Time out!

Not one of our best days today!  Either I have been to slack until now or my patience is disappearing but I found today really quite hard work and frustrating!  As long as we are doing something active and non-desk-related S is quite happy.  As soon as we mention writing or something that is not active or not involving a computer then the silly noises begin, the flopping around begins and the battle begins!  Today I'd had enough!  I gave him plenty of chances and then decided to put the first "Time out" into action. 

I think it had an effect!  I got a lot of wee jobs done in 8 minutes and S actually did sit in the one spot for the time and wasn't daft for that time!  I wouldn't say he was a reformed character at the end but I think he realised that I was being serious about his behaviour and was not going to tolerate the messing around.

My big dilemma is that I'm finding it really really difficult to work out whether or not S is finding the work too hard or whether he really is playing me!  When he understands what to do he sails through the tasks but getting over that initial hurdle of knowing whether or not he is grasping the concepts is a big problem.  Today in the end he did work hard and we did a fair amount although I have scaled down quite significantly the maths when for the first time he actually did say, "Mum, this is far too hard!"

Today was maybe the first day that I did find myself thinking that I would be quite happy of a wee break and for someone else to teach him!  One of my problems is getting him going to start with!  The next problem is then maintaining the motivation from subject to subject and being productive.  I am so aware that many homeschoolers would think I am trying to be too structured and should take the foot off the gas and relax but I am finding that is going completely against my nature and am scared that if I do that it will become far too easy to not actually teach S what he needs to learn and for him to fall academically behind his peers.  I think I will check out some other home schoolers for some advice! 

The positives - since home schooling I've had to cut out a lot of extra things that I do.  As a result of that I've done more than half my Christmas shopping which is unheard of at this time of year!  Because of that I'm going to try really hard to get myself sorted so that maybe for the first time ever I won't be running around like a headless chicken in the week running up to Christmas and be able to enjoy the excitement building with the kids.