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3 Responses to “How do you homeschool a 9 year old who is very oppositional and has very low tolerance if she doesn;t?”

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  la_la_land611 says:

  March 30, 2009 at 6:27 pm

  I would consider hiring a home school teacher

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  boomerangt's says:

  March 30, 2009 at 7:29 pm

  Try to let her approach it on her own terms. Statistics show that if a child is not interested in a subject, they will not learn it or will be forgotten shortly after. If she has learned basic math concepts, I wouldn’t try to push anything else unless she wants to. But I don’t know what you are trying to teach her. Maybe give it a break and move to a subject matter that she loves and come back to it later or combine them somehow so it’s more appealing. That is the wonderful thing about homeschooling, you can approach these subjects however you want and take your time.

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  chickadee34 says:

  March 31, 2009 at 4:29 am

  I had this same problem with a homeschooled daughter of my own, at the same age as your daughter is now. I know how frustrating it can be, and I also know the panic that can set in, when we, as homeschooling parents, wonder if we are up to the “task” of educating our children, in the face of such unexpected “opposition.” (We most certainly ARE, but more on that in a moment.)

  I want to reassure you that it is perfectly okay to let up on things that are stressing your daughter out right now. I don’t know yours or your daughter’s situation—whether she was previously institutionalized (i.e. public schooled) or not. I suspect she *was,* only because children who are homeschooled from the start don’t tend to react the way your daughter (and mine) react[ed] when presented with new lessons and concepts. Public schooling methods unfortunately have a way of turning off otherwise highly intelligent students. (By contrast, children who are homeschooled from the start tend to retain a certain eager curiosity that public-schooled students all too quickly lose.)

  When we withdraw our children from public schooling with every good intention, but nevertheless continue, at home, to *replicate* the very sort of institutionalized “learning” that managed to turn our children “off,” we are bound to run into some serious problems. I’m not saying that this is what you are doing with your child. I am only suggesting that you think “outside of the box” when it comes to your child, so as to encourage and maximize her *innate* and inborn potential (with which EVERY child is born, if we would only earnestly listen to, take seriously, and carefully observe in our own children).

  In the case of my own child’s opposition, I darn near gave up, but not before doing a good deal of research. In the course of such research, I ran across the concept of “unschooling” (i.e. de-institutionalizing). I can’t begin to tell you how much this concept reassured me and led to my child’s success. Whether or not you yourself have any affinity for Unschooling, the concept itself should reassure you that your daughter will surely succeed in life, regardless of whether or not she wants to, at this point in time, hear about a “new” math concept.
  http://www.unschooling.com/
  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8259/unskool.html
  http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/171.00/jf_art_unsch.html

  Keep in mind that children are BORN with a frantic desire to learn. If you can recall your daughter’s early days, you know well how frantic you were to keep her “safe” during those early years when your daughter was so intent upon learning that she routinely put herself, however unwittingly, in danger. Trust that she still has somewhere inside of her a passionate desire to learn. You needn’t “force” such learning upon her anymore than “institutions” need do so. Children really are innately curious and eager enough that they will pursue knowledge of their own volition, AS LONG AS we don’t convince them that they are so “stupid” as to need to be “spoon-fed” knowledge, whether by institutionalized schooling , or by misguided (if nonetheless well-intentioned) homeschooled education.

  The upshot is this: When children WANT to learn something, they will let you know. Teaching them anything in which they have NO interest at the time is a waste of time—theirs and yours. In such cases, they are not likely to cooperate, and, further, they won’t retain the information, no matter how earnestly such information is imparted by the teacher.

  Listen to your child. Whatever her interests are, those likely will be her inborn gifts/and or talents. The best thing you can do for her is to encourage her gifts/talents and to relate any academics TO those gifts/talents.

  In the case of my own (homeschooled) child, she took an early interest in cooking and baking. Yet she HATED math lessons, and most especially math memorization. Nevertheless, when cooking and baking—and having to either halve or double the recipes—forced her to deal with some serious mathematics—she loved every minute of it, because it related to something for which she had a true passion—cooking and baking. This child learned math, not from my having to sit down and actually “teach” her math, but from my simply following her interests and teaching her “math’ as she needed and *begged* for it.

  In short, you can trust that your child is going to gain all the knowledge she needs, simply because that’s the way she was born.

  Wishing you and your daughter all the best.

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