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mumofsix
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| Posted: March 20 2006 at 12:39pm | IP Logged
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I have been doing some reading on attachment, and this paragraph out of Nancy Thomas' book, "When love is not enough" leaped out at me. Although this book addresses the problems of children with RAD ("Reactive Attachment Disorder") which I understand is the most severe form of attachment difficulties, I think what she says has resonance for homeschooling in general.
"The Home School concept is wonderful for regular children when the parent is qualified and dedicated. It is NOT an effective option for RAD children. It sets up major control battles between parent and child. The child not only loses his relationship with his mother over it, he loses the opportunity for an education. They often do not accept education from mother figures well until they are well healed. If, for any reason, a child cannot go to school, I recommend hiring a tutor."
Now although Nancy Thomas is speaking about children most seriously affected by attachment difficulties, I have seen and spoken to parents who have had major control battles with their "normal" children over homeschooling. I myself had a good few battles of this kind with my ds now 18, though not at all with any of my other five. My current pupils aged 16, 9 and 4 love their homeschool. The 16 year old is self-motivated and the little ones love anything I do with them. So it is not as if I do not know how to teach, or have fundamental problems as a parent.
That phrase haunts me: the child loses his relationship with his mother. In other words, if you have to battle with a child to get him to do his school work, not only is this likely to be of dubious benefit educationally but he will lose his mother.
I have never read a more powerful statement to the effect that relationship is more important than education. It makes sense of-course: unless your primary relationship is healthy, you are not going to be able to learn much, or to your capacity. But being a mother IS more important than being a teacher, and being a teacher of academics is not necessarily an integral part of being a mother, though it can be in the right circumstances.
I don't think this is an argument for school. I think Nancy Thomas underestimates the sheer alienating effect of school on many otherwise "normal" children who suffer from attachment difficulties primarily BECAUSE of school, the peer group, electronic entertainment and lack of parental time. I think it might be an argument for unschooling though!  Or certainly a very sensitive, child-centred approach.
Certainly I am more than ever grateful to initiatives like the "Real Learning" book and message boards, the "Mater Amabilis" curriculum, the wonderful "Bravewriter" courses and internet resources and so on. My dd 9 whose early experiences put her at risk for attachment difficulties is having an experience of homeschooling that enhances attachment and does not impede it. She literally skips like a spring lamb when I suggest activities for her to do. Her little brother is never far behind.
I believe many of the experiences of "burnout" that so many homeschooling mothers complain of is this terrible business of subordinating your mothering instincts to some overarching imperative to do with a set curriculum or a scope and sequence. It is so sad to see wonderful mothers spend their days quarrelling with their beloved children and feeling like terrible mothers. It is so unecessary. End of rant!
So, mother first, teacher second, ALWAYS from now on!
Jane.
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: March 20 2006 at 1:12pm | IP Logged
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I agree wholeheartedly.
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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Willa
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Quote:
| I don't think this is an argument for school. I think Nancy Thomas underestimates the sheer alienating effect of school on many otherwise "normal" children who suffer from attachment difficulties primarily BECAUSE of school, the peer group, electronic entertainment and lack of parental time. I think it might be an argument for unschooling though! Or certainly a very sensitive, child-centred approach. |
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Hi Jane,
Thanks for sharing those quotes. Do you think the book would be worth reading for a non-adoptive parent?
I agree with what you say in response to the book quote, above. I am afraid that if a parent and child already had a troubled relationship, that school would just make the core problem worse.
I have been reading several books recently about similar issues. One is
Hold onto your Kids; Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers and another was Emotion: The On/OFF Switch for Learning
ANother was The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness
All of these make the case, in different ways, that secure attachment is the bottom line for effective learning. If a child is struggling with attachment issues, psychically barely surviving, he will be incapable of learning effectively. To me that would be a reason to keep the kid at home and work on security even if no formal academics at all got done. (though obviously, I have no experience at all with RAD issues and wholeheartedly admire those of you who are fighting those issues).
It seems to me that academic skills can be learned fairly quickly in later life if the foundation is there, but that a focus on academics at the expense of secure attachment might well lead to problems, whether it's a matter of sending the child to school or stressing the relationship at home.
