04/03/12

1.  Today was not a stellar day in the Turner family school.  I have a boy who, over the past few weeks, has been pretty much not at all interested in doing his schoolwork.  I'm at a loss as to what to do.  I know he's getting tired, but it's only the beginning of April and we have 9 more weeks of school to go!  It isn't time to give up yet!  I've thought about giving him a few days off, but we're already going into the middle of June for our regular schoolwork as it is, and I don't want to push that back any further.  And I don't really think a few days off will help in any case.  I'm very frustrated.  The work that he has is not all that much.  He could easily finish everything in 4 hours.  But it's like pulling teeth with him-- he just won't do it!  He's constantly running away outside, reading his book, disappearing, dawdling, doodling, and otherwise not cooperating at all.  It's really making me crazy.  I need HIM to be responsible for getting his work done.  I can't be babysitting him all day long.  But if I don't, he either doesn't do the work, or does a really poor, sloppy, half-hearted job of it.  What do I do??  I really hate having to force compliance with threats of punishment, or taking things away, or loss of privileges, or whatever.  He's old enough to understand that schoolwork is his job, and he just has to do it!
He is such a very smart boy, and capable of so much.  I want him to be proud of that fact, and define himself as a smart boy who works hard.  I want him to take pride in his work, and be proud of how much he can do, how much he knows.  I want him to want to learn and improve and get better!  I want him to really feel what it feels like to be proud of himself, and to be motivated by that feeling.  I want him to realize that the habits he develops now will be the habits he carries with him for the rest of his life.  The attitude he cultivates now will be his default attitude as he grows up.  I want to play him the song from My Turn on Earth-- the one that goes, "If you don't like the end of the road, you better back up, you better back up fast!"  Because the end of the road he is on is ignorance, laziness, irresponsibility, and failure.  Not pretty.
I want him to realize how unbelievably lucky he is to be born in this time, in this place, in his particular circumstances with every possible opportunity he could ever desire open to him.  I want him to understand how many children would give anything to trade places. I want him to feel what a responsibility he has to himself, to God, and to all those other children who would do anything to be in his position, to fully engage in the opportunities he has.  I want us to be a team.  I want to be his coach, his cheerleader, and his teacher.
So what do I do?  I feel like I've talked and talked and talked until I'm blue in the face, but it hasn't changed his behavior.  I don't want to threaten him, I want to motivate him!  How??
OK, well I've got that off my chest at least.  I hope tomorrow will be a better day. 

2.  We had scouts this afternoon at our house.  We're going to be doing a play about Daniel and the Lions' Den for our pack meeting at the end of the week.  It's pretty fun watching those boys.  Mosey is King Darius and he's pretty awesome.  He delivers his lines with such power and feeling!  :-)
Joseph and Brigham had scouts tonight as well.  Their den leader right now is a concept artist for a local video game company, and he is really, really good.  Brigham has been in heaven the past couple of den meetings, soaking up everything he's got to say.  Today Brigham brought a picture of a castle that he drew and which he has been working on editing on photoshop.  Joseph drew a picture of a spacecraft/fighter plane/something futuristic and flying.  It's interesting to observe the differences in style between these two boys.  Brigham is so meticulous and detail-oriented, and draws according to a clear vision he has in his mind.  Joseph is much more organic in his style, his drawings/doodlings flowing from his pencil without any forethought.  His doodling cartoons are quite imaginative, although since they're generally scrawled across his math papers I'm usually not terribly thrilled with them.  :-)

3.  I got nothing for #3 tonight.  G'night!