child not catching on as quickly as the younger child? Did that make sense? My current 2nd grader gets everything the first time it is shown to him and then he doesn't forget it. I can already see him passing far ahead of his peers through home instruction. My 4th grader just struggles. It will be a challenge for me to get him caught up with his peers. Yes he is behind according to the placement tests I just gave them. No, neither of the boys know the results of those tests. The problem with this is that they are both aware that this is the case without me ever saying or commenting. It is really bothering my 4th grader that his younger brother will be caught up with him very soon. He can see it in how easily Ford (2nd) is doing things Jake struggled with last year. I am not sure if he has thought of the possibility that his brother could pass him up. It is becoming hard for Ford (2nd) to not flaunt how good he thinks he is. They try to race each other to finish worksheets even when doing totally different work :roll: I do not know what to do. I want to praise the one, I mean he does deserve recognition for doing well. But I don't want it to be at the expense of the other. I also do not know what to say about it. Jake even asked me a while ago why his brother didn't have to study so hard, go to summer school, or practice as much and still got better grades at school. (We are not using grades at home.) I have tried saying.. well we are all different and learn at different rates, and we all have our own special skills, blah blah... But I know he is looking at me the same way I looked at my mother when she told me how beautiful I was at 16 when my face was totally broke out in pimples and I never could seem to keep my hair from being greasy. Any pointers, ideas, past experiences? TIA
my younger son catches on to everything quickly and my older one struggles so I understand where you are coming from. Bragging is a no no in our house and it is punished. I sat down with the younger one and told him how proud I am of him. Then I went on to explain that it hurts his brothers feelings when he brags. We talked about things that the older one was good at that he wasn't ect and encouraged him ro compliment his brother in these things. I have also stressed with the boys that working at your own level is a good thing. There is no such thing as behind in my house. Somethings just need more practice.
Sarah, you took the words right out of my mouth!!! Aurie, maybe to help show the younger one how to build his brother up, you can ask him if he would like to make a special award for his big brother when he does his best on a subject and then all of you as a family present it to him and cheer him on and visa versa. If they continue to race to finish their worksheets then maybe you can temporarily put them in different rooms to do the work at least until they start working together to build each other up. Patty
Sarah and Patty, You took the words right out of my mouth! :lol: Aurie, I have an 8th grader and a 5th grader (as well as my highschooler). The 5th grader is slowly catching up with the 8th grader--in almost all subjects. It must be a common thing. But finding things that each one does well, and praising them for their individual accomplishments is good. We've done the award thing too: "Instead of picking on each other, let's see what GOOD things you can come up with about each other!" It has worked over time. Our oldest (the highschooler) is pretty set in his ways and would hate for his younger brother to be better than him at anything!!! But he's learned to be a little more positive about it, and realizes that God gave us all different talents and abilities, and we need to be happy with what we have, and work on developing it to the best of our ability---with God's help, of course! Besides, we told them, if God made us all good at the same thing, then there's a LOT of stuff that wouldn't be able to get done!!!
I love everyone's advice. My ds is 12 in 7th grade. He has Asperger's Syndrome. He excels in math and science, but L.A. and S.S. are a constant struggle for him. My dd 9, is catching up on him quickly. We knew this might happen. Now I am armed with positive reinforcement for when he is frustrated. My dd does not exactly brag, but she is very proud of herself. This hurts my son's feelings. I will encourage her to encourage him. Thanks everyone.
with me it was my 12yr old and 15 yr old... years back she was gaining on him, she is only one grade behind at this point and now he is okay with it, but back then his eggo, or whatever you want to call it was crushed that she was learning faster. some kids just grasp everything. I use her myself , I am not too ashamed to say, as my reminder person. She remembers everything. But the older one needed to be reminded of the great feats he could do as well. HE has a memory for things visual that none of us can match, and as I have said in other threads he has gotten ahead in his own learning areas. So we as the mom/teacher just have to do like Deena said and emphasise the things the older one does that excel. Also letting the younger one know the older one has been learning longer so he does knwo more may curb the bragging part. My 3rd is advancing swiftly too but I was told each child in a home school learns a little faster because they hear it as many times as we teach it! Pretty cool! One more reason to home school! *** Just wanted to add that we also need to allow that younger one to grow at thier own pace, and not hold them back. I did that with my dd and she became lazy in other areas, so now I am back to more encouraging pace of her own than holding her to my forms.
Thanks for pointing that imortant reminder out. We need to let our kids reach their full potential and not hold one back to make the other feel better.
"Also letting the younger one know the older one has been learning longer so he does knwo more may curb the bragging part. " This is a great idea. We can also tell the younger one that the older one has more information in their head, so they have more stuff to process.
One thing that helps make these differences less evident is to have different curriculum for each child. My girls have always done Bible, History and Science together. However, there have been times that due to this very issue I have used different math curriculums and different LA for each girl. It really helps, because the younger one can't ever reach the older one - at least not in book or page #.
I like the different cirriculums idea as well. We may try that at some point. No my name isn't Aurora. Aurie is just my online name. It has been for almost 4 years.
my 2nd child, now 7, cought up with her brother, now 9 with in our first 18m of homeschooling, not somthing i was expecting!!! it wassnt a big deal for the last couple of years but big brother has started to feel like he should be doing harder stuff because he is older so one thing we have started doing is making their work compleatly diffrent... i guess this is the equivelent to using diffrent curriculums. if they have a reading assignment where normanly they would read and then do a work sheet about their reading now jordan (7) gets a worksheet and ds9 has to write a paragraph in his own words... it seems "harder" because its not a worksheet so ds 9 is happy and dd7 has no way to brag about finishing first because shes not writing a paper, just doing a work sheet. i hope that helps some, good luck
My son is like a golden child. He can do any work I put in front of him. He can do his sister's work. Ds is in 1-2nd grade and my dd is 3-4th grade. It frustrates her sometimes. However, she used to be the same way. I think she is at the age that she is kinda slacking a bit. I don't know. My ds didn't take one look at his spelling words for this coming week---yet he can spell every one of them. He can do almost all my dd's math. He reads better. I think at his age is just soaking it all in and still wants to please. My dd is kinda tired of school and wants to do more craft stuff and fun stuff. Also, I have noticed that grades 2 - 4 are very similar in concepts. So maybe it only appears that the younger one is so advanced....I don't know.
Remind the older one that the younger one had the advantage of learning from the older one. That all his hard work is making it easier for little brother. Some day his little brother will realize this and look up to him for it.
