/SpringOffer.aspx Your step-daughter would watch a "class" and a "teacher" then do seatwork. My friend went to it this year and says that she loves it. She would also be ready to go back to school next year.
First of all I also say welcome, second relax and remember this homeschooling a child is fun! Repeat it over and over when the days are rough. I have a question also, what do you do with her when you work? MY kids all learned a lot of thier basics in playing computer games. If they did not know it was school sometimes it was more fun. We played Oregon Trail before they even knew there was a real one! Take a little time for reading a bed time story, and make a chart to record that 'she read with you' so many minutes. Can her dad help with that maybe? MY dh did this for me each night when my kids were younger. Uhm... what else was I going to say? She sounds like she is a little young for her learning age so treat her that way when you are teaching her, and when she 'pretends to not know something ' try telling her the wrong answer and see if she corrects you. If she doesnt act confused for a few minutes and then give her the right answer showing her how you figured out that it was wrong. Sometimes you have to play with teaching, and call it school too. Find a way to reward any good behavior, make charts, have her help with this sort of like Nanny 911 and SUpernanny used to do it.
