When a child struggles with a subject it is hard on both the child and the mom. It is hard to see your child try so hard to succeed and still have difficulty or continue to experience failure. The child begins to feel badly about herself and soon other subjects will suffer as she loses confidence. A homeschooling mom also feels like she is failing since she is the one in charge of her child’s education. The double role of mom and teacher during a time like gets confused and the mom part feels the pain while the teacher part feels responsible. How do you turn the tide of failure to success?
I want to start out by saying that feelings of guilt and failure should be quickly pushed aside. You will see things with the proper perspective through the clouded vision guilt provides. At a time like this your child needs an effective teacher not a guilt ridden mom. Your child will need a soft place to land as well but without a strategy to improve the situation nothing will change. This is not your fault or your child’s fault. Quite simply, there will be times that this happens with every child no matter how intelligent.
Now that you are ready to get to work and conquer the issue you need to make an objective assessment of both teacher and student. Ask yourself a few questions:
Am I pushing too hard?
Is the subject matter above my child’s level?
Does my teaching style and my child’s learning style conflict?
Is the curriculum a good fit for my child?
Is my child trying to accomplish the goal and interested in solving the problem?
Does my child have a history of having trouble in this area?
What is my child’s learning style?
Is my child simply too immature to move ahead in this area of study?
Is my child having trouble with the material or does my child simply find it boring?
Does my child have an eye problem or other medical issue that may interfere with learning?
The important thing is to get to the core of the issue. You are not there to bribe a child’s learning by entertaining or making it easy. However, many times we move our children ahead before they are ready. Ask yourself if you can push this issue aside and move on or if repeating a portion of last year’s study will encourage a greater understanding.
My child learned how to read using Abeka. If not for Abeka I think she would still not be able to read the word “cat” and she is in middle school. Abeka taught in a way that spoke to her which allowed her to become a good reader. Today she reads on an adult level.
Due to such success with Abeka I also purchased the spelling book. My daughter proceeded to flunk every (no exaggeration) spelling test. I could not figure it out. She was getting very frustrated as was I. I then realized that she learned better using word families and with hands on activities as she is a visual learner. I purchased a new spelling book that incorporated the use of word families and we played simple 10 minute spelling games all week. By Friday, she was able to not only score 100%, she wrote down all 25 words which was five words beyond what I tested her on.
To what do I attribute the success? Flexibility. Never be so rigid in your teaching that you cannot shift gears at a moment’s notice. It is also best to never get to attached to a curriculum that you feel you cannot give it up midstream. Taking steps to find out my teaching style and her learning style was the catalyst to trying something new.
How do you handle it when your student is struggling?
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