Hi All! My 8 year old son has a horrible attitude. He hates everything about school. I've tried so many different curricula, let him decide the order in which to do things, taken breaks, sent him to his room, taken away privileges...I can't even think of any new ways to get through to him. He is dyslexic, dysgraphic and ADD so I understand frustration and try to be very understanding about the reading difficulties. I don't make him do a lot of writing. I act as his scribe for most things. I use videos and experiments for history and science. All things I think he will like. But no matter what I do he sighs, whines, complains, rolls his eyes, yells that he hates this, etc. Any recommendations on how to handle this? I keep thinking if it's this bad at 8 how bad is it going to be when he is a teen?!
I wish I knew the answer to your question! We had the same troubles last year with our then 7 year old daughter. This year we are taking a break from homeschooling, so she is in public school which seems to be going well. Next year we will be back to homeschooling, so I'm just hoping things will go smoother.
The only thing that comes to mind is that maybe his attitude has become a habit. What if you were to give him back what he gives to you? Spend a day (or longer) whining about everything, complaining, rolling your eyes, yelling you hate doing (whatever), refusing to do it, stomping around, slamming doors, pouting, insisting he do it for you -- whatever he usually does, you do it. Maybe he has just never seen what his attitude looks like.
My daughter has had her days when she was frustrated and just not connecting with me so homeschooling was nearly impossible. I do not know if this will work for you, but one of the best ways to get my daughter back to working with me was to stop everything and wrestle with her. We would end up laughing. There was physical and emotional connection as well as a release of our frustration. It did not make her like homeschooling much more but at least it made it easier for us both to work together.
Has he said why he doesn't like school or what about it that he doesn't like? There could be something there that you could try to address. If he simply doesn't think it's fun then you could ask him for his ideas on how to make it fun. Sometimes all it takes is for kids coming up with some ideas or rules of their own, and then they are more likely to follow those rules or go along with things. It also might be a heart issue as bad attitudes usually are. Or maybe he just doesn't understand that learning is meant to be fun and interesting and that it's a way of life? I'm sorry I don't have better advice for you. Have you tried implementing a token economy system to promote good attitudes/desirable behavior? See #6 here: http://lioncubschool.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-back-to-homeschool-hacks-to-make-life.html Sometimes kids have oppositional defiant disorder and need to get counseling and it takes a lot of work to help them overcome that (in other words changing your homeschooling ways won't help and he'll act the same at public school as well). Just trying to give you some ideas. Hang in there, you can overcome this!! I'm sure you're doing great and doing everything you can. Someday he's going to realize what a great mom you've been!
