Sigh... The last month or so has been nonstop church/social/family activities. Dh went back to work today and I have been gradually tackling a mountain of presents, wrappings, decorations. I hope to be finished by Monday. Last week was so nice as we spent a relaxing week with my in-laws with everyone together including the 7 grandchildren. We had a few discipline issues at first that dh took care of, but after that it was great. My family came and celebrated Christmas and dh was still off and it was delightful as well..no discipline problems. Today and I anticipate the rest of the week should go well as I am alternating group chores (taking down ornaments, putting all boxes in recycling, organizing their rooms, etc.) with playing on the computer, watching videos they recieved or playing with their myriad of toys. Dh will be busy all weekend. But then will come Monday... back to the grind that I don't want to do. I want to enjoy being their mom again and not be slavedriver mom. Are you sure I can't send them to school???
Sigh.
Christine

Oh, Christine, I'm with you! Not only have I not accomplished all the things around the house that I wanted to do, I've also just barely begun to get my energy back after resting up from the busy fall. If I weren't part of a co-op I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't be doing school this next week. But school is only part of it - there's also ballet, and tae kwon do, and the youth group that meets at our home, and outside classes, and Cub Scout meetings (I'm den leader). So I'm really not ready to go back to everything.

I am thinking hard about how to structure the next few months, though. If it works as well as it did the first week I tried it, life should be improved. This is what I did: Friday night the week before, I had the kids schedule all their work, choosing what day to do what assignments. They also set a deadline for each day (11:30, or 4:00, or whatever), and chose a reward for each day. So, for example, if my oldest finished with her work by 2:30 on Tuesday, then I would take her to the yarn shop. Or if my middle child finished by 12:00 on Wednesday, then she could bake cookies. The deadlines were modifiable, but only the day before, not on the actual day. I had to approve rewards. The kids made appointments with me for my time: say, my oldest scheduled a government discussion for Wednesday morning.

This worked GREAT. It transformed me (mostly) from being a slavedriver, into being a dispenser of rewards. I did spend a bit more time driving them around, but it was all good, and I'll take that any day over yelling, "Hey, you, haven't you been in the bathroom too long? What are you reading in there?" And there were glitches; for example, the daughter who scheduled the government discussion for Wednesday morning also scheduled her government *reading* for Wednesday afternoon. But we'll get the kinks worked out, I hope. I loved this, but it's premature, I guess, for me to say that this is what we do, since we've only tried it for one week. But we'll see!

Writing about this definitely has helped my attitude toward next Monday, though.

My son would agree with you. He is almost 10. His quote from Wednesday, when we started school, "Once again, school casts its gloomy shadow over my otherwise gay and happy life."

Brahahahaha! He would rather read or play with legos and knex than do math.

Elizabeth, You have a writer in the making! What a way with words!

Beth, I think your ideas for putting accountability and planning ahead into your week sound really great. I know that the weeks we are planned out the Friday before, the next Monday goes much more smoothly. I'm going to have to try the rewards system, though. It sounds fun!

Linda

Yes, that week was one of our best weeks ever, even though it was not the most exciting topics ever and also the week before vacation, so that's saying something.

I think that one of the neatest things about it is letting the kids set their own deadlines. They can choose to set a late deadline, allowing them to goof off during the day some - but then they won't have much time for their own activities. Or they can try to set the deadline very early and work very hard to get their work done - but then they risk not being able to finish on time and not getting their reward. This last week, they tried to set their deadlines pretty early, and they worked harder than they've ever worked before.

We'll see how it goes in the next few weeks.

Thanks for your posts! I plan to start working on having my DD take ownership more over her work and you had some good ideas.

We struggle with a random lack of motivation, which is totally frustrating for me. We can be clipping along great and then slam into a wall where she stares at the page, twirls her pencil, sings or pesters with her brothers until refocusing seems a monumental task. There isn't a clear task she hates, anything with writing would be the closest, and nothing is really related to a difficulty issue. I have tried various tactics of timers and moving on where she has to come back to work on her own, rewards, punishments... I haven't found a good fit or combination that has worked well for us yet. I see the lack consistency in this and that maybe part of the problem. I did a poor job of having her week laid out in a schedule (it was all in her notebook, but not specified on paper) so I am going to try to have her take ownership to mark off those assignments and chores. I am not sure how much freedom or ownership to give verse how much structure. She is a precocious 1st grader but I sometime wonder about her grasp on time (although she can tell time just fine).

Any thoughts..?

Thank you thank you! I was so afraid I was the only one on the planet whose child responds to school with things like, "No! NOT SCHOOL!!!"

The complaining would be worse if they had to GO to school, wouldn't it? (I really need someone to say yes to that, by the way.)

Joy,

My main thought is that 6 is very young. It is very easy for those of us with precocious kids to expect more of them than we ought to at an early age. Have you tried setting limits for lessons - making sure, say, that after a certain amount of seatwork, she goes and swings or something for a few minutes? Rewards and punishments don't work well if the problem isn't with the will.

I wish I could help more. Diagnosing this kind of thing can be tricky. Maybe someone else will have more wisdom to offer.

Hi, we all get soooo tired, too. I thought that I would add a little food for thought. We can schedule school any way we want. My family starts in mid-August and we go until the end of the first week in Dec. Then we are off until Jan.7th (tomorrow). We now go until the end of May with some time off for Easter. This is the only way that I can do the Christmas holiday without sending my girls to some type of therapy later in their lives. In the break we are busy, but school has been off long enough so I can ramp up again with excitement. Remember this is a long distance race, not a sprint. The fruit will be plentiful in the years to come!