Of course a focus on relationships will not preclude concern about academics. It's not a dichotomy; it's sort of like a pyramid where one thing builds on another. In other words, I can tell when I'm being too lax about the mom/child relationship when it DOESN'T include aspirations for the child's progress and advancement and a firm belief in their ability to excel in their own ways.
The way the book Hold On To Your Kids explains it is that kids with attachment problems will lack the personal resources to explore, inquire or wonder until their attachment needs are met. If they are attached to their peers, the peers have a vested interest in keeping them immature and vulnerable and dependent. But parents are naturally invested with a desire to give to their children, to provide security for them and help them reach beyond their present state to what they are capable of.
But since I grew up in a somewhat peer-attached way myself, I have to watch myself so I parent this way instead of having a vested interest in my kids impressing the world, or alternately a vested interest in keeping them dependent by indulging them and setting low standards. Just something I have to balance out, but I know that homeschooling helps keep me aware of this balancing better than during the days when my kids went to school. And one reason is knowing my kids better and being more in tune with their interests and their challenges.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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mumofsix
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Willa - the Nancy Thomas book, "When love is not enough" is aimed at parents of children with RAD, the most severe form of attachment difficulty. I am not dealing with this personally, to the best of my understanding, but I still found the book very enlightening. It is not only adoption that can make a child vulnerable to attachment difficulties, but divorce, step-parenting, bereavement, severe illness in early childhood and many other things. I would say, if anyone is seriously worried by a child's behaviour or really struggling with behavioural aspects of homeschooling it would definitely be worth reading. Otherwise, it is a rewarding read anyway if you are interested in child development, but borrow don't buy!
I like your idea of relationship and learning being more of a pyramid than a dichotomy. Yes I do think a secure relationship would include a concern for a child to reach his learning potential. But what really made me think was Nancy Thomas' inclusion of academic learning on the list of things you cannot MAKE a child do, somewhat like eating.
You can provide a pleasant and nutritious diet, curb snacking between meals, ensure plenty of exercise to stimulate a good appetite and have rules about table manners and only allow TWO food dislikes (I liked that one!) but ultimately you cannot force a child to eat, so engaging in such a battle is a non-starter: you will only alienate the child and this is a control battle that he will win, damaging him still further.
Similarly, you can provide lots of good learning ideas, books, resources, etc. and encourage away, but if the child refuses point blank you cannot force him to read, write and so on. Battling over this will damage your relationship. However, Nancy Thomas advises that a child who refuses to go to school or to learn at home will need to prepare for a future career where reading, writing and maths are not necessary, so will need instead to spend lots of time on household jobs so as to build a range of practical skills! If he will not do chores either, he will need a good long rest (i.e. doing nothing) until he feels up to it. She always stresses these methods must not be punitive and done in anger, but with great empathy for the child who is, after all, suffering. This seems to me to be quite different from the educational neglect implied by some very radical unschooling models.
Jane.
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Leonie
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Jane,
I found your thoughts about this book to be fascinating.
I think that mothering and education can build on each other - the pyramid thing that Willa mentions. Mothering and education can be intertwined - when I listen to a child talk and then add in my own twist, I am both mothering and educating.
If however a choice has to be made between the two - I choose relationship!
I think that is why CM's words have always spoken to me. She talked a lot about forming relationships.
I agree, too, that we cannot make a child learn. We can encourage. We can accept. We can set up an environment and expectations and consequences - but ultimately leave it all with the child and with God.
I also think that empathy is important. I think radical unschoolers definitely demonstrate this empathy.
Where, perhaps, there is a lack with radical unschooling is in looking at the big picture. We need to address who the child is now but also be aware of who he might become or of where she might be going - the future. As Nancy Thomas describes , in your quote above, re possible future jobs.
Hmm, lots to think about!
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Living Without School
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Willa
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mumofsix wrote:
| Similarly, you can provide lots of good learning ideas, books, resources, etc. and encourage away, but if the child refuses point blank you cannot force him to read, write and so on. Battling over this will damage your relationship. |
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This sounds a bit like Charlotte Mason, doesn't it? She makes a similar comparison between eating and learning, and furthermore holds that the "atmosphere" in which these things take place is important for the actual assimilation/digestion. The kind of discipline you describe can take place positively and sympathetically.
