Had a bad day on fri

[wolvesdidit]

We tend to do maths and literacy in the morning and then whatever DS wants for the rest of the day. On fri DS just refused to do his work and I totally lost it. I threw his work away, ranted about how many sacrifices we'd made so he could be home edded, punched the table and cried whilst DS cried too. I screamed at him to shut up and go away. Rang my Dh to come home from work which he did and I went to bed.

I feel utterly disgusted with myself. I have undone any good work that I did my taking him out of school. I hate myself. I'm just so tired between looking after him and the younger one and worrying about him writing etc (he is dyspraxic so will do anything to avoid writing) and all with the negative comments and lack of support from my in laws (no help from my family either). The kids trashed the house on fri too, including emptying a full wastebin into our bed and I also was very tired and not feeling well. I work p/t in the evenings and weekends to support his home education we have money worries) and I just feel so tired.

He will never go back to school and I understand that as it was not right for him but how can being with someone like me be right for him either? I apologised and he was really sweet about it and told me he still loved me but I feel like an abusive bitch. I feel really ashamed and guilty :( I also feel like we haven't made enough friends in the h.e community round us (my son doesn't like group things and acts up) and I feel isolated and depressed because of this. The weather's been shitty too so the park hasn't even been an option. Sorry - just offloading all this right now.

I dont know the background to why your ds is being home educated but as a fellow home educator I do sympathise we all have days that things dont go as we hope admittedly things do seem rather 'boiled over' in the examples you describe, I think that as much as you home educate a child there will always be days where they quite simply are not in the mood - this is the case even in schooled children.

Obviously your under a lot of strain,clearly you feel HE is something you have to do rather than what you may want to do and thats ok .....I again dont know how old ds is but can you find a topic that he is interested in and so when he 'cant be bothered' he can do that work? online sites have some fab stuff and the dc dont count that as 'work'....I was very busy on friday and so ds only did a little work but he spent a lot of time learning how to draw manga style ....its all learning,the reading,the understanding,the following of technique etc -he enjoyed it and I got time to do some jobs that had to be done.

Dont be so hard on yourself accept days like this will happen and work out some strategies to stop them spiralling .....I understand you got stressed and I see why you phoned dh to come home but if finances are pinched is this a good move?

Have you spoke to your Gp if your ds is having issues?

and/or to make you feel better.

Thanks nickschick I took Ds out of school because they were punishing him because of his reluctance to write (he wasn't even 6 then) and his reading and science abiilty are much much higher than his written work but school couldn't meet his needs there either and he wqas becoming very frustrated. He loves reading and will happily do science work. The main issue is maths - he hates it and I have been making him do (a small amount) each day as I feel he will regret it when he is older if we don't. He won't be able to progress in physics (for example) if he doesn't learn his tables. I also feel the need to 'control' things as I feel that there is so much negativity surrounding his being home educated that I guess I feel the need to have a timetable and work books etc to 'prove' that we are doing something of value.

DS isn't really Sn (I am aware it sounds like it!) apart from being mildly dyspraxic (although he also has epilepsy which is fully controlled). Our GP also disapproves of home education!

It IS awkward if the children won't do groups as my local home ed group was the only place I could go (erm not having discovered how to use the internet till I was over 40) and share the gory details of my meltdowns and commiserate with other parents who had lost it with their children.

Can you ban the relatives from saying anything negative? At a point I told my mum if she couldn't say anything positive about home education, I didn't feel OK talking to her, and we were incommunicado for the greater part of a year.

Also being tired is never good for staying upbeat.

So yep, I'd say gag the relatives, cut back on as many other commitments as you reasonably can, and find places you can safely vent without people being able to blame everything on home ed.

I actually do like home ed and it is absolutely the right thing for DS1 but I feel like I struggle more than other parents do. We don't go out enough (in my opinion) and don't have enough social contacts. Also my kids have no interest in all the nice arts and crafts stuff that other kids do. They are boys and like Donald Duck/wrestling each other/drawing bombs and Nazi planes and generally doing mucky, messy stuff to no great purpose (other than that it is fun!)

Have you read the study where they taught children no formal maths at all until they were 11, and then after one year they did no worse than those who had been taught maths since the start? Formal maths lessons are not the only way, and by forcing the issue you might do more harm than good. I found 'how children learn at home' by Alan Thomas really helpful for thinking about how things can be done differently at home.

hi
just wanted to sympathise - HE can be really tiring, and stressful if you worry about how good a job you're doing and how well your child is doing. i've had bad days too - in fact shouted at one DD on friday for making no effort in writing a letter to a friend, and told her it was 'rubbish'. she burst in to tears, did end up working harder at it and I apologised later and explained that i was tired and lacking in patience etc. I do think it doesn't do much harm for them to see and understand different emotions and moods, afterall they have bad days too and we have to cope with their moods and tiredness, tho HE would be no good for anyone if this happened on a regular basis.

Do you get any time off to relax? It's important to look after your own physical and mental health otherwise you'll burn out. My DDs hate going to groups but i've found on a 1 to 1 basis they are alot happier to socialise and I usually get a bit of time to chat to another adult.

I'm sure you'll have a better week next week and feel happier about things. There's no rush to make your DS write/read etc and it might be worth just 'chilling out' for a bit and reassessing things (I find I reassess our approach to HEd at least once every couple of weeks!)

Aw ((((hugs)))) I'm so sorry you are having a rough time.

If it's any consolation, I live on a main road near two bus stops and there is an awful lot of shouting being done around 8:30 in the morning. Yesterday a mum saw the bus coming and screamed to her dd (who was about 8) to hurry, while pushing the pram and pulling her toddler across the side road. The girl had been lagging behind and had trouble catching up, and then nearly got hit by a car running across the side road. They did make it to the bus in time and then discovered they had forgotten something important so they turned around and hustled back towards home with the mum telling her daughter at some length how useless she was for forgetting whatever-it-was and failing to keep up the pace.

It's hard, parenting under difficult conditions. Losing your temper now and then doesn't undo all the good work you do at other times. Your ds is learning that everybody struggles sometimes. He's seeing that it's possible to make mistakes and then acknowledge them and try to figure out how to change things to make life better.

You can get through this. I know you can.

Thanks for this thread, as we also have days like this, and it's good to know we're not alone. I usually end up threatening school to dc1, and I also feel like a failure sometimes and that she'd be better in school. (I know this isn't true once I've calmed down).

I agree with posters above that everyone has bad days, and it's not just for us home edders. But I think it's intensified if you get bad comments from others and feel like you have to prove yourself. And the weather has been crap, so that you get to that cabin fever stage.
Agree with chocolate about the maths. Maybe find ways of doing maths that don't make it look like you're doing maths for the time being?

(((wolvesdidit)))

This is such a hard transition for you. You have taken the right first step - you've taken him out of a situation where his educational needs wren't being listened to by professionals. Now it's time to learn to listen to them yourself.

In your shoes, I would announce a moratorium on maths until September at the very earliest. In fact, I'd be inclined to start the summer holidays tomorrow.

And then, during the next 8 weeks, YOU are the one with homework to do! read about de-schooling and about how children learn best (try Thomas and Pattison How Children Learn at Home as your first port of call).

The real trick to learn is to respond to what your child needs right now, not what you think they might miss out on in 10 years if they don't do what you want them to do this minute - that's crazy! The more control your Ds can take of his own learning, the quicker he'll be engaging perfectly cheerfully with writing and with maths - but it has to come from him.

He's six, yeah? We started "formal" maths entirely within a treasure hunt craze when one of mine was almost 8. 4 years of school maths painlessly covered in 2 months, without ANY writing by the child (but always at least 12 clues before they reached the chocolate prize!). We have never ever forced writing. I might invite a child to make a shopping list or write a postcard or write down a story, but they often want me to scribe for them, and that's fine. Eventually it comes (when they write treasure hunt clues for siblings and so on). Really, your son will manage to learn so much more when you manage to leave your worries behind!

off at a tangent here, sorry but with ref to "all the nice arts and crafts stuff that other kids do" I have to say I am 100% with your boys on this and really can't see the point.

I mean I can see the developmental point of working on fine sensorimotor control, just not the actual point of cutting and sticking and (my own particular room 101) hama-beading...it has always bored me to tears

I have different problems with wrestling and toughing each other up as I am always paranoid about children hurting each other, but yep, less boring than crafts

#runsandhides

Theres lots that goes on in the day that includes maths without it being visibly obvious,baking-weighing and adding up imgredients,comparing prices at supermarkets working out price per kit kat etc etc is all numbers!! my ds3 who is home edded is teased by his dad because he always compares the prices online and in leaflets of things he likes/wants/hopes to buy .....so for example when we are going shopping he has a good idea of stuff were going to buy in asda and stuff we will buy in tesco - hes used this to argue why he should have 'posh' stabilo felt pens as opposed to tesco regular ones .

He doesnt enjoy writing but will use the pc to write stories and poems etc and his handwritten records of pokemon characters and battles are stored in his book that he takes when he goes to battle his mates.

We have never been to a HE group( we are too busy really) and not all my friends are supportive of home education.....

As they get a bit older and you get more used to being an educator you dont need to sit so intensively with them ....ds does 'mental maths' for 10 mins every morning whilst i make the beds .....he writes his stories whilst I take the dog for a short walk etc etc.
People say to me they dont know how I cope with having ds3 with me all day - truth is I like it and so does he (although secondary school beckons for him in sept if we manage to sneak in after applying late to the school of our choice).

I wonder if he likes physics if you could incorporate the maths stuff into physics stuff rather than it being a separate thing. Like how research and critical thinking are skills used in History but most schools don't have separate lessons for research and critical thinking not until A Level.

Perhaps get him a set of weighing scales? That could help him get the hang of weighing which will also incorporate adding and subtracting and helps as you can visually see the increase/decrease in things. There are these ones from ELC which actually have visual number weights although they wouldn't be much use for weighing other things.

Multiplication is really repeated adding, as for example the sum 5x7 could be written 7+7+7+7+7 - I remember one of my primary school teachers telling us to think "of" when we see a times symbol (five of seven) and even more complicated sums like 2x3x4 can be rearranged too, if you think of it as

4+4+4
+
4+4+4

Two [groups] of three [lots] of four.

Thanks everyone. Your non-judgemental and kind replies have meant a lot to me and been really helpful. Thank you so much. I will try to take on board all your comments. I know I seriously need to rethink my strategies. Cheers x

I think maybe you need to step back a bit. If he likes science then he is going to need to get to grips with maths and being able to manipulate numbers. He needs to understand that science is based on quantifying. He needs to appreciate that if he wants to do that then he needs to understand how numbers work. However, that does not mean than before anything else he needs to learn his tables. Learning tables is tedious and boring at the best of times. You need to have a reason to learn them.

So - do maths from the other side - practical applications where knowing your tables makes it easier and quicker. Eg scaling up things. My boys love to work out how big things are compared to a model - eg a 1:32 scale toy car - how big in real life. To do that you have to multiply.

Another example how many rows of something can you fit in a box - again multiplying. Equally dividing is just the other face of multiplying. You use it a lot in simplifying fractions - so maybe play with those a bit (eg 48/64 - that is the 16 times table (or the 8 times table doubled) _> 3/4 or (3x16)/(4x16)).

The more he uses multiplying and dividing in what he is doing the more he will pick them up.

As an aside we have been thinking about prime numbers, and came to the conclusion that the only useful ones to know are your prime times tables because you can work all the rest out from doubling (eg 4 times table is double the 2 times table). So all you need are the 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 etc tables and you can work out the rest from there.