Letting Boys Be Boys

I think as homeschoolers, we often feel like the eyes of everyone--homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers alike--are upon us.



It's sort of like those comparisons everyone makes about one another's babies. Is he sleeping through the night yet? Crawling? Standing, cruising, walking? How many teeth does she have? Cloth or disposable? Breast or bottle? Organic or non?


With homeschooling, it's questions about math, science, reading, or handwriting skills, and--ugh--socialization. It's enough to make us crazy and bring the insecurities creeping out, one by one.


I've noticed a theme running through a few blogs and forums lately, and that is one of little boys who can't sit still and concentrate. Moms are worrying if this will change, and I want to tell you...I was worried about the very same thing, and in my case, it changed.


The Son, when he was five, six, and seven, could not sit still for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Sit, stand, wiggle, hop, sit, stand, bounce, sway, sit. He picked up reading quickly, but he preferred to sing what he was reading, complete with operatic flourishes. Any discussion followed a rambling route with the topic changing faster that I could say What was I thinking, trying to homeschool him? Although he loved to draw and dictate stories, he abhorred actually writing himself.







So, we adapted. Sitting was no longer a requirement. The Little House made a terrific song. I practiced my patient listening skills while he made connections between things like the color red, his shirt, the cardinals, and squirrels. I stopped caring that his letters had no consistent form, that he refused to use lower-case, or that his letters were so large and bulky. As a matter of fact, I stopped requiring him to write anything at all.





The day I told him he didn't have to write anymore, his eyes grew wide. I explained he could dictate, and I would write the answers down in his workbooks, or write what he wanted in his journal. He made up marvelous stories about sheep lost in the city, and underwater explorers trapped in caves but rescued by sea creatures.


A few weeks later, he picked up his blank book and began writing a story about Star Wars. Sometimes he dictated, sometimes he wrote things himself.


The year he turned eight, he picked up the pencil and told me he could write things down himself, and to my complete surprise, his letters were legible, he used lower-case, and the sizing was consistent.


In the meantime, my friend's daughter was ten years old and unable to read. I admit, I fretted over this. Then one day, Her Daughter asked how to sound out words, and her mother showed her the correlation between letters and sounds. A week and a half later, Her Daughter was happily engrossed in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.


This is when it hit home for me that it doesn't matter who does what when, or how they do it. What matters is the journey: learning, living, and loving. Who knows why The Son had such difficulty sitting still, or writing legibly. Maybe it was all a matter of cognitive development, maybe it was simply a matter of maturity. For whatever reason, he just wasn't ready, and forcing him to do things my way, on my time table, wasn't effective.



My challenge to you this year is to stop worrying about what other homeschoolers (or public schoolers) are or are not doing. Slow down and enjoy this process. Follow your instincts, and remind yourself that what children learn under duress is often not retained. Don't knock the love of learning out of your child by being too rigid. Everything doesn't have to be learned today, this month, or even this year. Enjoy the time that your children are with you, for the years go by quickly, and soon you will be wondering what happened to that sweet little boy who was so full of spunk and energy, who had ants in his pants and loved to spin a tale and and talk your ear off.