I stumbled on a trick of late. The easiest way for me to teach Douglas something (either building on his existing interests or exposing him to something new that may catch his imagination) is to place it in the bookmarks bar of Chrome and show him where it is and what it does. I leave him with it and he figures out how to work with it. Now, I don’t want to make myself obsolete - I do feel that I help by giving him tips (and helping him use them until he does so himself - a bit of vygotsky scaffolding) e.g. listen to/read the activity instructions, check the picture in the puzzle, finish what you start is a tough one for a 2.5 year old, etc. that make his involvement more productive. Similarly, this works with toys, which I have started trying to arrange workbox style for him. It works with reading, I see him sounding out more and more things in his natural environment (I see why labelling is a good idea though I never got round to it). I am planning to try this with learning to play the piano too (hoping to try with Soft Mozart and My First Piano Adventures).
So what’s my problem? Well we’ve been talking a lot about Robinson style self teaching, and on the one hand I was pleased to stumble across a way of doing this at home with my toddler. I see that it is the Montessorian way (set up the environment with self correcting learning tools, adults should basically stay out of the child’s way) and Charlotte Mason way (do not get in between the author’s words and the child) and a bit of unschooling (children will feed deeply on their passion, just give them the best tools/materials and stand back) BUT …
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It annoys me a bit that Douglas wants to learn his way because when I want him to follow a certain path so I can measure his progress, he wants to jump around the material and seems to be trying to gain mastery over it. But because a lot of our learning is done on computer, this means some activities are based on his mouse handling skill, and I do not want want to wait around for him to perfect this before getting on with learning the content.
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It feels like my involvement frustrates him and makes him walk away from the task to go play puzzles by himself or something. I have to admit that he probably starts to pick up on my own frustration and, in truth I was forgeting to be playful (I’ve had a few sleep-challenged nights and was too tired to be playful, which so doesn’t work for my son right now :wub: )
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Part of the point of “teaching” is to feel good that I “taught” him things. Now I find myself in a position where I assess educational materials on how easy it is for him to self teach with it, because if it involves me doing too much, I will get in his way. I have to think of ways to give him opportunities to practice things (e.g. using a pencil/colours, and then spark his interest in using that skill in a certain way (e.g. completing kumon workbooks or pre-writing exercises.) I feel more like a supporter, an encourager and provider of learning materials, than a teacher and that makes me feel a bit left out. And a bit like, I won’t be able to take much credit for what he achieves - because it will have been HIS own hard work - and selfish or not that kindda sucks!
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I feel less in control. I cannot just move him along a set path indefinitely. He controls the pace and area of learning as much, if not more than I do. Annoying for progress reporting and feel good factor of knowing what exactly he knows (probably an unrealistic expectation I know).
Does anyone else find this to be the case with children around this age (2.5 years)? It is making me think about what age I can realistically expect to formally start homeschool, if this is a developmental thing. I was hoping we’d be ready for Saxon at around 4years, as I reckon I need him to be mature enough to do as he’s told. Everyone knows you can’t make a toddler do anything he really doesn’t want to! He’s learning bag loads on his own, so I don’t mind too much (inspite of reasons above) but would like to know when I might expect him to get a bit more flexible. Even when he does what he’s told with work he seems to look at me like ‘what is wrong with this woman? let me just make her happy this time, but if she wants to make a habit out of harassing me that’s a different matter!’
I’m telling you I see it in his eyes!!
The discussion of the Robinson Curriculum really scared me because of your reason 3. So true of me! I want to teach! I enjoy teaching. It’s fun to help someone learn and be there when they “get it” and the light goes on and know that I made a difference. Letting her teach herself will be better for her… but I will miss the joy of teaching.
I told myself that it would be OK because it was a long way off. My daughter refuses absolutely to do any of the Montessori activities I’ve prepared for her. We don’t do computer learning except LMs. She can’t read yet. I didn’t think there was any way to apply self-learning yet. Your post made me think again. Is there a way to encourage self-learning without the computer? She does learning activities with me because that’s all we do together. When I’m doing other things, she only chooses imaginative play. But she’ll take reading or math with me over imaginative play alone sometimes. She never chooses the entire wall of shelves of Montessori activities I created for her! (Oops, bitter mommy showing.)
Now, I don’t have the same situation, so I can’t really answer your question. My daughter only does learning activities with me; she has almost no interest in doing them on her own. Although she has started to sound out words… but that would stop if there were no formal phonics lessons in our days. And she points out numbers and math around her… as long as I do it all the time when we’re playing together. So I’m still heavily involved.
