Younger Son Changes Homeschool Strategy

I have been blogging about some challenges with bad attitude and my kids with homeschooling. We have been in a much better place for over a week so I thought I would share the turn of events.

We hit a really low spot with cooperation with our older son complicated by teenage rebellion. My younger son was horrified with the behavior and attitude of his older brother. In watching the extreme behavior and hearing the ridiculous statements, my younger son was so disgusted that he approached my husband and I to discuss his feelings. He said he didn't want to be like that. He didn't want to also give me a hard time about homeschooling. I responded that if both of them would only do their assigned work then they would have the rest of the day for fun and freedom. It was as if my son heard this for the first time when in reality it has always been the case.

The next day my younger son verified with me that if he did all his work that he would be able to play and do whatever he wanted (within the family rules) and I affirmed that. I suggested he not go on his new laptop before breakfast and instead that he eat and shower and get dressed then do his homeschooling. Without questioning, he did it. He whipped through his homeschool work using the list and was excited to check things off. He restrained himself from his new routine of going on his laptop to play Internet based games (i.e. Maple Story, an addicting RPG game). You see, he had been sneaking the online games in between the use of the laptop for academic work.

My younger son finished his work shortly after lunch having really put his nose to the grindstone and doing no dawdling during or in between lessons. He was so proud and happy and he declared that was so easy! He then had the afternoon to do what he wanted and got to feel a light feeling of freedom plus a sense of accomplishment.

The next day this continued and that day my older son came to the conclusion that he would like to do that also. He liked what he saw and he wanted a taste of that. The only problem is he is now behind in some math work for his online class and he is struggling to understand some of it. He had deadlines for the class so now he is not just trying to keep current but is trying to make up for lost time. The more time we dedicate to the math class the less time we have for this regular studies. It feels as if he will never catch up.

Additionally my older son is struggling due to his learning disabilities to the point where I realized that yet more expert help, counsel and testing is in order. If some kind of help does not yield improvements then he will be unable to do a college prep high school workload and the entire course of his future career will be altered. I am not ready to give up on him yet. Something is wrong and we should try to fix it. I apparently have not yet found the right treatment to fix all of his challenges. (There has been progress on the visual processing speed and the reading speed with the behavioral optometrist back in Connecticut, but there are other issues that became apparent to me this fall.)

My younger son has continued with this great attitude now for over a week and there is no sign that he is going to stop. The other day he said to me that he really likes the feeling of working with "motivation". I asked him what he meant as the statement was a bit nebulous. He said he is enjoying "just doing his work and getting things done without me nagging at him, hearing no yelling, and not having (mom) mad". He said homeschooling this way is so easy and he wants this to continue since it is so good and easy.

Wow.

What I enjoy is seeing the positive influence that my younger son is having on his older brother. After watching my younger son working easily and then having fun after my older son says he wants that too. However, so far, he is still taking a lot of time to do his studies and no free time is left before it is time to go to sports practice.