AIBU to just leave DD to it?

[Funkyslippers]

Struggling with DD (11, yr 6) at the moment. I keep hearing about all this 'home schooling' and people having a learning schedule for the day but DD isn't interested. I suggest things to do each day (struggling to come up with ideas TBH) but all she wants to do with me is either watch TV or teach me a dance on Tik Tok! We occasionally bake or do a bit of craft. She does, however, do her own 'learning' - she has a project book with different subjects in and she's slowly filling it in. She's been writing a story online, and keeping a diary, plus a bit of reading. I'd just like her learning to be a bit more structured but today she told me to leave her alone and let her do her own thing, and she'd like to spend time with me about once a month! If I do that I'm worried she'll be on her tablet the whole time, though not necessarily just playing games. She is a really bright girl and I'm worried she might forget how to 'learn' when the schools go back. I'm also working from home a few hours a day and without some sort of rules I can't keep tabs on what she's doing. Should I just cut her a bit of slack and not be comparing us to what other families are doing?

Sorry, no need to vote (I make that mistake every time!)

I'm a teacher, although at home with older children atm. First of all - don't worry about her forgetting to learn or losing her learning skills. A few weeks or even months off school shouldn't be an issue so remove that stress. It's good she's doing her own project book, reading etc, and I'd be inclined to up the cooking/craft/art or even get her to help in the garden if you have one, or re-designing/arranging/decorating her bedroom? In terms of learning, can you negotiate with her - something like, you do an hour of online learning at a set time/or twice a day every weekday (there are loads of maths & English games online, geography games where you have to learn the continents, names of countries, capital cities against the clock etc) then you get to choose something to do eg. cook/make/board game that I have to join in with. That way you're giving her choices and some control but she's still got a structure and you'll have some good quality time together rather than feel you have to be on her case. I'm having exactly the same stresses with my much older 2 DC and feel it's really important not to make this time any harder for yourselves that it really is. We want our children to look back at lockdown and say it was ok! Hope that helps.

Just re read what I wrote. What I meant is you say to her ‘’Do an hour a day, plus you pick something fun to do with me then I’ll get off your case for the rest of the time.’ Make her think she’s got the power!

Thank you Speed. That makes sense. I will try tomorrow

Your DD sounds to be responsible and self motivated so, yes I’d cut her some slack. Other families children may require more pushing and motivation than your DD, so don’t compare yourself to them.

For things to do, look at what she is self learning in her project book and suggest activities that build on them. If she’s learning about plants and photosynthesis, now is a good time to plant sunflower seeds...so maybe grow something? If she’s learning about a period in history, is there a BBC drama or tv show set in the period? (Or horrible history episode?). chemistry- make bath bombs, computers- build a robot kit,
Or suggest her a science project like design a heat retaining container, help her build it and then help her assess it- pour in boiled water from the kettle and measure the temperature of the water periodically to see how well her design kept the heat in. You could even design one to compete against her design :)

Speed has given good advice so will not repeat.

My ds is year 11 and it's same situation.

Think it's more the mindset they have from these years. Working towards sats and GCSEs and then it's relaxing, party days, sports days, proms etc and learning restarts at college or secondary.

If your worried about tablet time why not set expectations of hours expected to certain activities.
For example we have a whiteboard with daily activities on it. Ds will have a chore a day, a task (baking, project, research something). We have exercise on it and garden time etc. We may chose a tv programme to watch and watch an episode of a series a day.
I put the amount of time to spend on these things against the activity. We also write what we are having for dinner and who does what towards that, we've been setting table and eating at it. I also haven't really worried that ds is spending lots of time on computer. He has gone from school, revision and drama rehearsals after school as well as training 9 hours a week in his sport that counts for 15 hours a week out of the house plus extra for comps. To lockdown and 1 hour (I know this isn't a rule but it's about right timing wise) exercise allowed a day!

Rather than say you expect or want to spend more time together allow it to happen naturally re cooking dinner, project work etc.

A great project we've found is looking through photos on phone and printing our favourites and making an album. You can pick one album of photos a week and this will be a days activity.

Do you know what language she'll be learning next year? My friend was stressing about her y6 DD not wanting to read etc and I suggested doing Duolingo to get her started on her MFL. She loves it and is already saying some phrases. They have turned it into a competition to see who makes the most progress each week.

She sounds amazing! My kids would do literally nothing if I left them alone! At least she has some interests.

Why isn't she doing school set work though? My older 2 (11 yr6 and 13 yr8) take 2-4 hrs a day on school set work!

Anyway I have found (after a lot of stress) that something they wouldn't usually be allowed to do does the trick. My 23 year old is currently painting her bedroom with a geometric pattern!!

11 year old spent some time with dad pulling her bike apart and putting it back together.

Definitely stop comparing your family to others - it won't achieve anything very positive!

I'm a primary teacher, DH is a secondary teacher, DD1 is Y10 and DD2 is Y6. Eldest just gets on with her stuff which is structured because her school set the work for each lesson at the start of its timetabled slot. DD2's school gives the expected learning for the entire week and given half a chance, DD2 would do none of it because there are other things she'd prefer to do. We've asked her to look at what her teacher expects her to do and to plan out a vague timetable for her day. She includes time to do her own thing, to read, to do music practice, to play a game with one of us (after school hours because we're teaching) but we don't for example, specify that maths has to happen in the morning. Some weeks she's looked at the work and decided she'd rather have a whole maths afternoon one day followed by a whole English morning the next day.

We've only expected any structure to her day during term time though - the 'holiday' was very much anything goes. Encouraging her to organise her own day has worked well for DD2 and allows a bit of independence given her usual freedoms (walking to/from from school, being home alone) have been curtailed. She already uses Duolingo to practise one of the languages she'll learn in Y7 and I've set her up on Seneca so she can get some science learning done in a slightly different way.