imperfect-hs

Edited to add:  I have to share the irony of my blogging blunder. My post was live and being shared via social media, and I suddenly realized I never added an image. This is one of the cardinal rules of blogging:  always have an image or graphic. And I forgot. Imperfect Homeschool and Imperfect Blogging. (But now there’s a nice pinnable graphic for you.)

Blogging is a tricky thing. I want to be uplifting. I don’t want to be a whiner or complainer. And ranting or arguing online is just not my style. That means that the content on this blog stays pretty upbeat and focused on mostly uncontroversial topics.

That might lead you to believe that my life is all roses and picture perfect homeschool projects. That would be wrong.

I choose not to write about the disappointments and failures because I don’t think they will help to build you up. However, sometimes this rosy picture a homeschool blogger paints may work the opposite result. Some readers don’t know that there is a fumbling man (or woman, in this case) behind the curtain, pulling switches and pushing levers to make the magic happen.

So it’s confession time. Here’s the real deal, not all of it because, goodness, I want you to keep reading and the whole bag of reality might be way too disillusioning.

1. My daughter does not like to read.

I wrote an entire post about my daughter’s distaste for reading and how I’ve come to terms with it.  It’s okay not to love reading. Really.

2. Sometimes my daughter doesn’t use the printables I create.

As a toddler Emma preferred plain paper to coloring books. She has simply never been a color in the lines kind of kid. She’s more of a give me a pack of 24 oil pastels and stand back while I make some lines kind of kid.

So a lot of the time, she looks at my printable pages as one of many potential ways to express her thoughts. She might take an idea from my layout, but often she rejects my plan and comes up with her own. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m quite proud of her for making the work her own.

I used to worry that she wouldn’t be able to fit in, to adapt to outside direction, to color inside the lines, so to speak. But really? Those things are far easier than coming up with original ideas. She can conform when necessary. Creativity is much harder to generate than conformity. So I let her be creative.

I really like making the printables, so I share them with you even when Emma rejects them.

3. Sometimes we fall off the bandwagon and get really lax.

I hinted at this in my WAHM (work at home mom) post. When Emma had her big surgery, it took us a long, long time to get back into the school groove. Then we moved, and that was yet another distraction. It was really easy to let school slide into a bare minimum that let me honestly say that we did school while not really investing a lot of brain power.

Sometimes I toy with the idea of becoming unschoolers, and to be honest, there were a few weeks when we really were. Sometimes I throw out Charlotte Mason’s principles and do it my way.

I don’t feel guilty about our lax weeks. There are seasons for everything. But it does make it hard to have material for a homeschool blog when  you aren’t doing more than some Rosetta Stone lessons, reading a novel from Heritage History, and doing Teaching Textbooks math.

The solution for us is normally using a new book or resource that injects energy back into our routine.

4. I don’t fit into my local homeschool group and they don’t even know I’m a homeschool blogger.

Surprised? When I went to the Cincinnati Great Homeschool Convention and Real Refreshment Retreats and saw readers and fellow bloggers who consider me famous, it cracked me up. Only a few ladies at my church know about my online work. No one in my homeschool group considers me an expert or a celebrity. I’ve only been here two years, and it felt awkward to come in like a movie star, claiming to be an expert with a fancy blog and multiple ebooks. So I said nothing. And no one asked.

And I really am a misfit here. Most of the homeschoolers in this area are either a very rigorous  classical style or a traditional “school at home” textbook style. Neither fits me. My style of Charlotte Mason education looks more like unschooling in contrast to the homeschoolers around me.

5. My daughter often wants to finish school more than she wants to learn.

Yes, this is the sad truth. Along with not loving to read, this urgency to get school done for the day breaks my heart. Where is the passion for learning that I saw in my little third grader?

Actually it is still there, but it is reserved for the things she is truly passionate about, not the things I select for her or that the state deems required. Her desire to get done is normal for her age and not something I should take personally as an insult or as an indicator of failure.