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| If he will not do chores either, he will need a good long rest (i.e. doing nothing) until he feels up to it. She always stresses these methods must not be punitive and done in anger, but with great empathy for the child who is, after all, suffering. This seems to me to be quite different from the educational neglect implied by some very radical unschooling models. |
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I think you are right, and Leonie makes a very good point that overpermissiveness forgets to keep in mind the "big picture" -- where the child is going in the long run. Montessori says that we should help the child do whatever he can for himself, so he is not continually dependent/over-privileged. It puts any person in a bad way to be constantly useless and catered to, to be both a sort of ruler AND a nuisance, and for a child it must be especially hard on their sense of worth.
I think also that children, by nature, want to learn as much as they want to eat. That is one "unschooling" tenet that completely rings true and has been noted since Aristotle's time. But I think in some ways that the first thing they NEED and hunger to learn is that they can trust.
I guess I'm saying that I think relationship and security are the first educational lessons on a child's agenda. He can't connect well to abstract academic relationships if he hasn't been able to experience concrete nurturance first.
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Willa
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Genevieve
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WJFR wrote:
| Montessori says that we should help the child do whatever he can for himself, so he is not continually dependent/over-privileged. |
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You might enjoy the book Montessori for Parents. In the last few chapters, it talks about the relationship between practical life activities and discipline and moral training. I believe cultivating independence and confidence in one's ability is an extension and also the goal of the practical life activites for young children. I used to get so frustrated with my young ones but this paragraph spoke to me
" .. in spite of the sharpness of our reproof to him, that he takes no pleasure in spilling the cookies and falling over te chairs; that is, that he had no set purpose to do this, instead of walking across the room and setting the plate down on the table. The question we should ask ourselves, is obviously, " Why then, did he do all those troublesome and careless things?" Obviously because we were requiring him to go through a complicated process, the separate parts of which he has not mastered.."
The underlying philosophy is that children want to do what is good and want to please us, similar to us adults wanting to do what is good and want to please God. So why don't we do it? Partially because of lack of habit and self-control but if broken down, the whole can be more easily obtained.
I realize I have gotten off tangent but I think in my case many times the atmoshpere and relationship is dampen because of these "disicipline" problems and having that insight has helped tremendously with my sons.
Does it make sense?
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Genevieve
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Cay Gibson
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By the same author of Understanding Besty! I had no idea she was an advocate of the Montessori method!
I found this at Answers.com:
"Understanding Betsy. The American popularizer of the Montessori educational system illustrates the principles behind the system in this popular children's book about a young girl's development."
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Cay Gibson
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Genevieve
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Ohhhhhh.... Now I'm itching to read the book! THanks Cay!
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Genevieve
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wamegomom
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Oh, Jane, you could not have posted this at a more opportune time. I'm struggling mightily with this very issue. My 14 y.o. dd, adopted from China nearly 8 years ago, does have RAD. We homeschooled her from the time she came home to us at age nearly 7 until 2 years ago when she forced the issue of school. She basically had been refusing to do anything and was, by her intentionally annoying attention-getting behaviors, really interfering with younger siblings' learning too. ( My other adopted kids have learning needs and challenges all over the map and I need to use lots of different approaches during an average day.) She thought that school was a wonderful treat that we were keeping from her (remember that one of the things that children with serious attachment issues never learned was trust, so she could not believe that we knew better or had her best interests at heart) and demanded to go. She was academically very far ahead in everything but spelling and writing, and the only thing she struggled with in literature studies was trouble understanding motivation of characters--why they feel the way they do and why they do what they choose to do--which of course is part of the RAD. She really does not understand this in real life and watches for clues to people's behaviors in a kind of hypervigilant way.
