Incentives

I have posted before about how my children have each dealt with the stress of recent months in different ways. Some of them have coasted through, apparently just enjoying the extra freedom that comes from one parent being gone most of the time. Others, who are sensitive to the slightest changes, have struggled greatly with the big changes and have not fared well at all with the - ahem - looser schedule of late. Combine that with the fact that every spring we get a little cagey about the school routine, despite a year-round schedule that was designed to eliminate that problem (by interspersing short breaks throughout the year), and last week I was frequently texting Dave about how close I was to registering certain people in the local public school for next year.



I don't know how to adequately describe the struggle I sometimes have with my precious daughter, particularly without betraying too much. She is very spirited, which I do appreciate most of the time, very opinionated, and very strong-willed. And from toddlerhood, she has been playing elaborate mind games with me, the rules of which I have not to this day fully unravelled. Often I have found myself backed in a corner by her completely logical arguments, when I have failed to be specific enough about something, and even her illogical arguments have often left my head reeling. Lest you think you might know what to do with such a child in such cases, I implore you not to be too hasty to judge. Childrearing tactics that "should" work often just don't with Aimee, for various reasons, and certainly not all them negative. I was first confronted with this when she was only two, and potty training. The parenting logic that insisted she should care about being a "big girl" fell completely flat, and in fact so did every other tactic. She already believed she was a big girl and wasn't about to stoop to proving it, and I realized quickly that if she didn't want to potty train, she just wouldn't. If it came down to a battle of wills, she could hold out for a very long time. Her character and personality has only grown over the years, of course, so that's still a central issue. But at the same time, she craves order and firm boundaries. The trick, then, is to provide clear and consistent boundaries without crossing the line into arbitrary tyranny, which she always recognizes and never fails to challenge. Our homeschooling experience with her, therefore, is far from easy in the best of times, and in these more difficult times, it leaves me wanting to pull my hair out. On some levels, Aimee is similar to the kind of student I was, but I wanted to do well just for the sake of it, and that simply isn't true in Aimee's case. She often has a more important point to make, and grades, which I don't like to emphasize anyway, don't matter to her in the least. And, too, while I think it would be great to have the freedom and flexibility to go outside for a little while, then do school here and there when we get a chance, she develops an overinflated sense of entitlement with that kind of freedom. When I do spring math, or any other subject for that matter, on her, the result is often disasterous. And she can effectively refuse to do it, simply by not understanding - almost, if not completely, on purpose. Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but so in this case. It's difficult to explain, but I really do believe she's that smart, and while logical solutions may come to mind, I assure you, again, that it's never that easy. We struggle mightily with providing the right boundaries and incentives that don't come across as punishments for something she insists she can't help (it's not her fault if multiplication facts don't stick, is it? or that borrowing is impossibly hard? and do I really expect her to know what an adjective is?) - even if I do believe that blank look on her face is really just her planting her feet firmly in the ground. Without going into too much more detail, I have to say that it isn't that I'm unsympathetic to difficulties with schoolwork, or that I care anything about grades. You must, again, take my word for it that I KNOW she can do these things, and I can tell the difference between not being able to grasp something, and flatly refusing to learn it. It's the latter that makes every step of a math or grammar session rather tortuous for all parties.

So last week, I was feeling at the end of my rope - more so than usual - and I prayed that either God would provide the money for that awfully attractive private school, or that he would HELP ME. At any rate, I needed help just to make it though the next couple weeks, because I wasn't sure how we were even going to get to the end of third grade. On Sunday, Aimee received an invitation to a birthday slumber party for the following weekend. Ding, ding, ding! I told her I would love for her to go, but that she would have to work with me to have a better week. I reminded her that it's perfectly ok to have feelings, opinions, and difficulties, and also that I would love to have "fun" during school (we can do more art and fun projects, but that math and grammar still remain), but there are appropriate times and ways to express those feelings, and that sometimes we just have to do things we don't like. I made a chart for her, since she loves those, and gave her forty-five opportunities over the next five days to earn stars, forty of which she would have to have in order to go to the party. She would be allowed to express frustration and to ask for help, as long as she accepted that help, and heeded warnings to calm down if she grew angry. She could only earn a star by doing her chores and assignments with complaining (excessive- everyone has their moments), and outbursts (about the tyranny of education, the uselessness of grammar, or the unfairness about having to do "all the work") would not be tolerated, even losing her points.

And don't you know, she suddenly knew most of her multiplication facts and parts of speech, and she attacked all her work with dillegence and patience. She dug deep and earned her forty stars, glowing with a sense of achievement by the end of the week. Of course, I don't know how she would have reacted if she hadn't done it, but I think that wasn't even likely. Once we tap into her determination, it's a wonderful thing.