Can you list some of the ways you have improved your child's work ethic? I have seen much improvement in this area, but I am worried about the increased workload with our late dialectic/early rhetoric level.
Any tips are much appreciated.

Have you listened to Marcia's sample track from her Learning with Tapestry CD (if I remember the name correctly)? You can access it from the Bookshelf, I believe. That short track has changed my whole way of thinking about how to handle kids and responsibility.

I guess my other question is, why is there a problem with the work ethic? My oldest daughter has had a very hard time facing her work, and I finally realized that she was frightened of it - afraid that she could not finish in a reasonable time. Seeing a list of the work she had to do sent her into a tailspin. And asking her to write a schedule for herself for the next week? She reacted with tears and tantrums (at age 13).

For her, part of the solution was not to let her see any lists or schedules. I wrote out her requirements on slips of paper, and handed them to her one by one. When she finished one slip, I'd give her the next. At first, she was so intimidated in some subjects that I was down to slips of paper with things like: "Get out your science textbook and open it to page 96. Get out a pencil and a sheet of paper." The next slip would take her one step further.

After a time of that, I could write larger steps on a slip of paper. After weeks or months of this, I began to be able to let her see that there was a list - I could show her just today's science assignment, for example, covering the rest of the list so that it wouldn't intimidate her. After a while, she became able to deal with a list herself. By the end of the school year (about 6 months later), she was able to generate her own school schedules each week and follow them.

Now, this probably isn't your child's problem. But the reason I'm saying this is that when someone isn't working well, there is often a fear that is keeping them from being able to work well. Discovering that fear, and alleviating it somehow, may help. I know that when I procrastinate, it's often because of a fear of failure (or a fear that I won't be perfect).

Part of it is the age, too. I understand that kids are often less organized when they reach middle school age than they were in elementary school, and that the organizational ability tends to improve when they reach high school age. So your child's developmental maturity is probably working in your favor right now.

Your title was about "consequences," and obviously you need to have consequences of some kind in place. For me, that varies from time to time, and I don't know which of the consequences that I've enacted have helped and which ones have hindered. But certainly, the kid needs to know that in the end, there's no getting around it: the work must be done.

I appreciate your reply and it was helpful.
But your last line summarized the reason for my post.
I'm curious as to other mom's methods of handling incomplete work.
Thanks.

I didn't answer this part of it because I don't feel that I have anything original to say about this topic, but since no one else has responded yet, I'll go ahead and see if there's anything you can use.

The basic way I've handled it is to have rules about what can't be done if schoolwork isn't finished. For example, X has to be completed before ballet class, or you don't go. Or the whole week's work has to be completed before the party on Friday night.

The hard part, for me, is to figure out how long a leash to give the kid. My 14yo tends to request a long leash. She says that she prefers to do things on her own time rather than at the time I assign her, and likes to have a whole week to work with. But it tends not to work very well. It took me a long time, but I finally realized that having lots of short-term goals worked better for her than a single long-term goal, despite her preference. That's part of the "training in liberty" ideas - give them only the amount of freedom that they can handle, and if they don't handle it well, scale it back some.

I remember the flurry of work she's gotten done sometimes, when I announced a visit to a certain family the following evening....

But with time, it really has gotten better. A couple of years ago, she twice got so far behind in her work that she had no hope of catching up (and went to Grandma's house so that Grandma could help her get caught up without all the parental struggles). Now she understands that today's work really needs to be done today, and doesn't wait for me to announce a consequence. (And I now blame myself for allowing her to get so out of control on her work.)

Poorly done or incomplete work counts, for me, as unfinished - in other words, you miss out on the swimming trip if your corrections aren't done in time.

I'll stop right now because I really don't know how helpful this is.

Beth

Hi, "Mom." Since you are hoping to get practical examples of how others have handled this, I thought I would describe some practical things we've found helpful.

We have graduated three of our four and still have one in high school. Over the years, my husband and I have settled in on a fairly consistent way of approaching this, and have just had to tweak it a bit depending on our kids' particular weaknesses and struggles with sin.

The core of our approach is a clearly defined set of expectations. I produce a checklist that I call the "Daily Grind." That checklist is their passport to fun. When they were younger, I made the checklist in a daily format, and at the end of every school day, they had to produce that checklist to me before they were free to "roam about the cabin," so to speak. That helped me to hold them accountable (I'm notorious for being busy with something and just "uh-huh-ing" them at the end of the day without thinking it through. I also struggled with remembering the miriad of things each child should have done each day, and then things slipped through the crack or they pulled one over on me. The checklist takes all the work out of it for me. I just look it over and determine if the work has been done or not.)

When they were young, that checklist included things like what Marcia calls "morning ablutions" and chores and making their bed and brushing their teeth and quiet time and the like, because they needed my help with being diligent to do them.

As they got older and my husband and I thought they were ready, we changed the format of the Daily Grind to a weekly format, and let them plan their week and do their work as they saw fit (of course, we had mid-week goals like writing a rough draft that had to be done, but I didn't nag them about it. I just marked their paper down by 10% if any element was late). Then when they were done with their work on Friday, they presented my husband or me with the Daily Grind. If their work wasn't done, life as they knew it ceased over the weekend until it was completed.

Handling it this way also allows my husband to help them to learn to be hard workers, because he knows what they should have done and can help me hold them accountable.

