“It Doesn’t Make Sense!”

That is what I heard today while ds was to narrate Saints & Heroes Volume 1 (Becket).

He’s read this book off and on for the past 1 1/2 years (yes, it’s one of those subjects that we take longer to get through) and he’s not had an issue with it ‘not making sense’ before.

So what is the problem? Concentration.

We are moving soon (the movers will be here this Friday, the 9th) and so I let my son stay the night- for the last time- at a friends house even though it was a Sunday night. That is not something that is usually allowed. The public schools were out today due to Labor Day but we still had school.

When he is at his friends there is a lot of video gaming and tv watching. And staying up way later than he should. Coming home today, at about 12:00 pm, he seemed tired and very cranky. I knew he had stayed up late. I was okay with that because we are moving and it was a last time with his friend. We will move to a place where he knows no one. I suggested he nap and work on school later. No, no, he didn’t want to do that.

To make a longer story shorter, when he read some of S&H and began to narrate, he quickly gave that statement. I am not perfect (shock) and sometimes I get very annoyed when my kids do not try as hard as I know they can. Today, however, I approached it differently. If there was something that in my mind made sense that didn’t in his mind, I wanted to help so that he could understand. Or perhaps it was something different.

He is generally fidgety and has a difficult time staying with one thing at a time. Today he was almost upside down in his chair and he was having trouble concentrating.

Sometimes in the streets are to be seen wonderful and edifying sights. I do not know why it so happened, but the above subject immediately called up before me the figure of a man playing five or six musical instruments with different parts of his body. This active, but not altogether successful, man may perhaps teach us something about "concentration."

Suppose that one of us were to take his place, we should probably commence by blowing the cymbals and clashing flute, beating the fiddle, and drawing a bow across the surface of the drum. This would not do, and we should have to be removed by the police. Children know the difficulty of concentrating their wills upon two or more actions by some of the games they play, where hands and feet and head are required to perform movements not in accord with the usual rhythm of their lives. by George Radford. Parents’ Review, Volume 3, 1892/93, pgs. 588-593 (emphasis mine)

Often times I think I’ve made a real mess of habit training with my children but that doesn’t mean I should stop trying. Reading the Parents’ Review articles, I was struck by the importance of concentrating.

But as years go on interests arise which no senior is as hand to put aside, and many a dreamy lad goes through his tasks with his brain really fixed upon none of them. He can still learn in a manner the lessons given him to learn; he may still remain at the top of the class, but his memory is receiving it death-blow as a phenomenal one, and he sinks into an inaccurate scholar, a student without unerring detail, a dreamer spinning clouds from clouds. He has lacked either sufficient communicativeness, or a discerning confidential pedagogue and friend. The things of which his mind was full ought either to have been poured out or drawn out. If he could have had them brought into the right channel and developed, a poet might have been born, or an engineer or lawyer made. by George Radford. Parents’ Review, Volume 3, 1892/93, pgs. 588-593 (emphasis mine)

We’ve yet to find a book that has been recommended by Ambleside Online that the kids were truly not interested in- perhaps they were stubborn at the start but it gained their interest and came to be books they really enjoyed. I think it actually comes down to … me.

Training, in fact, cannot be begun too early, and woe to that parent who attempts to put it off. It is cruel kindness to the child. While the tender mind is open to all impressions, while there is as yet no questioning or thought of rebellion, or weariness of brain and body to interfere, begin to inculcate the habits of method, of patience, of diligence, and of perseverance. Believe me, not time is more valuable than these earliest years, even though as yet your little darling seems scarcely more than a pet and a plaything on which to lavish your caresses. Is it not a notable fact that most stepmothers and guardians who take charge of a child as old as six or seven, find the task somewhat difficult even with lovable and docile children, simply because there has been no mother's watchful care, and so these first precious years have been wasted? Bad habits, even at that early age, have taken deep root, and the work of training has to be begun from the beginning--with this difference, that there is sturdy childhood instead of pliant infancy to work upon. by Mrs. Thomas. Parents’ Review, Volume 3, 1892/93, pages 681-686 (emphasis mine)

Internet, computer, tv, video games, twaddle books (oh, yes, there are a few), electronics, cell phones, etc. all play a role in our family’s lives. Granted the allowances for each of these are smaller than the ‘average’ household (who spend an average of 55 hours a week using the electronic devices and I can’t imagine the statistics for ‘twaddle’ books is available), they still have a way of holding onto the minds and ‘day-dreaming’ of my kids. When they are to do school work, sometimes they are focused more on “When I get done, I can play on the computer for x amount of time…”

Roberts says, “keep one subject before the mind at a time, and to encourage energy and perseverance in studying and discussing the one point to which we have narrowed the inquiry.” Mrs. Thomas stresses that “…the mother or teacher must be prepared to bestow much time and energy on this object, and must leave nothing to chance.” (emphasis mine)

It cannot be left to the student to focus on these things. It is my *job* to direct my children. Since I started later on the habit training, I may have a difficult road ahead but it will be to their benefit in the long run that I keep at it. And as I teach them, I also learn.

It requires my time, my effort, my love.

I was kind and gentle with my ds today (I knew he was tired but since he chose not to nap…school had to go on) but firm that he focus on what was at hand. It went much smoother after that and he realized he understood what he read but simply wasn’t concentrating on it well.