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Maggie
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged
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Hi Moms~
"Difficult" is a euphemism.
Trad. School is absolutely no place for this child because she would 1). Probably be expelled. When she does not get her way she hits. 2). She would definitely follow the crowd. 3). Honestly, with this child, traditional school would be detrimental to her.
Consequently, much of my school year was spent disciplining her. So much that we are sorely behind in school...but I was too burned out to school this summer.
This child is also beyond intelligent. She devours books like crazy and has an amazing reading level. We did CHC as a spine last year, and she has complained that it was "way too easy". I did it for the moral formation aspects...
This situation has created a very stressful environment in our home, to say the least. At this point, I really feel like I need to humble myself, knowing my own weaknesses, and bite the bullet and buy a pre-packaged curriculum as a spine...so that on bad days...which are most...I can at least look at something without thinking and do what i need to do.
I do not know what to choose. I am looking at MODG...it's pricey..but if I knew it was best, I would do it. I was thinking Angelicum, but while it is challenging, I am not comfortable with the literature selections as I think they are too mature, content wise...
I'm not a Seton Fan.
I like Mater Amabilis, but am so worried I will drop the ball and not be able to plan. But it would be the best fit, imho...but i am sooooo.burned.out.
There is no perfect curriculum out there for me at all. I will likely tweak whatever I do...but I don't know what to do anymore...disillusionment has already set in...
Any advice appreciated...but it's very lonely walking this path...we have lost many friends due to our child's behavior...  It's just not how I envisioned Catholic family life when I said, "I do."
__________________
Wife to dh (12 years) Mama to dd (10) ds (8), dd (1), ds (nb) and to Philip Mary (5/26/09), Lucy Joy (12/6/09), and Margaret Mary (3/6/10) who entered Heaven before we had a chance to hold them.
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SallyT
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 6:38pm | IP Logged
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Is this your 9-year-old, Maggie?
I don't know if you do Facebook, but there is an MA group there, and many people have shared files with plans, with varying levels of detail, for this age group (Level 2 Year 1, I'm guessing? a.k.a. 4th grade?), and others.
We use a kind of hybrid of MA -- a lot of their selections, but also a lot of shopping my own shelves and Kindle freebies. I have spent a good bit of time this summer breaking down my kids' work into daily checklists, which honestly isn't that hard, though it is a little time-consuming. On the other hand, once you have your booklist lined up, you *can* just do a general schedule for the week -- which books are going to be read which days -- and your daily plan can be "read the next chapter in Book X."
A Charlotte Mason education is excellent for anyone, but especially for a child who actively wants to feed on books. The challenge sometimes to getting them to slow down and absorb, but really, for a child who wants to read, a day spent reading rich, challenging, good books is a day not spent fighting over busywork. Some kids really do have a very keen sense of what's meaningful vs. what's meaningless work -- I have some of those kids in my house as well, and with them, CHC workbooks were like, "Welcome to time wasting!"
MA includes many, many beautiful selections that feed a child's character, possibly more deeply and richly than what I sometimes feel are rather moralistic readings in other curricula. (ok, I have one kid who loathes saint stories, even . . . *sigh*).
Learning to plan this kind of education effectively has been a learning curve for me, though I'm finally, after many years, getting fairly proficient at it. If your heart says that this is going to speak to her, then I'm sure I'm not the only person who'd be happy to help you plan.
I'm not speaking to the behavioral side of things right now, just the learning. My own oldest child was VERY intense -- well, she still is, but those years leading up to puberty were particularly tough. I tend to think now, looking back, that she had some kind of sensory integration disorder, but nobody was talking about things like that back then. Life with her in those years was largely about dreading the next trigger for the next meltdown.
That's hard to remember now, when she's a very lovely 20-year-old living a pretty functional young-adult life . . . but her emotions dominated our household for many years, and much of what I did when we began homeschooling (when she was 9) was really just a function of trying to avoid battles with her. We were pretty unschooly in those days -- she read a LOT, got involved in theater which was a lifesaver for her, was never very good at math . . . and is now a successful college senior. God is good.
None of this is advice, just to say that I know what it's like to live with an intense, hair-trigger 9-year-old girl. What really helped me, throughout her young childhood, was to remind myself that that intensity was part of what would ultimately be a really good, strong, creative personality. There were days when she was little when I would literally say to myself: I must not break this child's neck today, because someday she's going to be a really great adult.
