*** Some cheese, to go with the whine, which will follow.***
I've enjoyed reading about some of your first days back to school. Your kids all look so bright, eager and cheerful in the pictures.
Our first day of school is a bit hard to pin down this year, as we've been plugging away a little all summer, and are easing back up to a full schedule over the next couple of weeks.
And for the most part that's been working great.
But not today.
*sigh*
I hold in my hand sheets of notebook paper with this sentence written 100 times:
I will respect my parents and brothers by not distracting or disrupting them.
It's not a particularly long sentence, is it? But can you guess how long it took a certain boy to produce 100 repetitions of it? Four and a half hours. That's right, people, four and a half hours. And there's no good reason for that. Even a 13 year-old can write 13 words in under a minute.
If he'll do it instead of raging about the injustice of his tortured life.
And accusing me of child abuse.
So, all in all, it hasn't been a really stellar day.
You?
8 comments:
Oh me oh my! I do love your posts! Well from someone who homeschooled for 12 lovely years and am now in my 13th... my baby a senior! Sniff! And there were days he wrote 100 sentences and bemoaned the injustice of life at home.
He survived.
I did too!
And so will you...
and in the end? You'll have only great memories with well-adjusted kids and no regrets. How's that for God's grace?
It's always nice to have moms around who are further down the road and have perspective :0)
I have never personally timed my kids writing long sentences, but that sounds like a plan. My mother always said, "you need to give time outs" which meant, "YOU need a time out" Remember to have some fun tomorrow, even if it hurts! Thanks a TON for your sweet, encouraging words on my blog. I can tell that we were cracked out of the same egg. What a roar!
"Some days are diamonds...
Some days are stone..."
Julie, we had the odd day like that. It usually doesn't recur with the same child.
(I remember being horrified when I was starting out when an old hand told me that she didn't allow her children to eat their dinner if their school work wasn't completed for the day. (She was a mother of 11)
She must have seen the look on my face because she hugged me and assured me that it had only EVER happened once!!!!
The children saw that she carried through and NEVER did it again!
Go out and hug that guy now...
Oh, thirteen is a tough year! Not that I have a 13 year old, but I remember BEING thirteen. Hopefully things will get back on track soon (and I'm going to kiss my 2 year old while he still thinks I'm cool)!
We had an 8-year-old spend 2 hours to produce a whopping 5 repetitions. So you are not the only parent torturing your child.
Hmmm ... I forgot about the whole sentence writing punishment. I'll have to keep that in mind. Especially when my almost 13 year old came home on the FIRST day of school with papers just jammed in his backpack (that I needed to sign, but would've never rec'd them if I hadn't gone through the backpack), with four nice brand new folders right behind the whole mess. Happened again on the second day. UGH! I am so ready for the preteen stage to exit the household, but then again, are the teenage years any better? Oh I can only hope and pray! AND he's actually been hugging on me a lot more than usual, and I'm loving every bit of it!
Did you notice my first day of school photo was taken before the first day of school?
On our first day back all four of them cried at least once about something. Even the almost thirteen year old.
*Sigh* It's so good to be doing school again ;o).
God is good and someday we will look back on the struggles as just a bump in the road to where He wanted to take us.
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