We do have days when school is a chore. But we have days when it is enjoyable too. Humans have moods. (Teenage girls and 40-something moms have moods!) And it’s ridiculous to think that we should both be excited to do our studies every single day. Some days you just plod through. It’s okay. It’s life. In the grand scheme of things, I believe I am instilling a love of learning and a curiosity about the world that will serve her well.

So do you feel better, knowing these insider secrets? Do you now know without a shadow of a doubt that we are normal people with good days and bad days, personal strengths and quirks? We are just like you — imperfect homeschoolers.

Read more stories of imperfections from other very real homeschool moms.

{ 37 comments }

When Your Homeschooled Child Doesn’t Like to Read

by Jimmie Lanley on April 30, 2013

Homeschooled Children Who Don't Like to Read; It's Okay

(image credit)

Today I want to shatter the stereotype of the bookish homeschool kid. Guess what? Not all homeschooled children like to read.

Yes, it’s the truth. And my daughter is one of those.

My daughter doesn’t like to read.

Making it a big heading like that makes me feel better, like I’m confessing a dark secret that is too shameful to be spoken aloud.

The fact that Emma dislikes reading is a huge disappointment of mine and sometimes makes me feel like a failure as a homeschool mom. We assume that surrounding our children with an environment rich in books, magazines, newspapers, and maps will result in a child who loves to read. I read to Emma from her birth, and she had her own bookcase full of board books before she could walk. I honestly did my part.

And yet the truth is that she dislikes reading.

My daughter has many talents and strengths, and she can read just fine. She is not a struggling reader. But she does not chose to read for recreation. Reading is not her preferred method for learning.

As I child, I was a voracious reader, and it’s hard for me to understand how she does not enjoy such a simple pleasure of getting lost in a good story. She loves being read to and listening to audio books, though, so it’s not as if she hates books altogether.

I’ve offered all  kinds of books through the years thinking that she simply hadn’t found the genre that suited her — fantasy, mystery, adventure, historic fiction. In early years, I even allowed her to even read a some twaddle to encourage that love of reading. But it never clicked. She has never chosen to read of her own accord without my prompting or forcing. Emma is going into high school this fall, and I have finally come to accept that she is simply not a person who loves to read.

But let me tell you the revelation I’ve had.

It’s Okay Not to Like Reading

I confided to my friend Stacey Lane that Emma doesn’t like reading. She said, “I like Emma!” I was surprised and asked if she meant that she liked her because she didn’t like to read. Stacey said something very profound.

Yes, I like her because she is like me. I don’t like to read either. What’s wrong with not liking to read? Everyone doesn’t have to like to read.

It was as if she had smacked me with her radical thought. I froze for a minute thinking of what she had said  – it’s okay not to like reading.

After all, my daughter doesn’t like sports, and I feel no sadness over that. She prefers foreign language, art, and music over history and science. And I’m okay with that. I feel no shame or sense of failure there. So why does it bother me that she dislikes reading?

Stacey’s words helped me realize that I harbor a prejudice against non-readers. And it’s silly. I can let her not like reading without interpreting it as a failure on my part or thinking she’s less intelligent.

She is unique. She is wonderful. And who she is does not include (right now) reading books for pleasure.

Maybe one day she will awaken to a love of reading. She certainly loves literature and books. After all, she spent hours on the road to Cincinnati Great Homeschool Convention listening to the audio version of A Tale of Two Cities. She understood it, enjoyed it. It’s just the task of reading that she dislikes.

If you have a child who dislikes reading, do not consider that the scarlet letter of homeschool failure. It is not. Not at all.

How to Handle a Child Who Dislikes Reading

Require Daily Reading Time

I still think that “readers are leaders.” And just because Emma doesn’t like reading doesn’t mean that she gets a free pass. She must read. In fact, I am probably more diligent to enforce reading time because she dislikes it. I make her use a reading log to record her time or pages.

