surviving pace

Are you doing PACE on top of school? Most of the people I know who have done it during the school year have arranged for time off during the school day and/or no homework. For example, my neighbor arranged to bring her 8yo to school late every morning while he was in PACE. On the mornings he didn’t have a PACE tutoring session, she worked on PACE homework with him.

Also, 7yo is at the minimum age level for PACE, so I would expect it is harder to put in the required time.

How are you splitting up the homework? When I did it with our 9yo, we often did only 20 minutes or 30 minutes at a time. Also, I would make deals with my dd — if she would do 5 minutes of a hard exercise, she could do 10 minutes of one that she liked (golf was a favorite).

Mary

My son has had very little homework in 1st grade - maximum of about 15-20 min. so that hasn’t been too big a conflict. Also, of the five days we do pace Friday evening is with the trainer, then we do it on the weekends - which has been very easy to fit in and then only Mon/Tues conflict with school. Fortunately, with minimmal homework it has not been a problem. I just find it hard to for him to last “an hour” and on Mon/Tues. it is really hard after a full day at school.

We are on week four - but I was just wondering if this gets harder to do or stays in the same range thru the program.

It really depends on the child. I wouldn’t even make a guess.

Are you breaking up the hour into smaller segments? That helped us a lot.

Mary

We survived PACE this past Fall. We started PACE at the end of the summer and finished 7 weeks into school. It is very HARD to do it at the same time as school. I got my son’s teacher to give him a reduced homework load during PACE. It helped some. It was still hard.

My son’s provider and I had a very encouraging, positive, and friendly approach during his sessions. But, we also had a VERY STRICT standard for behavior during the sessions. We nipped the “power struggles” in the bud immediately. I generally started with an activity that allowed my son to move or that was easy for him, then once it was time for the intense seat work I required him to be very still with his body. This was NOT easy for him to do! In fact, there were sessions where just concentrating to keep still was a real challenge for him. My son had a “ready position” as we called it. He was sitting up straight, hands on the table spread apart, with absolutely no wiggling. It was like playing frozen statues and the only thing he could move was his head and eyes. We were exercising his brain, not his body.

There was also no arguing or negotiating allowed during a session. I chose which activity was next and how long and how fast. I was IN-CHARGE, in a nice way. I tried to remember to smile and I used a soft-spoken voice much of the time. I would explain to my son in positive terms that good behavior during PACE helped our session to go faster. I also reminded him that PACE would help school to become easier for him.

My son and I joke around a lot, but during a PACE session I did not act silly or make funny comments that might encourage him to act up too.

Now, don’t get the impression that my son loved PACE or that we never had a power struggle or argument during a session. I would agree with him that PACE could be frustrating and difficult, but at the same time I would remind him of the accomplishments he had made with it, like learning the presidents. Not another kid in the 4th grade could recite the presidents forwards and backwards, I would remind him. And if he could learn 43 presidents in order, he could learn to memorize 4 letters on a flashcard.

I think it also helped to have small incentives, like a special snack or a friend over to play after a session.

I am SO GLAD that I pushed him to behave with such strict physical requirements and concentration. I think he learned as much from that experience as he did from PACE. He had learned what it “feels” like to intensely focus on something, even if it is something you don’t want to do. He gained some self-control.

My son who was on ADD medication for the 3 years before PACE has been off. And over Christmas my husband and I commented how amazing it is that “attention” has not been an issue at school this year except at the beginning. My son also FINISHES almost all of his work at school. This is a huge change for us. He was always bringing tons of extra work on top of homework before.

We saw real changes after about 1 month, then again around 8 weeks, and now again a couple of months after PACE.

The biggest change we saw in the beginning was that our son started acting more mature and responsible. He would remember to do his chores without being asked, sometimes. He didn’t seem AS irritated about doing homework.

I often use the techniques in PACE to help him with his homework now. We use the metronome during spelling practice quizzes. He has taken SET up to school to play with his friends and Visual Golf worksheets too.

There is not doubt many things that PACE did not “cure” or “fix” with my son’s learning differences. He still struggles with memory and word retreival, organizing thoughts, dsygraphia, and reading comprehension. But, many of his skills have improved. I am planning to do a refresher of PACE with him next summer to help him in the areas where he did not gain ground.

Good luck. I can appreciate what a challenge it is. PACE was not a miracle cure. The testimonials from the website can get you expecting dramatic results. I am very glad we did PACE. I think it has been one of the most valuable program we have done with our son. However, the changes in the “real world” were not noticable dramatic for us, certainly not while I was doing PACE. Yet, I look back now 2 months later and realize the fact that my son is OFF meds., finishing work at school, acting mature, not as irritated at work or forgetful… those results seem pretty impressive to me. I can’t give PACE all the credit. But, like I said it was definately worthwhile. He’s still the same kid who struggles with school work and reading. But, we definately gained ground.

Keep positive. I was exactly like you. I was wondering WHEN was I going to see results. It is hard work on the parents too. I hope your child experiences some great gains. Pat yourself on the back for taking up the challenge to do PACE.

Rosie

Thanks for your inspiring story! I will let you know how it turns out!

I got trained in PACE myself, so we go thru the power struggles every day. I think it gets harder, because I’m as tired of doing ‘program’ as she is. However, we have made it very clear that PACE/MTC is mandatory and she WILL NOT win the argument - she is only delaying getting it over with. (Her latest stall tactic is having to go to the bathroom right when we start - she ends up sitting on toilet for 10 min. before I have to start on her to finish up her ‘job’ and come back to program).

We have found setting up the bonus points is very motivating(she get 10points for every level she passes). We then have different prize clip levels and set what the prizes were ahead of time. She is very motivated to count how many levels she has passed at the beginning and figure out how many more she needs for the next prize. This has motivated her to pass several levels.

We also let her pick activities that she LIKES to do - visual spatial golf and SET are her 2 favorites.

We’re almost done with PACE and thus she only has MTC activities left. She doesn’t like any of these, so I’m having to come up with some new motivation ideas.