Oh, he whinned about everything!!! He can't remember anything ( these are his words referring to multiplication tables), he is too tired to sit, and so on. I am probably not explaining how frustrating to me he seemed to be today. Like in the middle of me talking about the atmosphere, he breaks in with a news flash of a statement about how many people were at the pool yesterday. I look at him like are you kidding me??? When you have days like this what do you do? Make them work through them or make things short and sweet?
I'm still fairly new... But here's how I handle it: I stop, and make my kid go take a nap. If he's that tired, he needs one. When he's rested (an hr or so later) we pick it up again and do the full load. So far, ds (9) is the one who becomes EXHAUSTED, and every single time he's taken an hr nap for me, then woken up ready to go back to work with a much better attitude.
Oh the joy of whiny days! I had 4 whiny ones today. I finally sent them out to play. They came in for lunch then fell asleep My advice is don't waste your day trying to force an uncooperative child to work. They'll be more uncooperative and you'll be drained. Send them to play or to there rooms!
We like time outs for that. It usually works. When it doesn't, the one who is being difficult finds themselves grounded. If I'm not firm like that they pull it on me more often. I also find that when I'm not giving them enough to do, they get lazier. I'm not sure why that is, but it is.
I had that same day today! E v e r y t h i n g was fussed about. (I'm sorry for you, but I am glad it isn't just me who has this kind of day!)
If they whine they have to whine to themselves in their bedroom. They are free to come out when the whining is done. For each minute that they are in there they will have to make up the missed time during their break. If they are whining about a subject or curriculum or book I make them finish what we had planned for the day usually. But I will take a step back and think about a different way to approach the subject/curriculum/book next time.
LOL. I have a son that will do things like that. If he is supposed to be paying attention I will stop and ask him questions to make sure he is paying attention. Sometimes it works to tell him that he needs to tell me three things he learned when I am done reading/talking. If the attention or daydreaming is rampant I will stop and finish it with him later during his break.
We also have days like that. Sometimes it's just the usual "I'm a kid and I don't want to do school work" attitude, but sometimes it's not. I try to evaluate if there is something going on behind the scenes. Yesterday, for example, one of my 6 year old boys was overly squigly, whiney, and inattentive. I had sent him to his room to have time to rest a couple of times already and that was not making any difference when he would come back out. They know that they don't get to go outside and play until they have sat down and actually worked on lessons for a period of time (not usually terribly long since their attention spans are so short at this age). Anyway, I asked him what he thought his issue was and he said that the reading had lots of words he didn't know and the math was overwhelming to him. Basically, it was just too much for him that day. I was proud that he was able to communicate it to me and I talked to him about how we can do his lessons in a way that is not frustrating to him. I asked him if those ways would help his attention span and he said yes. Then, HE SAT DOWN AND DID HIS WORK. Yay!!! This has happened a couple of times with both of them, so I've learned to ask them what's going on. Sometimes it's that they are hungry or tired or frustrated by lessons, etc. I keep lots of different worksheets and online games on hand to switch to that teach the same lessons we are trying to learn in case the method we are using gets to be too tedious, so that helps a lot when that is the issue. When hungry, I feed them WHILE we work (finger food snacks kept on hand). When tired, go rest. If none of this works, I sometimes just call it all off until the afternoon after nap, or maybe shorten the amount of lessons, or just call it a day and watch an educational video that teaches along the lines of what we're learning or just go the park and call it a day. Hope you got some ideas from all this, but long story short....you're not alone. God loves you and loves your precious children. No one can teach them better than you can because your teaching begins with your great love for them.
Thank you so much for the great ideas and the support! Just knowing that I am not alone makes everything so much easier!