Allow for Modifications

I still read a good bit of her history and science to her, and we rely on audio resources for teaching (Teaching Texbooks for math, for example). I will not allow her distaste for reading to keep her from learning. There are other ways to absorb content besides reading it.

Keep the Flow of Resources

I still take her to the library and buy her magazine subscriptions to encourage leisure reading. I’m not giving up, but I am releasing my prejudice and shame.

Recognize and Invest in Passions

My daughter has other talents and passions that are equally as important as reading. Instead of harping on her distaste for reading, I need to invest in her love of art, music, and foreign language. (And I do!) I need to build her up as the creative, brilliant young woman that she is instead of worrying about reading as if it is the single factor of academic success.

Yes, I realize that children who are strong readers do better in school, but that is because school is set up to be based on reading. Our school looks different. We homeschool precisely for this reason — to make her education work for her strengths not against them.

Be Honest

I have explained to Emma that not enjoying reading may make college a huge challenge. She will have to compensate with great note taking skills during class lectures. And I often remind her that God chose the written word to reveal himself to mankind. So we have a duty to read well so that we can enjoy the Bible independently of preachers or teachers.

If you have a child who doesn’t like reading, by all means, keep trying! But in the meantime, accept your child for who he or she is. It’s okay not to like to read.

{ 44 comments }

Figures of Speech and Poetic Devices Free Printable Mini-posters

April 11, 2013

[To keep getting posts from Jimmie's Collage, please subscribe here. This is the last post that will be issued via Feedburner. If you have already subscribed, thank you!] My Poetic Devices Reference Minibook is wildly popular thanks to Pinterest pins. Unfortunately, the original printable I used to make that minibook has been removed from the Internet. So I [...]

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Homeschool Field Trip to The Creation Museum

April 9, 2013

[To keep getting posts from Jimmie's Collage, please subscribe here. I will be discontinuing the Feedburner feed this week.] On April 3 Emma and I toured the Creation Museum in Kentucky. [Disclosure: We received free tickets to the museum, planetarium, and workshop in exchange for an honest review of our experience.] There were two other iHomeschool [...]

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How to Read Jimmie’s Collage

April 1, 2013

Although my blogging frequency has declined, I have no intentions of giving up blogging. I have decided to let go of blog guilt and blog when I really have something to say, something that makes a difference. If life is too busy for blogging, so be it. Life gets priority over blogging. My goal is [...]

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Extending Special Grace: Lessons Learned from Real Refreshment Retreat

March 29, 2013

Disclosure: My ticket and accommodations to Real Refreshment Retreat were provided by Apologia Ministries in exchange for authentic social media coverage of the event. I was not instructed what to say or how to express my views. I genuinely desired to attend this event, and all of my statements about RRR are my own opinion. [...]

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Online Homeschool Classes with CurrClick

March 21, 2013

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Although I love a routine, things can get bogged down in a rut if we aren’t careful to inject variety. I have just become a fan of a new way of learning — online classes, specifically CurrClick’s live, online, homeschool classes.  I have used online webinars for several years for my [...]

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I Can’t Homeschool Because I’m a Work at Home Mom

March 12, 2013

There are plenty of challenges in homeschooling. But there are very few true obstacles that keep a family from homeschooling. I’m joining up with the bloggers and friends of iHomsechool Network to address the most commonly used reasons people think they can’t homeschool. Of course, we think that most of these, although valid challenges, are [...]

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Understanding the Why of Math: A Quote by Charlotte Mason

February 28, 2013

Miss Mason on the Math The child may learn the multiplication-table and do a subtraction sum without any insight into the rationale of either. He may even become a good arithmetician, applying rules aptly, without seeing the reason of them; but arithmetic becomes an elementary mathematical training only in so far as the reason why of [...]

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Loving God’s Word: A Quote by Charlotte Mason

February 26, 2013

Miss Mason on the Bible The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed, light as thistledown, wafted into the child’s soul will take root downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of [...]

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