Other people can probably say more concretely helpful things about discipline. I was honestly never very good at it, other than trying to look for and praise what was positive, and praying a lot.
Sally
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Maggie
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 7:57pm | IP Logged
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Sally,
Thank you for your very thoughtful and thorough reply.
Yes, this is my 4th grade daughter.
I would seriously pay good money for a printed, daily check-list for Mater Amabilis.  I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around planning...but with a very high needs 9yo, a 7yo and an infant, time is at a premium here. Isn't it for us all? 
The battles are constant. Daily. Over the most innane things. We don't even know what will set her off sometimes...but most of the time it is because she did not get her way...or the vision she had did not come to fruition...or was interrupted somehow. Mostly, though, she always wants her way and has explosive eruptions when not catered to.
She went through her math lessons recently and counted all the ones she missed: 53. Which means 53 of everything else, too. We had a talk regarding how and why that happened...but in the heat of the moment, she cannot settle down...
She is incredibly creative and imaginative. Loves choir and anything theatrical...but is rather poor in group settings. One on one play dates work fairly well...anything more than that can be catastrophic. I've holed myself up after an epic explosion at our recent Little Flowers Tea Party...been six weeks and I still can't show my face...it was bad. She doesn't have much of a concept that she is doing anything wrong. She blames others for her behavior and is constantly the victim in her mind...this is really hard to work with...sometimes there is contrition for wrong doing...but it can literally take months to get to the point of contrition...I largely suspected sensory processing disorder when she was 2-3...but I had her tested, and they said she was "borderline" or "mild" at worst...of course, when she was tested, she was an absolute angel that day and the OT's thought I was nuts.
I had a glimmer of hope recently. We took a trip to Maine and Boston for two weeks...in Boston, I took dd and the baby to the Museum of Fine Arts while the boys went to the Red Sox game. Dh and I went to Boston University...and so Boston and the MFA were our playgrounds for several years. My daughter just ATE. UP. the ancient Egypt/Early Greece/Early Rome exhibits. She sat and sketched mummies and pottery and coins...just loved it! She had a fit when I took her to see the Impressionists...not her thing...but I will never forget her sitting so silently, painstakingly drawing the 4 stages of a mummy in the calm, dim of the MFA ancient Egypt exhibit...
And so...I hold my breath and try to look forward to the freshness of September...but I'm so worried about things going poorly...again.
I cannot find other Catholic mamas who are/have gone through this. Some moms, locally, are quite willing to tell me what I am doing wrong (some have even gone so far as to complain about our daughter to the local parish priest)...but few have really tried to understand how difficult this situation is on our whole family spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I beg for prayers from this board.
__________________
Wife to dh (12 years) Mama to dd (10) ds (8), dd (1), ds (nb) and to Philip Mary (5/26/09), Lucy Joy (12/6/09), and Margaret Mary (3/6/10) who entered Heaven before we had a chance to hold them.
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SallyT
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged
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You have my total sympathy. When my daughter was that age, we weren't Catholic, but all the church ladies in our Anglican parish thought something was wrong with her. And probably with me, too.
I do think that some children just have heightened sensitivities, even if they don't show up as diagnosable disorders -- these can be physical, but also emotional, as in having zero tolerance for frustration. I think one thing to understand is that a child in this position is not *choosing* to be that way. They don't *like* to be out of control. They don't like themselves when they are out of control. And the best "discipline," probably, is the arduous process of helping them learn how to gain control. (and maturity. truly. my daughter was a GREAT teenager, mostly).
One book I found very helpful was -- despite the negative-sounding title -- Stanley Turecki's The Difficult Child. It's really a very compassionate look at the makeup of children who just are "more" in any number of ways. Actually, I checked it out of the library when my now-12-year-old son was 3, because he was giving me fits -- what I realized, on reading it, was that really he wasn't that difficult, but his older sister fit every. single. difficulty. indicator. in the entire book. By that time she was aging out of the worst of it, but it still gave me lots of insight into her as a person, and I wished I had read it years earlier. He offers some concrete strategies for discipline as well -- none of which I can now remember, but they are all geared toward these kids on whom regular discipline just doesn't work.