We've had to make adjustments here and there. Our two older girls were very independent by the mid-dialectic years, so we could transition them to the weekly format and rarely had any problems with them not getting things done. Our youngest son struggles in this area, so we kept him on the daily format until mid-way through 9th grade. He still battles that temptation to put play before work, but he's making strides. It has just required a lot more heart work on the part of my husband and me to help him along in that area.

I hesitate to do this because our little checklist is just a homemade thing, but I'll post it here in case it helps.

As I was typing this, my husband asked my son to mow the lawn, and he was less than enamored with the thought. We're still right where you are--doing the heart work and praying that God would grant grace for our kids and us as parents as we work through these years.

Grace to you,
Teri

daily_grind_by_day.zip (177 KB, 213 downloads) Daily Grind by Day

Here's our chart by subject.

(If you own MS Publisher and would like the Publisher version so you can tweak it, I would be happy to email it to you. You can get my email address from my profile on this forum.)

Daily_Grind_by_Subject.zip (186 KB, 226 downloads) Daily Grind by Subject

Something my dear dad said to me when I was young really helped throughout life. I miss him terribly and would love to share his wisdom here.

"You have 24 hours in a day - plenty of time to accomplish everything you need or want to do. That means you have 8 hours to work, 8 hour to play and 8 hours to sleep. If you ever really get your head around that, you will see that 24 hours is indeed enough."

Seldom will a young person actually work a full 8 hours, though they may sleep more than the full 8 hours.

I can't tell you how this wisdom, stated early and often, helped me think about how I was spending my time. It really helped me get through college. I have begun to repeat this to my young one in these early days.

Blessings
educaring

Teri,
Wow, just what I was getting ready to create myself for my youngest son! Thanks for sharing this. He's only 8 and I'll need a simpler version but it's very helpful for me to see a model before I start.
Thanks,
Kathy in VA

Amen! Thank you!
My eleven yo daughter just can't take in the Overview and SAP assignment sheets. She keeps saying it's too disorganized (we're doing Year 4 so it's Classic). She just gets overwhelmed with "stuff over here and stuff over there and it's not all together in one place". I don't have MS Publisher but I'm going to use your idea to come up with something in Word.

Again, thanks so much. God bless you.

CovenantMom, when you do come up with something in Word, will you share it please? It takes me so long to make charts. I would appreciate it.

Shannon

There is a Dialectic planning chart (for the student) in the Files section of this Yahoo! group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Myvariousfiles/

Don't know if it will be helpful or not. It is in PDF format.

Hi, Thank you for the link to the Yahoo group. This chart will work perfectly! Thanks again!

Pat not Pattie,
How do I get on the files without signing up for the Yahoo group? I would really like to see
the chart you are talking about.

Thanks,
Joanne Gohr

Pat not Pattie,

Never mind I figured it out. Joining was not
a big deal.

Joanne

Hi! To be honest I have to agree with your daughter. It is all over the place, but I think it has to be for the amount of resources. That said, how could my children look at that and figure it out? Plus, I always have extra resources that aren't on there.. So I type out a list for my sons. Here is an example:

Week 1

Themes: Constantine, Fall of Roman Empire

Readaloud: Famous Men of the Middle Ages: Alaric, Attila, Genseric, Theodoric, and Clovis

Boys
History
* Are optional, but good resources
The Story of Europe pp. 1-20
Our Island Story Chapters 1-13
Historical Atlas of Knights and Castles: Legacy of Rome as well as map on p. 19
Usborne Medieval History

Literature
Finish the Bronze Bow if you haven’t
Medieval Myths, Legends, and Songs with worksheet

Fine Arts
Art of the Middle Ages p. 4

Church History
Trial and Triumph chapter 6

Timeline/People
Set up your book (mom’s help)
Attatch your sheet of people ( printed from yahoo groups)

Writing-
IEW Village and Barbarians assignment



Just FYI if some of you are confused. We had to finish up the last few weeks of Rome and so I sort of combined week 36 and week 1 if that makes sense. I do this for every week. Here is another example that is sort of my own made up week:
Week 1A: What is a Knight

History:
How to Be a Medieval Knight-Jonathan can read to Megan
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Medieval Knight! Brian read to Megan
Knights
King Arthur
Knights and Castles: Hands-on- Read pp. 1-18
Historical Atlas of Knights and Castles pp. 126-190

Vocabulary
King Arthur Worksheet from week 1 upper grammar

Family Project
Create our own Code of Honor
Build a Medieval Village

Literature
The Sword and the Circle (If they like it, 2 more)
Plot worksheet

Church History
Trial and Triumph 1-6
The Church In History: Ch 1-4

Writing
Fill out 2 graphic organizers for short papers OR 1 for a long one

Choices:
Describe a knight’s armor and weapons (short)
Persuade your parents to let you become a knight (short)
Explain the process to become a knight (short)
Create your own legend (long)

Geography
Let us see if we can find King Arthur locations on a real map.

Movie
Camelot

Documentary
King Arthur


Christine

quote:

Originally posted by CovenantMom:
Amen! Thank you!
My eleven yo daughter just can't take in the Overview and SAP assignment sheets. She keeps saying it's too disorganized (we're doing Year 4 so it's Classic). She just gets overwhelmed with "stuff over here and stuff over there and it's not all together in one place". I don't have MS Publisher but I'm going to use your idea to come up with something in Word.

Again, thanks so much. God bless you.