Dawdling Child Drags out Lessons

[mommybelle]

I started LHFHG with my DD 5.5 years old a few weeks ago. We are going half-speed on most of the boxes with full-speed on Fine Motor Skills and The Reading Lesson. We had started LHTH in the Fall, but I decided to switch to LHFHG to be more in line with her skill level. I do feel that she is placed correctly without question.

She is my oldest child, and she tends to be argumentative, stubborn and quite the perfectionist. So what should take 45 minutes to an hour at half-speed can end up taking 2 hours on some days! Her work is great for a 5 year old, but she'll drag out handwriting lessons and math lessons by wanting to make the numbers she has retraced with colored pencils pretty or by wanting to pick out a sticker for every line on the handwriting page she has done. I decided to pull out stickers to put next to her best letter/number handwritten for the lesson. Of course, she then decides she wants to pick out the best letter/number for each line on the page!

She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES storytime, and I honestly think she'd be happy just doing storytime, but obviously, there is more to school than storytime! She can sit still for the Thornton Burgess books and any fiction book for that matter, but she is all over the place for the history, science and devotional lessons. She just cannot sit still for those! And she is so goofy with her answers too (on purpose)!

And she gets whiny when I tell her we are doing school, but we have to work on her other lessons before we do storytime. She tells me she's "bored" with The Reading Lesson. I have been having her repeat the pages that we had done the previous day because I remember reading to do that in The Reading Lesson book. We are on Lesson 4 now though so perhaps I can just move along at 2-3 pages per day. I do limit phonics time to only 10-15 minutes. And we started The Reading Lesson awhile ago, so we aren't moving too fast for her age (according to the book).

I am struggling with the time involved with her at such a young age because I personally feel she needs to spend less time doing "school" and more time playing outside. However, it seems our time outside is limited due to her natural dawdling tendencies (unrelated to school too). It is usually 10 a.m. before we are ever ready to leave the house for the day (and that is assuming we haven't even touched doing school for the day)!

I just need some advice on how to keep the lessons short but to still encourage creativity on her part. We worked on the science lesson in Unit 1, Day 4 today where she stands on either the brown paper for land animals or blue paper for water animals. She loved it, but she also dragged it out as usual. It was rather cute though as I called out flamingo and she left the room, and she came back dressed up in an all bright pink outfit to play the role as flamingo. But, obviously, it is things like this that cause the lesson to take more than 15 minutes because little sis, of course, decides she wants to play dress up too!

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

[Gwenny]

It seems to me that this is mainly an obedience issue. She sounds like she is in control of what your day will look like. Her dawdling is disobedience.
You decide what a sticker is for, she doesn't get to decide she wants more. If she wants to pretty up her handwriting, it's later, during her play time. I wouldn't let her leave the room while doing the activity. That's wonderful for after but not during your time with her.
Something I learned from someone MANY years ago, was to not let my young ones have many choices. It's easy to let them, thinking its no big deal, but they can't handle it and need us to make most of the decisions for them until they mature.
I have had a few children that have needed me to take away choices for awhile, and some I've never had to do that too. (I tend to not give little ones many choices anyway-I have 10 children)
What I mean by choices could be: what color cup they will have, how they have their sandwich cut, which bowl of ice cream you just served up, what clothes they will wear that day, where they sit in the car, if you say to sit by me here on the couch and pat the left side, does she go to the right side, etc.
Watch throughout the day and see if she is demanding her own way on things you might not notice. It was eye opening for me. I didn't realize what was happening.
When they can handle no choice for awhile, they are ready to start having a few choices. Like, do you want the red or blue cup? (she can't pick the green one). If she can't handle that, go back to no choice.
Anyway, that's just what I "see" as I read your post. It doesn't really have anything to do with school.

[mrsrandolph]

I agree. It is an obedience issue.

I did something with my "whiner" that you might try. I made up an incentive chart (just a sheet of paper numbered to 15) called "Excellent Lessons". Each time she completed a lesson with a cheerful attitude, she got a sticker beside a number on the chart. When she reached 15 stickers, she earned an extra 30 minutes of Mommy or Daddy time after all the other kids were in bed. You might start with 10 stickers and work up to her needing to earn 15.

The reward could be anything you choose.

The Excellent Lesson could be earned for avoiding whatever bad habit hinders your child's schooling.

[lissiejo]

I feel your pain! My oldest was this way when we did "preschool" with her. We enrolled her in a private kindergarten and it was wonderful! When she came home for 1st grade this year there was a HUGE difference. I say all this to encourage you that part of it may be maturity. Not at all to undermine the fact that it does sound like an obedience issue, because that MUST be addressed. My daughter really fought me about doing any of the activities we did for her k-4 year and it was so frustrating. I decided at that point that homeschooling would be miserable for all of us!

I do think an incentive to look forward to would be beneficial, but if she's as stubborn as my daughter not too much will budge her When she started one of her rants or refusing to do something I would calmly tell her I was leaving the room and when she could sit and cooperate nicely we would start again. It took a few days of this and she was so stubborn one day she say for 30 minutes screaming. BUT after those few days, she did a very good job of obeying and finally enjoying the lessons as they should be. It may not be the course others would take, but because it was an attitude and obedience thing for us that was also showing up elsewhere I think it was the right thing.

[mommybelle]

Thank you ALL so much! This has been very helpful. I did watch her the next day and though I've realized all along that she is controlling with many aspects of our life, I never really put two and two together that she is also controlling with school. I set my foot down and told her that she was not to leave the room during her initial lessons but at the end of the day during her play time, we could share what we've learned with her Daddy and sister if the time permits, and that it is at this time that she can leave the room and dress up like a flamingo. I also have tried timing the lessons on handwriting and math, and I told her she can pretty up her lessons later after we have finished school. After all these years of mothering, I never even thought that maybe I've given her too many choices, but I think that has probably been a big problem with her, and as a result, actually makes decision-making difficult for her.

I also like the idea of an incentive chart, so I may try that if she starts getting whiny again. These past few days have been lovely since I've told her how it is going to work and have used the timer to move onto something new.

We definitely need to work on her cheerful attitude, but again, I think this is a discipline issue.

Thanks again for your wonderful ideas and support! This board is truly wonderful!

[Gwenny]

I'm so glad! I was hoping I didn't sound too harsh, but I've been there and it helped me so much when it was pointed out! Those first borns.....
Yay!

[lissiejo]

I'm so glad things are going better! I find so much that when we start having more problems it's because I've been slack about enforcing consequences in the little things or not even telling them my expectations to begin with. We were going through a phase like that last week and picking up their toys. I'd tell them to do it, not reinforce a consequence, and then get upset that it wasn't done. I think school is hard to balance it all with too because we want school to be fun and not a battle or a time to have to be so firm with them, but I think in these young years setting the standards high will make it more simple as they get older.

I prayed for you this week I felt like I was reading something I wrote when I read your post initially.

[mommybelle]

Gwenny - I didn't think you were being too harsh at all! I love getting advice from other moms who have been there! And I especially love the honesty and helpful advice on this forum. I'd pick your brain on many parenting issues if time allowed. But I'll save that for another day. And, yes, those oldest children are definitely works of art (or at least works of art in progress)!

Lissiejo - Your comment actually brought tears to my eyes! It meant so much that you prayed for me (and you don't even know me)! Thank you so very much!!!

[hollyh]

Thank you for this post. You described my dd to a T. Guess I have been giving too many choices as well... Ouch.