Thinking ...

I've been thinking this evening too. I've been on one of the yahoo lists that I'm on about homeschooling and on the homeschool lounge. There were a couple of issues being discussed. On the email list, they were discussing a child not fitting well with the curriculum that they had chosen, whining, crying and complaining the whole time. People were suggesting all different kinds of things for the mom to do, everything from more structure to less structure or totally no structure at all (just let him play video games all the time). On the homeschool lounge a young mom, homeschooling a kindergartner was upset because he wasn't learning to read yet and some people were telling her different curriculum books to buy, different methods to teach and there were several people (me included) telling her to take it easy, because he's just not ready. Some kids are not ready to read at 5. Some are not ready to read at 7 or 8. I read once that the NORMAL age for walking for a baby is from 8-18 months - a 10 month range, which at pretty large considering how fast kids are learning at those ages. I think the average age to learn to read is probably 5-10 years. I think there are all kinds of different ranges for things that are perfectly normal. After all, in order to get an average, somebody has to fall at the low end and somebody else at the high end. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. Some kids are sensitive to every noise, bright lights, tight clothing, itchy clothing, the seam in their socks being not quite straight ...(I've got 2 of these.) and other's aren't. We can't all be just alike.

It's really difficult for a mom to know when to worry, when not to, when to intervene, when to wait it out. I guess that's when we all need to do what these 2 moms are doing and ask the voices of experience around them for advice. One of the most difficult things about homeschooling is trying to find a curriculum to use and then if it doesn't work with your child's learning style, figuring out when to toss it. My only advice is to use as many free things as possible to supplement! Here's a link to some of the best freebies I've found http://homeschool-links.blogspot.com/


This is interesting. Follow this link to see a group of olympic female athletes showing normal size variations between people.