I have a frustrated child. His favorite subject has now become his most dreaded subject. My little boy that begged me to let him do more pages in his workbook is now begging me to not have to do them. I’ve had to re-evaluate and see what has gone terribly wrong.
Let me give you a little background on how we stumbled upon learning Greek as my Kindergartners favorite subject. It’s simple. He’s the third boy and he’s competitive by nature. When he was given several choices of something new to learn in Kindergarten, he chose another language. He was inspired by seeing an old Bible written in Greek, and he was determined to read it. He didn’t want to learn Latin with his older two brothers, he wanted something he could be the star in. I’m convinced that’s why he chose something they new absolutely nothing about. And, three years of showing off proves my point. You see, I never let the older two learn Greek even after they repeatedly asked me. I thought boy number three deserved to have a little glory.
This year has been a struggle during this subject. There is whining and his excitement is gone. I’ve figured out what went wrong. I switched curriculum without need. He was doing fine with Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek for 3 years and I switched to Elementary Greek. Both of these are fine programs. I even wrote a review for Elementary Greek. But, the format of Hey Andrew! was what kept my son asking for more. He liked it because it was something he could do on his own, and it is broken up into smaller bites then Elementary Greek. Since this isn’t a core subject for us, I don’t want the joy to be taken out of it for him, so we are switching back to Hey Andrew.
I made a mistake. I tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. I hope I’ve learned my lesson. I often want to switch curricula, because I’m bored with them, when the ones we are using work fine.
Anyone else have a frustrated child because of a bad decision? If so, what have you done about it?
Brenda is a classical eclectic homeschooling mother of five. She is the co-founder of Homeschool Lifestyle Media and she blogs at Tie That Binds Us about her homeschooling journey.
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I bet a lot of us make these same kinds of mistakes. I haven’t had as long to make the mistakes, but trust me — I have. I think that my main problem is when I hear other people talking about what the best or coolest new thing is — then I think we need to be doing it too. And, sometimes it just doesn’t work for my family (and I’m out the money). I guess I need to do more of just sticking with what works for us.
Angie´s last blog ..A Guide for 2010
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Thank you for such and honest post. I will definitely file that away for when I get itchy to switch things up or get distracted by the latest thing.
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Yep, BTDT! I constantly have to remind myself that if it’s working, it doesn’t matter how good something else looks, I need to stick with what I have. Great post and love the new look!
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My son is still kinda young, so it’s hard to know if/when this will occur for us. So far, we both seem to like change. I get tired of doing the same thing everyday, so I usually use many sources instead of a few. I mainly use three different curriculums, but I don’t use each one every day. Instead I mix material with stuff I find on blogs, the internet, the library, and stuff I just think up.
I’m impressed that you took on Greek! What a challenge!
Laura Smith´s last blog ..Crafty Foam Thank You’s
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