I thought this would be a breeze.
A handful of worksheets from her book, and she’d be done for the day.
But noooooo
That would be too easy. After starting on this around 11 this morning, my daughter still hasn’t finished her math worksheets. Though, after our lunch/recess break, her attitude did change quite a bit, and she’s made a lot more progress. She’s been taking another “break” for the past hour, and swears she’ll finish the worksheets after dinner, so perhaps we’ll actually make it through the day.
Confessions of a Homeschooler 
I sympathize! My kid hates worksheets with a passion. I’ve had to be really creative with math and reading, especially.
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See, mine loves math and science, she hates reading. She actually begged me to get workbooks. She was just being super whiny about having to do it.
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Congratulations! Your kid is equivalent to a public school student doing homework. She sounds bored.
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I’m not sure if you’re trying to be helpful, or if you’re mocking me. Your other comments are relatively helpful, so I’m going to assume the former. She’s been bored with every method I’ve been trying. Regardless of if its online, or a workbook, no matter what program or curriculum I try, she just sits and complains about it being, you guessed it: boring. Not to mention, asking over and over why she has to do it, as well as constantly complaining about how much she hates it.
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I admit to being slightly sarcastic, but then I remember hating this kind of homework. I thought it was stupid and boring. If this is what her schoolwork is made up of, then I can only sympathise with her situation. I think she needs more hands on projects. Building stuff. Really engaging with the content.
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I was never a fan of it either, but she specifically requested that we buy workbooks, and picked these out after we’d already been using a different program online for about a month and a half.
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She’s, what, in 2nd grade I think I read? She probably thought the pictures were cool and the work easy. You’re her teacher, plan her lessons.
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Yes, 2nd. These books actually don’t have pictures. I realize I’m her teacher, and I do plan her lessons based on the materials I have available. I also believe in allowing her to be part of the decision making process as well, and letting her feel like her voice matters.
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I like that! But yet you ignore her when she says she’s bored. She doesn’t know enough to seek out something different. That’s where you come in. Plan a few lessons where you both are engaged with the content, asking and answering questions, then give her a relevant worksheet. She shouldn’t mind a quick review this way, but worksheets on their own are just busy work.
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While I understand that you are trying to be helpful, and I do appreciate that, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make it seem as if I’m arguing or resistant to advice, because I’m not. Something you have to understand about my daughter though is that she’s absolutely hates anything to do with “school” with every fiber of her being. It doesn’t matter what I do, what I use, what method I try, she will complain. I’m a single mother, I can’t afford to buy overly pricey curriculums, and I can’t afford to just spend money on new books or new lesson plans whenever. I can try something completely new tomorrow, and within a few days, she’s going to decide that she’s bored with it. I’m not ignoring that she says she’s bored, I’m fed up with her saying that she’s bored, because it’s her excuse no matter the subject, no matter the curriculum, no matter my attempt. I quit using mobymax because she’d been begging for a week to use books rather than an online program. I spent $60 that I couldn’t really afford to appease her, and let her flip through books in the bookstore and decide on which ones she wanted to use. Within a week we were back at square one with her complaining about how much or what we were doing and saying she wished she didn’t have to do schoolwork. I’ve looked at some of the “free” curriculums, such as easy peasy, and I don’t feel like there’s enough substance there. If I did, we would’ve been using it back in January when we first began homeschooling. Same with discoveryk12. I can’t do FLVS because it’s not as flexible as it claims to be, and as earlier stated, with my line of work, I can’t always be there to ensure she attends the online class time when she has to, and neither my brother nor my sister have computers that she’d be able to use when I’m not here. And I can’t afford the thousands of dollars for Oak Meadows curriculum. I’m trying with what I have, and what’s available. She’s resistant. From what I’ve been told, her father was the same way when it came to education, choosing to drop out and get a GED rather than attend school. My own grandma dropped out and got married at 14 so she wouldn’t have to go to school. My daughter absolutely detests learning, and I don’t know how to get her over that hatred. I’ve stressed to her that she has to do schoolwork in one form or another regardless of whether or not she likes it, so it’s best to pick the method she hates the least, and get it done. I’ve attempted to explain to her that the more time she spends resisting the work, the longer it’s going to take to get it done, which means less playtime later. She doesn’t care. She’d rather sit at the table giving me dirty looks than do schoolwork.
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I guess I just don’t understand why she isn’t in a real school, rather than homeschooled, where there are (supposed to be) people trained to help in this situation. You can fight to get her into the right school for her– the supreme court just affirmed that ALL children deserve the best education possible even if that means using public money for private school. But it WILL probably be a fight, though most likely an easier one than 10 years of homeschooling like this.
Of course, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with going the dropout, GED route, so long as she enjoys the work available that way. My husband did that, drove a tow truck at age 14 making plenty of money, then wanted to fly helicopters in the army, got enlisted, but was told he’d be going to school for small truck mechanic. I applaud the army for recognizing his skills, but he still got out ASAP because if he’d wanted to be a mechanic, he could have stayed home. He then went into longhaul truck driving and loved that, only stopping when a heart attack floored him. While this is a serious problem with that lifestyle, it can be avoided with diet and regular exercise and better personal choices.
Not everyone is built to get a 8 year degree in astrophysics. What matters most for your daughter is to give her the most options, even if that means boarding school in Switzerland (an extreme option meant to make you laugh).
Get her tested and see where she really is. She might have a learning disability or she might be a literal genius testing off the charts.
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I pulled her out of public school because of a handful of problems we were having this past year. Her teachers wouldn’t communicate (they never responded to my notes and questions, and when they did, they were incredibly snarky, and still didn’t actually answer the questions). There was also an office administrator that decided it was okay to bully her for a medical problem she couldn’t help, and despite conferences and phone calls, they never did anything about the woman. As well as a myriad of other problems. The supreme court ruling is extremely helpful, but we’re close enough to the end of the school year now, that I’m going to continue homeschooling her to the best of my ability. The only learning disability that I’m aware of that she has is dyslexia. I’m not surprised about that, myself, my brother, and my uncle are all dyslexic, but it is something that can be overcome (though it does explain her hatred for reading lol). When we first started homeschooling, she did take placement tests. She placed on a fourth grade level for math. Despite this though, she whines about things being “hard,” and wants to do work essentially designed for preschoolers instead because its “easy.”
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