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LucyP
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Hi ladies, my son is just 4, and I am at a loss for how to encourage him with education. Our plan was to start this monday coming with a year of very low key fun activities to get him used to listening, obeying, thinking etc, with no goal of getting him reading/writing/recognizing letters etc yet. But he is such a struggle! All he wants to do is cut out and paint. He hates to draw and while he did produce okay drawings (a head, a body, some stick legs and arms, an attempt at a face, sometimes round hands and feet) now he just draws lines or does scribble writing. Cutting out is something he can't do - he basically sits and shreds paper with the scissors holding the paper while he pulls. Painting is okay, but messy and time consuming.
Today I asked him to draw a picture and he spent 45 minutes shrieking and crying. He often tunes out during "reading with a educational purpose" - he is an avid listener and remembers a lot, but if asked "so what happened in the story?" he will say he doesn't know, and because he "has issues" he isn't good at picking up on emotions and being able to say if it was scary for x to be lost or happy for y to get a present.
I honestly don't think he has an educational delay - I think it is all related to adoption/attachment problems coming out now that he has a new sister: he is back to toddler hood, I guess. So do I spend the year doing play dough and finger paints?
What is it normal for a 4 year old to achieve?
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NavyMom
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I have had great expereince with Handwriting without tears
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Maryan
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I'm certainly not an expert - but I've adopted "the wait until they're ready" attitude with my boys. I think it's okay if he just likes play dough!
Boys have a harder time with fine motor skills for writing, so I do HWT too with my boys and it's a big hit. They have a play dough option for letters and more.
Also -- what about doing puzzles with grips to help work on his future pencil grip, etc.
Can you get him to do a finger puppet play about the story or something else?
Just some suggestions...
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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montessori_lori
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Hi, Lucy! Sounds like you do have your hands full. I would shift, if I were you, from parent-direct activities to child-directed ones. What this means, in real life, is that you put out a variety of activities (art, crafts, play doh, etc.) and let him choose what he wants to do.
Think about this quote by John Taylor Gatto for a second (bolded mine):
"Wherever I go in the United States these days I hear of something called the crisis of discipline, how children are not motivated, how they resist learning. That is nonsense, of course. Children resist teaching, as they should, but nobody resists learning.
Basically, your son is resisting you because he doesn't want to be taught. He wants to learn how to learn by himself. It might sound like not a big difference but it really is.
My background is in Montessori, and I don't know if you're familiar with that, but one of the key ideas is that we follow the interests of the child. This is a little scary, at first. What if they want to do play-doh every day for a month? Things like that do happen, but rather than worrying about academics, it helps to observe the child's behavior. It's okay if they want to do Play-doh every day, but along with the Play-doh you can make other kinds of work available to see what piques his interest.
Many times, children are frustrated by what we ask them to do. If only they could say, "Mom, I don't want to do that right now" or "Mom, that's too hard for me; I'm frustrated by that task". They can't express their feelings that way, so they demonstrate them by acting out: screaming, crying, refusing to work, etc.
Your son will learn how to read, write, cut, and all the other important tasks. Will he learn them as fast as Sally down the street? Maybe not. Is that important? No, it really shouldn't be. He's an individual and he has his own internal time table that he's following.
I remember when my son was learning to crawl. I would watch him on all fours, sort of rocking back and forth. Why didn't he just crawl forward? I couldn't understand it. After just getting up on all fours for awhile, he started moving backwards on all fours. Frankly, it must have been a month before he truly crawled forward.
Tasks like writing, cutting, etc. are just like that. We've forgotten because we learned them so long ago. They are actually quite sophisticated: they require fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and the ability to follow directions. Each part of the skill needs to be learned and mastered, just like my son needed to be able to get up on all fours first, then move backwards, then finally crawl forwards. It's a really long process to our adult way of thinking.
My daughter is four, and we read simply for pleasure. We don't talk about what the story meant or what the characters were thinking. Not only is that too sophisticated for her right now - she doesn't even have the vocabulary to express thoughts like that - but it implies that reading can't be done sheerly for pleasure. If you are reading to your son frequently, he will begin to understand things like plot, character motivation, etc. almost instinctively, and by about 1st grade he'll be able to talk about those things. But all of that "talking" part doesn't need to start now. For now, it's enough to just read.
Here are some ideas to improve the "pincer grip" needed for writing; make them available but only show your son how to do them if he initiates it:
Squeezing water (first with a turkey baster, then moving to smaller eye droppers after a few months)
Tonging - using tongs to transfer cotton balls or pom poms from one bowl to another
Puzzles with large knobs, moving gradually to puzzles with small knobs
Kids know how to push our buttons. Sometimes, the more we want them to do something, the more they resist. Backing off, observing more, and letting him have choices will completely change his attitude towards working with you. Let us know how it goes!
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Jan 04 2008 at 5:31pm | IP Logged
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I agree that forcing a child, especially at that age, to do certain things makes everything a struggle. My ds just turned five, and the whole year he was four he went through phases... he painted with watercolors every day for about 6 weeks. He went through a scissor obsession. And, lo and behold, he also went through a numbers craze... all on his own. I'm often amazed how he picks things up in his own time.
We also use the Montessori approach, and I can't say how wonderful a fit it has been for us.
