Can't teach my child

How old is your child? It is tough trying to be a mom and a tutor at the same time. I do both and for awhile there I had to back off and pay other clinicians at a learning center where I worked with other children to work with her becuase she wouldn’t work with me. She is now 12 and she will work with me once more.. You may have to find an educational therapist to do the same for your son. But before we go that route maybe we can troubleshoot for you..

What time of day are you working with him? Have you set the climate with him to help him to buy into the reading tutoring, make some goals and then he earns stickers and these add up to a prized possession or date with mom to the Discovery Museum? Do you have a nice, clean, quiet distraction free enviornment to work in without interruptions? What I do with some of my clients is to give the parents a sticker chart and if their child works with them without arguing they get stickers and when they meet with me I give them a treat or a certificate to get an ice cream or whatever motivates the kid.

I can so relate to what you are saying!

Sometimes I would, crying in my bathroom therapy retreat and get SO mad that
being a *mom* was being stolen from me. And I would grieve for that lost
time.

I finally came to the decision that I wasn’t going to do that anymore.
That home, and me, was going to be a safe harbor, for my child.
Mothering was coming first, as I was the only one who could do it!

I still have to help but here is what I changed
(note - DS is dyslexic, 12 years old and reading at a third grade level - very bright, sweet
and motivated about school)

- I ask him how he wants me to help.
- Also asked how long he wants to work, when to take breaks. The longer this went on the longer
he increased his time and fewer breaks he took.
- If the teachers are not clued into things (like having him take notes with three words only, flipping cards over and back…..) I let them know that we need to do things differently and tell them how it works best for him. His teachers are wonderful but they are not clued into him like I am.
- At times I will dump the homework if I find it totally inappropriate for him, or they have overloaded him with busy work - he is smart - he doesn’t have to do tons of worksheets, he gets the concept the first time in science, math, social studies - busy work time is better spent reading and writing. And he doesn’t *do* the worksheets, he works them for patterns - is amazing to watch!
- We have gone into debt to get him tutoring outside the home.
- This year we bought a PC so we could get a certain kind of computer program - Prolexia with the ‘special’ pen.
- For his reading practice we read poetry during the summer. Funny stuff. And we skip days
entirely, a couple in a row even. I find that he is really motivated to read the stuff on computer
games and will even ask me how to spell words he needs to communicate with online players.
(You haven’t lived until you’ve been asked to spell annihilate whilst on the toilet…)

Big report times are still to be dreaded - though the more I listen to him, the less I try to
impose my will, the easier they are to do.

Kathy
(I do seem to have gone on…. hope it helps!)

The NACD has a great video tape on how to be the parent teacher. It teaches you how to create a positive environment etc.

www.nacd.org

Is his new school aware that he is coming in fairly behind where his new classmates will be in reading? If they are, how did they say they’ll handle this? If they’re not aware, your concern for him is warranted and you might want to consider making them aware. It’s hard to be taught reading a group or a class if you’re not starting off where the class is.

As it’s causing so much trouble and so much screaming and crying, when he asks you to teach him, I’d read outloud to him occasionally pointing out words. I’d tell him the way we were working on reading wasn’t working for us so this is a new way. Most children enjoy being read out loud to and if you pick the right books, he might be able to read the words he knows and learn more while you’re reading to him.

He’ll feel like’s being taught to read which he want he wants but this way the screaming and crying shouldn’t start up again which is what you want.

For those big reports — you may already do this — get out the planners and calendars and work with him on scheduling… with the idea that no, you don’t want to be a nag — so what *will* help with the inevitable troubles wiht time management? (This is one of those situations where sometimes anybody but MOM can be the reminder/encourager — somehow the same words from MOM are nagging.) The idea of setting deadlines along the way — and meeting them — can be really powerful.

I have been doing therapy and partially homeschooling my son for a little over a year now. He cries and screams too. We are just coming out of a few days of very bad behavior when he felt like I “was wasting his time.” I think a lot of it comes down to how negotiable you feel this is. It isn’t negotiable in our house because the school has not been able to teach him at all. If you feel confident that the school will deal with it, you might back off. In our case, we feel there is no choice. So, at times, I have sent him to his room until he was ready to cooperate. He always eventually comes out. I never threaten to not teach him. I fully expect he might take me up on it!!!!

I also think it helps to establish a routine. For example, decide you are going to do reading X days a week for so long. My son sometimes even uses a timer on me!!!

I do think it is tough to teach your own child. They always act worse for you than anyone else. On the other hand, we have grown closer, despite the tears and occasionally tantrums.

I also wouldn’t rule out homeschooling. My son was actually much easier to teach during the school year when everyone else was in school. Our problem this summer, and perhaps yours, is that he feels like he is the only one working. We have more problems on weekends than during the week when some other neighborhood children go to summer school.

I have a 9 year old who hates reading (or who did up until this year). We seemed to have been hitting our heads against the brick wall at times. The advice I was given by Amy’s teacher this year was to take things slowly and only read 5 minutes and have lots of breaks not reading daily either…. Good luck…..
janis

You know all the parenting books that tell you not to bribe your kid. Well I bribe mine and it works just fine. I have stickers for well completed work, I don’t get as picky as his teacher does about caps and periods and that stuff. I have a reading list and after we read 6 books its pizza or McDonalds, wings are his new thing he likes.

We work in very short time frames like 15 mins unless he is really on a roll then we keep doing work books or whatever.

I confess when I first tried giving extra help to my son myself and he gave me a hard time I made is worse by demanding he do the work. No more I just remember I am his mom, his friend, his advocate not his teacher.

I also have a tutor 2 x a week and hope she will continue into the school year. Try and find someone locally to tutor for you.