Anyway, we hated the first school and transferred her to the public school in the town where my husband works. Her grades are good, she says she has friends but no one ever calls or is invited over to our place, but I am increasingly concerned by the atmosphere of the school. All the teens in our parish go to this school and it is not a good influence if the discussions at the confirmation classes and youth group meetings are any way to judge. DD brought home "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" from the MIDDLE SCHOOL LIBRARY at the recommendation of a teacher and other students. On the back of the book it says that these magical jeans "may never be taken off you by a boy but you may take them off in a boy's presence." Part of the story line involves a 15 y.o. girl who seduces her adult male soccer coach, and there is nothing negative in the book to even hint that this is not a good idea! When I brought the inappropriateness of this book to dd's attention and took it away, she was furious and defensive, saying "Everyone except me has read this book and loved it." The school librarian treated me like Pat Robertson at his ickiest when I called about it and said that the book was tastefully written. When I mentioned that this "relationship" in the book was a felony, the librarian thought for a minute and decided that I was probably right, but she was not going to restrict the book in any way. That's just one example of the 8th grade atmosphere. DD says that discussions in her confirmation class show that most of the kids do not have Catholic values and live just like unchurched peers. I'm so sad about all this.
That said, after much prayer and agonizing, I wish she would homeschool again, but that quote from Nancy Thomas is the big thing stopping me. We are working hard on attaching, have a new therapist, and have actually had a huge change in her after we placed her temporarily in a therapeutic home where the parents were trained by Nancy Thomas herself. Things are really so much better than they were in January and early February, but it is such a delicate thing. I think dd wants to trust us but is so afraid to release control for even a second.
She herself has said "Maybe I'll homeschool next year" when discussions around the dinner table include problems with public schools in general and hers in particular, and actually said in anger one evening last week "If you loved me you'd make me homeschool!" My dh reminded her of exactly what you said, Jane, that you cannot make someone learn.
I know that our goal in our homeschool is to all end up in heaven together, and I cringe at the moral cesspool that even a small-town Kansas high school can be and worry about her lack of judgement and misplaced trust. Yet I remember asking her to write a sentence with each word on her spelling list for ex, while I worked with another child who has a severe visual processing disorder work on her reading, and the rages that ensued from older dd and no reading accomplished with younger dd. Though she has improved in sibling relationships, she still does really enjoy setting up one against another to encourage a fight for entertainment if she is bored. The other children have all come to me individually and said that they are relieved that she is in school but I feel so sad that she is in a place where the prevailing values are not those of our faith, and the academics are weak.
I know that homeschooling has been a positive factor in building attachment with my other children, but it was not one with this dd. She has such an overpowering need to control but she craves structure. When I attempted to give her a more structured homeschooling day, though, it became a power struggle and everyone was miserable. It's so hard to know what will work with her--sometimes it is the strangest thing that seems to be "right" for her. For ex, at the therapeutic respite home they have door alarms on the bedrooms at night. I thought she would hate that, but she requested it here at home because it "makes me feel safe. I can't go into somebody's room at night and steal or steal from the pantry. I have no choice but to sleep." (This is a child who hoards food big-time when feeling stressed.)
I don't know what to do. When I saw CHC's High School of Your Dreams I sighed inside, wishing that we could do that together. I just don't know what she's able to do. Willa, the point you made about kids who have attachment problems lacking the personal resources to explore, inquire or wonder until their attachment needs are met seems to be very true in our experience with this dd. We've only got 4 more years with her to try to help her develop a healthy (or at least healthier) attachment to us which is vital for all of her future relationships. My gut feeling is that she is not yet able to handle the day to day closeness that homeschooling provides, though I hope she can someday. I just feel sad that it seems like she is wasting time academically, and more importantly being exposed every day to moral and ethical situations that she's not equipped to handle either. (Sigh, she gave me the complete run-down of the TV schedule for MTV of all things--totally blocked at our house--including a thorough description of each show on the ride home from Confirmation class the other night.)My heart aches for her and for all children who suffer from attachment related problems. What a shock this all has been to a woman who was a home-birthing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping attachment-parenting LLL'er with my birthkids.
Learning and struggling in Kansas,
Mary Alice
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mumofsix
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Oh Mary Alice: isn't it agonising when they won't trust you and you love them SO much? 
I went to our national organisation's annual weekend for children adopted from China last weekend and was able to attend a couple of seminars on attachment with Franca Brenninkmayer. It was she who gave me the Nancy Thomas book. I am coming to terms (with difficulty) with the likelihood that my ds 18 has attachment issues. Like you, with my other children I am a co-sleeping attachment-parenting homeschool nut and would certainly have home-birthed if you could do that with adopted children - I breast-fed my one new-born.