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lapazfarm
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I think the advice so far has been fantastic. The only thing I can add is that it is not at all unreasonable to expect a child to revert quite a bit during times of family upheaval. Adoption, of course, brings it's own special brand of issues. What would it hurt, really, to just let him be a baby for awhile, if that is where his need is?
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Waverley
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I agree that the advice you have gotten so far is terrific.
As an adoptive parent, I really encourage you to make your relationship with him your pirority (as opposed to his learning numbers, etc.) Right now, just be his mom. Let him learn it is fun to be with you and that you respect his needs and feelings regarding his new sibling. Once he learns that, he can learn everything else later.
Good luck to you and hang in there.
Waverley
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LucyP
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Ladies - THANK YOU! I so needed this wake up call - to re-connect me with what I already know, but forget. I'm so uptight about being able to show extended family and social services that he is "achieving" that I forget all his troubles and special needs [not "real" special needs, but kwim?] and the fact that he has massively regressed since baby came.
Today I packed up all the preschool learning resources (counting, phonics etc activities and made space for fun stuff. We can no way have space or money for a learning room and montessori or waldorf-lite "stuff", but I've made sure that paper is accessible, that baskets with gummed paper and scissors, art paper and glue, play dough supplies in a tin, etc are all accessible EASILY.
And I am going to forget about trying to educate him at all for at least a year (unless the regression stops and he suddenly catches up again at which I point I will reconsider again) - fun and fellowship are the keys notes!
Thanks for your input!
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Maryan
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Sounds like a great plan Lucy!
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
A Lee in the Woudes
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lapazfarm
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Awesome, Lucy!
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Theresa
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Barbara C.
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I just want to add that kids can learn a lot from just those fun things. Games like Shoots and Ladders and Candy Land. At 4, my daughter started being interested in card games: Go Fish, Old Maid, War, and ,at closer to five, Crazy Eights. (I happened across all four decks for $2 at the grocery.) Jigsaw puzzles were great for working on order of operations (first we do the edges, then the middle), looking for patterns (let's look for all the pieces that have this color/marking), and just time together.
Games like Simon Says and Freeze Dance work on listening skills. Hopscotch works on number recognition. And yoga can focus on different animals and objects (there's some great videos for kids out there). All of which help work the body as well as the mind.
And like others have side, kind of follow his lead. Unschooling is great at this age. If he starts asking about robots, find all the books, movies, websites, coloring sheets, etc, on robots.
And as crazy as it sounds, he might like something with slightly more structure like a workbook. Kumon makes some great workbooks like My First Book of Tracing, Uppercase Letters, Numbers 1-30, and Number Games 1-70. (Avoid the Cutting one, though.) The work books teach pencil control in small but fun amounts. "Draw a picture" might be too overwhelming for him, but something seeming to have a smaller margin of error might reassure him.
I wish you luck!!
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Barbara
Mom to "spirited" dd(9), "spunky" dd (6), "sincere" dd (3), "sweet" dd (2), and baby girl #5 born 8/1/12!!
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Kathryn UK
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LucyP wrote:
Today I asked him to draw a picture and he spent 45 minutes shrieking and crying. He often tunes out during "reading with a educational purpose" - he is an avid listener and remembers a lot, but if asked "so what happened in the story?" he will say he doesn't know, and because he "has issues" he isn't good at picking up on emotions and being able to say if it was scary for x to be lost or happy for y to get a present.
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Lucy, that would have been my eldest as a 4yo. I still regret that I didn't back off and just let her play for a lot longer and only do educational stuff when she wanted to.
As for identifying "scary" and "happy" at 4, I remember reading the story of Romeo and Juliet to the same dd at 8 and asking her if she thought it was sad - she looked surprised and said no, she thought it was funny. How it took me 10 years or so to realise that this child has no imagination whatsoever, I have no idea!
You have been given great advice here. If you want to "see" what simple, inexpensive Montessori activities for little ones can look like, I suggest you visit Theresa's LaPaz Learning blog. She has posted a number of pictures there.
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Kathryn
Dh Michael,  Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
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Waverley
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I'm glad you're feeling better Lucy. Keep us posted on how you're doing!!
You said your dd likes to paint. Have you ever let him "paint" with shaving cream? You can just squirt some shaving cream onto a cookie sheet and let him paint. You can draw shapes with your fingers or you can let him drive his cars through it or you can give him a bunch of kitchen utilsels and let him drag them through the shaving cream to see what patterns they make. I've found its pretty easy to clean up the shaving cream. Just avoid the shaving cream with menthol in it because it burns if it gets in a cut or in his eyes.
Waverley
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montessori_lori
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Lucy, I started writing this post over a month ago. But tonight when I posted it I was thinking of you and your son. I hope you find it helpful!
Soothing Work for Troubled Kids
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Waverley
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| Posted: Jan 07 2008 at 2:37pm | IP Logged
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Montessori Lori,
Thank you so much for the link and your wonderful article. I have printed it out and have given it a lot of prayerful consideration. I have even begun looking into local Montessori schools for my dd who is in Kindergarten at a local classical curriculum charter school. I feel this approach may be better for her.
Thank you again,
Waverley
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montessori_lori
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So glad you liked it! I hope you're able to pursue the Montessori option for her daughter. It is so wonderful.
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MommyD
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You've gotten lots of great advice and it sounds like you are on the right path!
Have you tried getting him a doodlepad? My daughter hates to draw on paper but she loves drawing on the doodlepad and then erasing it like magic. Just a thought.
Melissa
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