Pre teens and teenager issues - help this frazzled mama!

Wow! This thread is amazing! I have a 10 year old boy that has one week per month that aliens invade his brain and there are lots of tears and fits and refusal to do anything well. (Is there a boy PMS???) All this advice is going to save my sanity I just know it. Laura, I really hope you can find some solutions. My son also thinks it is everyone else's fault whenever anything happens. He actually yells at the table if he stubs his toe...no I am not kidding...however, after reading your last response, I wonder if she is hoping to go to public school? Is this behavior a manipulation to get you to send her there? I may be waaaaaaay off though. (Whenever I tell my son we may have to go back to public school, he shapes up and does his best work. He loves the freedom of being home. I don't say it often though. I really only say it when I mean it.)

 

wow... reading this thread does provide some insight. I seem to have the troublesome alien residing in my house today in my 11 year old son. He's pushing and pushing and stalling and trying to do anything possible so that I will just tell him to go to his room or something so he will get out of doing his assignment. He is working on a state report by looking up the information and writing it in the right spot on his state worksheets. This is in preparation for the actual writing of the report. But no matter how he pushes or stalls I refuse to allow him to manipulate the school day and get out of work. He knows what he needs to do so is sitting at the table and can just stay there until he makes some progress. So far I have even had to call his friend and cancel their play time social time today. But that's ok. It is just extremely frustrating when days like today happen.

 

I home schooled all 7 of my kids. The book "the way they learn" by Cynthia Tobias may help you. Kids need to show independence, and freedom in the area of math may be preferred to freedom in another area. If you get my meaning . I pretend ignorance in computers, and my boys jumped in and excelled in them. I was also quite the cook in college, but ask my kids and they will tell you that I dont cook. It's good to let them be better than you, when you can. I taught math on the hill in Pittsburgh, and I would pretend to not know the multiplication tables. The kids would fire out the answer and I would say, "Don't be a show off." I am not above playing the fool.

Original poster,
I am a little confused. For my house, math was my biggest confidence builder. From day one we used math like that.
I was too lavish in my praise, so my kids are very confident. I had 4 graduate this year. Two from college and two from nursing school.