The more you can capitalize on what *does* work with your daughter, the better. I would totally have logged that day at the museum as "school" and counted it! We were really unschoolers during those years, and I turned my energies toward finding good books, paying attention to interests, and giving credit for things she did on her own initiative, rather than reinventing the wheel with imposed assignments. She was one of those kids who did tons of writing -- she ate up those "Dear America" books at about that age and began writing her own, choosing a historical period and researching it as she wrote. So for a good long time, that was history, English, composition . . . Math, as I said before, was our weakness, and she's still not great at it, but she did get into college . . .
By high school she had developed some fairly strong academic interests, and those years were much more "schooly" in a standard way, because she very much wanted to go to college and was motivated to do what it would take to get there. And she has done really well there -- an A/B student, on the Dean's List most semesters, a member of her department's honor society, writing for the campus newspaper, involved in reading groups and other activities. If you had told me when she was 9 than she would be handling all these things, plus a constellation of friends, I think I might have been skeptical., because lots of days I was sure we were going nowhere.
This is a challenge, for sure. And it may be that with an out-of-the-box kid you have to look for out-of-the-box solutions -- for schooling, for socializing (I can see my daughter NOT loving a Little Flowers tea party at 9), for all kinds of things. But you are not alone, and you are not failing at Catholic family life or motherhood or anything else. Sometimes the gifts God gives us are prickly ones, and we just have to learn, over the course of many years, how to hold them so they don't prick us, or themselves.
God bless you.
Sally
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3ringcircus
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 8:47pm | IP Logged
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I hope you don't mind me straying off-topic but have you heard of the Feingold Food Plan? My eldest has different behaviors but they have an impact on how we school. I was at my wits end toward the end of our first year until I essentially removed the artificial chemicals from our diet. As difficult as it was to implement initially, it made life a lot easier; including in the area of his temper. Actually, when I was looking into natural ways to help him, some Catholic homeschooling mom friends recommended I look into it.
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Christine
Mom to my circus of boys: G-1/06, D-1/04, S-4/10
Started HS in Fall'12
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MichelleW
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| Posted: July 11 2014 at 10:02pm | IP Logged
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I have one like that as well. It IS lonely, and I am so sorry that you have to go through this. And that your daughter has to go through this. I think it's pretty tough for our "odd ducks" to navigate life. They know they don't fit, even if they don't understand why.
I'm not sure I have any good advice to give. I made so many mistakes. But, I will certainly pray.
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Michelle
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: July 12 2014 at 5:16am | IP Logged
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I don't have a child like yours, though I second the Feingold diet. I suspect my fourth, who is the most difficult child I have had, would be much more so if our diets included more of the behavioral triggers.
That said, I really do think *I* would unschool a child like that. Out of all that you have to deal with, it sounds a blessing to me that she really loves to read and will "eat up" educational things of her own volition. I would work with these blessings and strengths and your own limitations. What Sally describes sounds ideal to me. Perhaps Susie Andres book, "A Little Way of Homeschooling" would help you discern unschooling as a path for your family or just your year.
However, a simple compromise might be to make daily checklists that included math, if that is something concrete you want to stay on track with. If you want some structure with your language arts, something like Spelling Wisdom or Intermediate Language Lessons would be easy to plot as well. As for plotting chapters and such, Iwould not. I would make a basket of "schoolbooks." You could put on your checklist, "read and narrate a chapter from three school books" and put a place to write in what she chose. You could use the method where you put the assignments on a sticky in the front of the book, and they are marked off as read.
I have daily checklists from our hybrid Mater Amabilis Fourth grade year, but I fear it might not help you unless you were willing to go with my substitutions and finagle a bit from the books we used that carried over from the previous year.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 12 2014 at 6:04am | IP Logged
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Maggie-
I also live with a "personality force" in my house,,, 11 yo boy.
I have found Mary Kurcinka's books invaluable for helping me understand what is going on in his mind and develop coping strategies.
"Raising Your Spirited CHild" and "Kids, Parents and Power Struggles" are my life lines. My library has both.
Some kids are just more of everything... more intelligent, more sensitive (how many shirt tags have I cut off ds's clothes in 11 years?), more intense, more passionate, more.... everything! than others.
There is nothing wrong with them. And it is *not* your fault. Anyone who judges you ( and it feels like everyone, doesn't it?") obviously does not have a spirited child. The ones who do instantly recognize where you are coming from and know how amazing (and exhausting) these kids are.
I second Lindsay in having a more unschoolish approach with your dd.
Can you let her help decide what she wants to study this fall? If she helps choose, then it's less of a "you're making me do this" situation.
Like Sally's child, my ds is not a fan of religious reading. He will gobble up "Diary of an Early American Boy" with all its drawings and mechanics but cry when "St. Francis of the Seven Seas" comes out. So this year I have planned for him to read only one religious-type book independently... sort of a compromise.
Your dd might also be intrigued by the Life of Fred math books. They are quirky enough and humorous enough to hold the interest of almost anyone. And there is so much in there besides math to think about.
This week for two days my ds wrote out a constant stream of numbers on several sheets of papers. I had no idea what he was doing. So then of course he asked me to guess  I had no clue, so he explained they were all Fibonacci numbers, which we had read about in Life of Fred the past year. Sheesh... this from the boy who "hates" math.
Then, of course, there was yesterday... when he had a complete and total meltdown because of an unexpected hitch in our plans: we couldn't get into the tennis courts to play. Like you said, you never know what is going to set them off next. It's a roller coaster ride... but it is never dull!
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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SallyT
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| Posted: July 12 2014 at 7:10am | IP Logged
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Yes, I really do agree with Lindsay's suggestion, at least for now. As she moves into middle school and matures, you might re-adopt a slightly more structured approach, at least in some things, but I would just feed her books off the MA list and let her read at her own pace.
The fourth-grade ancient history is Greece, which should dovetail really nicely with the interest she's already shown in your museum visit.
My two Level 2 kids this past year really came to enjoy Our Island Story on audio -- it's available free on Librivox, but there's also a very good version of it on Audible.com, which made my subscription totally worth it! My current 12-year-old (not as difficult as his sister, but still difficult) resisted that book at first . . . because the first chapter has mermaids in it. I kind of had to break through his wall to get him to listen to it. Fortunately he's a kid you *can* push back with, and he won't explode, at least not as much.
And I would not worry much about formal output. The CM approach calls for narration, but for a child like this, I would just watch to see how she processes her reading -- in art, in writing, in play -- on her own terms. I still do a good bit of that with my younger children, but for a child who's going to resist and fight and *need* to work through things in her own way, I think it's the only way, really. Focus on what goes in, and let what comes out take care of itself.
That is why, I think, boxed curricula are probably not a good fit for a child like this -- because they do emphasize one-size-fits-all projects and responses. Obviously, eventually everyone has to learn to meet standards and requirements and fulfill assignments, but 9 is not the age to make that all-important. I would just focus instead on feeding her mind with good books (including some excellent read-alouds that your 7-year-old can enjoy as well), and inviting her to good habits via responsibility in the family -- being your helper in every way she can.
Honestly, what really "made" my daughter at that age was that we had a baby -- actually, we had one when she was eight and one when she was 9, and both of them were "her" babies. Still are! But helping me with them was both pleasurable for her and something she could do that was positive and grown-up -- knowing that she was indispensable to me was very important.
Funny story about my own daughter that comes to mind -- at 11 she took down from the shelf and read an old leatherbound copy of The Poetical Works of John Milton that we have, because she thought the book was pretty. I didn't know she had read it until she showed me a series of drawings that she had done in oil pastel, that clearly showed the story of the Fall. I asked how she had come to do them, and she said, "I read that 'Paradise Lost' thing. " Doomed to be an English major . . . :)
Truly, in terms of academics, a smart kid who loves to read will be okay with very little formal school, as long as the books are good and rich. I worried for a long time, especially since my "more" child was my first, and we started homeschooling at precisely this difficult age (out of control 9-year-old, new baby, no job, transatlantic move -- hey, let's homeschool, too!), but she has been fine. More than fine. And she is super-self-motivated, excellent at managing her time, and not easily led astray by people or ideas -- all the bright side of having that super-resistant personality, as well as a function of having always more or less run her own education.
There really is a bright side! And eventually it does win out.
Sally
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kbfsc
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| Posted: July 14 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged
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Maggie, I'm a tad pressed for time so I haven't read every word of this thread - but I am empathizing with you! Especially when you said that your situation isn't what you envisioned when you said "I do". I know that is a very painful place!
First, prayer! Several years ago when I could have said the same thing, I began to intercede for my intense children and other issues in my home. Now I can look back and say that it was a time of serious spiritual growth and, amazingly, has born good fruit for my family! So may I suggest that you choose a patron for your situation and dig into prayer.
Second, I think the book Raising Your Spirited Child was mentioned above. Yes! It's excellent. I can't say enough about how this book helped me understand my intense children. And it's full of truly practical help.