I couldn't look at attachment for a long time because I was doing all the attachment things, so why would it be that? Of-course what I failed to take into account was what happened before I got there. Your dear daughter had nearly 7 years of suffering, but even my son's nine months in utero could have and I believe did damage him very much. He was/is highly sensitive, had a birth mother who certainly had major depression/anxiety issues, and if I had KNOWN (why did no home study EVER mention risks for attachment difficulties) I would never have hurt him further by leaving him with a nanny when little or sending him to a school where he couldn't cope. Sigh.
I am very thankful that my others seem to be doing so well, including the two whose backgrounds were very traumatic, and I believe that my son's suffering may ultimately help both us and him to learn how best to avoid problems for my younger children and his own children (which he dearly wishes to have some day).
I was so intrigued by Nancy Thomas' blanket condemnation of homeschooling for RAD children. I really don't think she allows for the alienating effect of modern high schools which can cause attachment difficulties in even completely non-traumatised children. Yet, she is so right that homeschooling can become ripe for control battles.
This is what I am doing with dd 9 whose background makes her very vulnerable to attachment difficulties (though she is in fact doing incredibly well): we do a nice, British, colourful maths scheme. I would say it is closest to MathUsee, of the American curriculum. We do "The Writer's Jungle". We read a lot. She reads well, but loves to be read aloud to. We read a lot of the Mater Amabilis books, but usually binge on one at a time, rather than reading little bits out of several: I know, not so Charlotte Mason, but good for making connections BETWEEN US, as we talk about the book a lot (currently "Our Island Story"). Science is hands on, so is R.E.: we pray, have a reading and are compiling a book about our church. We do lots of art and singing and she plays piano. We do very minimal workbooks: she would do these quite happily all day, but then remain in her own world and I want her in mine! She has a handwriting workbook and occasionally does a bit in a Faith and Life workbook or colours in a Tan saint book. That is it for work books. Ds 4 will be/is being taught in the same way: phonics through games. They both LOVE to homeschool and it is clearly building attachment. I never try to make them do anything they don't want to do (for school) and they are both making excellent progress.
I will never battle another child as I did my ds 18. It is frustrating if a bright child does not want to study for exams (here) or a high school transcript(U.S.) but you cannot force it and it is pointless to try. My son is now actually very keen on the idea of going back to college now, after a few months of unemployment because he lacks qualifications: there you go, natural consequences doing the work for you!
The real bugbear as you say is the interference in the others' learning and the disruption. That is so difficult to handle. What I would do again in that situation would be to farm out as much of the education as I could, while the child remained at home. He would have tutors, teacher-assisted classes from the correspondence schools, etc. and I would only teach the classes he LOVED! That is still homeschooling. I once heard about an aristocratic Austrian family who homeschooled their children by hiring tutors for everything except R.E. and history, the most culturally sensitive subjects. That sounded like fun to me. At the worst, if the child did nothing academically, there are so many second chances today, as Kathryn reminds me. (Brilliant as she is, she did not do her degree until later in life.) If the attachment is there, the fondation for later learning is laid.
I must shut up soon, but let me say finally that it is not all over at age 18. I sooo feared that. Yet my son, after a couple of forays away, now WANTS to live here, is getting on quite well with us, and is slowly learning in all sorts of ways, not from our lectures, but from life and from the fact that we are always here for him. It is slowly sinking in.
Hmmm, lucky you to have Nancy Thomas! She comes to England though, and I am definitely going to her seminar next time she comes.
Jane.
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Willa
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Mary Alice,
I was very touched by your story.
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| I know that homeschooling has been a positive factor in building attachment with my other children, but it was not one with this dd. She has such an overpowering need to control but she craves structure. When I attempted to give her a more structured homeschooling day, though, it became a power struggle and everyone was miserable. It's so hard to know what will work with her--sometimes it is the strangest thing that seems to be "right" for her |
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I suppose it's not just a question of "not learning anything" at home, it's a question of affecting the whole home atmosphere and the other kids, as well.
You sound like such a great mother; I imagine that even if she won't accept all that you'd like to give her, she must be waaay better off morally, having a family like yours than she would in any other situation.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Relationship versus education.
