{Homeschool} Somedays i feel a failure...

[inanna]

... and today is one of those days.

{Please note i am feeling quite unwell today and i am sure that has a strong impact on my frustration with them and myself. They really are sweet and smart kids, i am just at my wits end at the moment and wishing they were more self-directed.}i see my boys give excuse after excuse for why they haven't

Comments

[chiropteraclan]

Both as a parent and a teacher, I understand so very well the frustrations you are expressing. If only learning were a linear, predictable process. Don't give up. Parents make ALL the difference. This I promise. I see it in students--definitely by the time they reach 16 or 17 years of age. The day-to-day will make you pull out your hair and want to drink though. *nodding*
*hugs you*

I hope that tomorrow is better for all of you.

[inanna]

Thank you. The good part about days like this is getting a clearer picture of where i need to change my approach to different subjects and where my weaknesses/gaps in presentation are.

Hopefully my allergy symptoms will be less tomorrow so i won't have to be on so many allergy drugs (which leave me feeling almost as ill only in different ways than the allergies themselves) and we can have more successes.

*hugs*

[hottoastermama]

I am glad that despite being down and hard on yourself, you can focus in to analyze and critique the areas that need change. Encourage yourself and the boys when and where ever it is appropriate, esp. large milestones, or look back to see how far each has come, and I hope with a little time to re-group, breathe, and get over allergy issues, you will find a better approach to the problem at hand

[neversremedy]

*hugs*

I've been feeling like that too the last few days of schoolwork (interrupted by colds). Yesterday she finally got me to watch Tangled, and I asked her last night if I wasn't just being selfish. "What hubris did I have to think I could teach you anything?" I said. "Maybe you would learn more and better in a more challenging environment like public school, maybe keeping you at home with what I consider a 'better' education isn't what is truly best for you."

She took it as a threat rather than understanding that my frustration was with myself and my seeming inability to get her to focus on her work and accomplish something. It's not like she doesn't occasionally show that she's learning and beginning to think, but those moments are so few and far between . . . It's easy to despair. I wish we could find the parents of those homeschooled children who are now successful adults and ask, "Did you want to pull out your hair? Did your child(ren) resist your every effort to teach?"