Lastly, we began using Mater Amabilis last year and I have detailed plans for the level your daughter would be in in the fall. (2? I can't remember, but it's the one where ancient Greece is studied.) I am happy to share them with you if that would help. 
peace,
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Kiera
happy mama of ds '02, dd '03, ds '06, dd '09 and little ones in heaven
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Maggie
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| Posted: July 14 2014 at 5:54pm | IP Logged
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Kiera, I'm pming you. :)
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Wife to dh (12 years) Mama to dd (10) ds (8), dd (1), ds (nb) and to Philip Mary (5/26/09), Lucy Joy (12/6/09), and Margaret Mary (3/6/10) who entered Heaven before we had a chance to hold them.
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Maggie
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| Posted: July 14 2014 at 8:49pm | IP Logged
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All of these ideas and book suggestions are great! Thank you so much for the love, encouragement, and support all around!! When she was 2, I did check out the "Raising Your Spirited Child"...I didn't realize then that I would still need that resource now. 
I'm just glad to know that I'm not alone.
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Wife to dh (12 years) Mama to dd (10) ds (8), dd (1), ds (nb) and to Philip Mary (5/26/09), Lucy Joy (12/6/09), and Margaret Mary (3/6/10) who entered Heaven before we had a chance to hold them.
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guitarnan
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Of course you're not alone! God's children are unique and wonderful, but spirited kids do share some characteristics and behaviors. RYSC changed my life for the better, and I did find myself re-reading it every year or so in order to stay calm(ish) and focused and remind myself that I could control my reactions to tantrums and outbursts, and that I could provide a positive influence by using positive words to describe my child to others.
Your daughter reminds me so much of our son, before we decided to homeschool. He literally didn't know his own strength (he is tall and big-boned) and got into trouble in Catholic school because of his tendency to say exactly what he thought and to get angry and forget to walk away from difficult situations. Homeschooling was an enormous blessing for our family, even though we fell into it by accident (another story, good, but irrelevant).
He's 22 now, and is still big, opinionated and strong-minded, but he's a delight. His persistence has helped him develop an intense faith - I have never worried about his Mass attendance, ever! His sensitivity to light, sound, etc., means that he remembers details of trips and adventures that I forget. He loves history (see!) and has an amazing memory for details and experiences from our travels.
No, it is not easy to raise a child who is MORE MORE MORE. It is hard to be the positive advocate and interventionist. But it will work out. You will become more comfortable with the positive vocabulary (persistent instead of stubborn, for ex.) and it will become automatic. You will figure out ways to work with her enthusiasms and find good books for her to read, videos to watch, museums to visit (don't forget online tours of museums), etc. She will astound you.
Yes, you will have to stick to your guns about a few things, like math. Remember that cooking involves fractions and unit conversions and that map reading, grocery shopping and other everyday activities involve math. (Costco - perfect place to figure out per-box/can prices...AKA division...) History can be combined with geography (Where is Greece? How did the ancient Greeks get to the places we've read about?) and, of course, literature. And sewing (a friend told me today about making Greek costumes for her daughter to wrap up a unit on ancient Greece...they ate Greek food, too).
She's only in 4th grade, so you have a lot of flexibility re: lessons/topics covered. Give her words to use to describe her feelings and concerns (she might not know how to tell you how she feels). Remember that we're here. Ask for prayers on hard days. Many of us have traveled similar paths.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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knowloveserve
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Just wanted to chime in that you've described my 9 year old son to the tee. You are not alone.
I put him in parochial school two years ago because I felt like he was sabotaging all our efforts with the other kids. But sending him away only traded one set of problems for another. So we survived last year at home again.
In realizing that despite my best efforts, every day is going to be a power struggle, I am leaning more and more unschooly with him, comforted only by the promise that God desires our faithfulness, not success.
If I try to implement. MY plans, it's tedium and frustration and exasperation all day long. And more than having a "smart kid" ( though he's brilliant in some areas), I desperately want a LOVED kid and one who never doubts that he is loved, that knows that home is a sanctuary and that his family supports him. If I can give him this. (and keep us ALL close to the sacraments) I will count it as well done.
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Ellie
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LLMom
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I didn't have time to read all of the replies, but have you had her tested to see if something else is going on that might be affecting her? I ask because I had a child like this and finally at age 10, I had him tested and it explained a lot of the behavior. How does she behave for others if you are not around?
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Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Homeschooling difficult child