I guess my question on homeschooling is when I want to tell her, “You must do this now.” For educational things, I mean; going to bed, etc, are not negotiable already. But it feels wrong to require her to do any school stuff yet. I can’t articulate why. So starting Saxon math, for instance, will have to wait until she asks to do it or until we’re at a stage where I feel capable of saying, “I know you don’t want to do math, but I’m your mother and I know that it’s important and we will find a way to get you to do it.” I don’t know when that will be. 5, maybe?
That magic age you are looking for is 4! Well it was for all three of my kids and seems to be somewhere around 4 in all the kids in my class too! ( I teach 3.5 to 5 year olds)
At around age 4 there is a remarkable improvement in stamina, concentrations span, curiosity, maturity and an ability to take directions without whining endlessly. Now I have some kids that are 3 years and 8 months who have it and a couple of boys who are 4 and a half who still don’t have it. So it’s a little bit movable apparently. The more parent intensive the expectations for independence the more likely the kids get to this point earlier. The kids I know who’s parents let them do things for themselves get to this stage quicker than the ones who still have a dummy and blanky and don’t unpack their own bags.
Allowing your child independence at age 2-3 will help you at age 4-5-6 and above! Self help skills are really valuable!
In all the reading I have done on the Robinson family, the Swanns, the ( OK ALL of them) not one family has had self taught children before grade 1-2 or equivalent. The children are heavily taught by parental involvement until arounds grade 2 where they are weaned of BECAUSE THEY CAN READ and do the work independantly. The younger the child the more parental support they get. Read between the lines ladies you don’t have to hang up your teaching hats just yet. Oh and by the time you have 3 kids in grade 2 you will be HAPPY to hang up that teaching hat! Right now its a careful balance of heavy parental instruction and encouraging independence for later. :yes:
I don’t care much with a toddler but once my kids get to preschool or early elementary age then they are not in charge of their education. It was 5 with my oldest but it would have been a year earlier in retrospect. Now at 4 my ds has some things I do with him on a regular basis with reading and math. The Montessori type of thing did not fit my oldest. It was a failure. She needs direction.She feels flustered about choices. I’m not into the unschooling thing for my family. When my first was little that is what I thought I wanted to do but now if I tried that it would have been a dismal failure. I don’t mind giving my kids direction, structure and routine. I like picking what I want them to work on it and teaching them things even if at first they don’t seem to really be asking for it or choosing it. I let them pick books on topics they like but they don’t get to choose everything. They wouldn’t be learning much if I left it up to them.
I do have things I do with my own 2.5 year old every day but if she doesn’t feel like doing something I don’t push it. With my 4 and 6 year old they do have to do things every day. I do encourage independence in my kids in some ways though. I let them make food, dress themselves and help around the house. Once they can do things for themselves I encourage them to do it. I am not homeschooling at them moment just afterschooling but if I was I wouldn’t be unschooling. Once they could do things on their own I would let them but they wouldn’t get to pick everything.
Mandab 4 sounds like the right age for Douglas, especially for sit down stuff. I hope to get more serious with the workbox system, and by 3yrs have him go through box 1 to 6 in order, but try to tailor what’s in them to his interest. I feel like I have to build lowly into a more rigid schedule, building up to the grand opening of formal homeschool (talking about different parts and getting him excited, hopefully getting friends and family to help with this).
Wolfwind how I would love to have a proper Montessori activity shelf at home! How vexed I would be if Dougie completely ignored it! I feel your pain there. I don’t know how to precisely recommend beginning self teaching - I’m experimenting myself - but I know ALL toddlers get to an “I do it myself” phase, introduce as much as you can together and then maximize on this desire when your toddler gets there. I use the computer/videos to introduce concepts or ways of doing things, and then bring it into the real world with both of us having a better idea how to do things and use manipulatives. I am aware of making this transition because they do easily become over reliant on screens. The other thing is to fully cater to your child’s need to be close to you, which you’re obviously already doing, to the best of your ability. Equally let them be independent when they want to be. I am sure I am thought by some to be quite bad with Dougie’s safety because I let him roam quite freely (even when he was a crawler), even in the pool I try not to hover too near him (unless he wants to play with me), because the way I see it, I can either communicate the message that the world is a relatively safe place (following a few guiding rules) full of adventure and things to explore, so trust yourself and go for it! Or I can communicate, the world is dangerous and don’t trust yourself to navigate it, learn, bear consequences (or rewards of discovery) - you need me by your side. My belief is that independence is an attitude that stems from the child taking responsibility for themselves including their safety, because caring for yourself means caring for your body, your family, your mind, your spirit etc.
Teacchingmykids, loving the ways you incorporate being independent into practical life! I’m working on building more of that into our schedule at home :yes: