Week 3, Thursday

Today was kind of a difficult day.  Ciara took an extra long time to do her Discovery homework this morning.  We are really working with her to correct her pencil grip.  We have been working on it for over 2 years now, but she staunchly refuses to grip the pencil properly.  Most of the time I just let it be, as long as she is doing her work, but since we are doing Discovery I know that Verina will insist that she grip the pencil properly.  I think that it improves her muscle control in her hand and will hopefully help her to write more neatly.

When it came time for math, Ciara was unresponsive.  The exercise was changing mixed numbers into improper fractions and vice-versa.  We have been working on this for about a week now, but this morning she just couldn't do it.  We took a break and had a long discussion about her responsibilities when it comes to homeschooling.  I told her that if this arrangement was going work, she needed to put in a little more effort.  She agreed to not get frustrated and give up so easily.

She was kind of luke warm during her Discovery session with Verina in the afternoon.  Verina thought that maybe Ciara was getting distracted by the fact that she may be going back to school (at least part-time) very soon.  It could be.  Not knowing the fate of our homeschooling these past few weeks has really been a distraction for me.

In any case, after the boys came home from school, Ciara went swimming with them for about 30min.  We came back to the math that we hadn't finished this morning.  This time, she was completely willing to do the work and even wanted to do it independently.  Sometimes with Ciara, it's all a question of timing.  We all need structure and schedules in our lives, but learning happens when the child is feeling good about themselves.   

I am learning that my most important job is to help Ciara gain self-confidence.  She needs to know that she can learn and accomplish difficult things.  I used to think that Ciara just had an aversion towards doing work.  Now I think that it's more of a fear of not being able to understand, of not being able to succeed and of being ridiculed.   It was this fear that made it impossible for her to participate in school and the more anxiety she felt, the less she learned and the farther behind she fell.   Homeschooling this year is all about taking the fear out of education.  Of course, this has to start with me working through my fears :)