The past few days have been a real struggle – especially with Tyler. I don’t really have a set schedule, but a loose one. We tend to sit down for lessons after I wake up, read the Bible and we have breakfast. Then, we take a break for lunch and play. Sometime in early afternoon, we sit down and do some more lessons (sometimes finishing up). This was working well, and I’ve enjoyed the freedom in not having to watch the clock all day.
I strongly suspect our dear sweet Tyler needs a little more structure. Yesterday, he asked me if he could go to church school, that he’d changed his mind. It broke my heart a little. This whole week he’s struggled with sitting down to do lessons – we only do workbook lessons for maybe 20 minutes a day total! So, I know I’m not asking too much here. The rest of the time it is activities and crafts. Tyler has zero problem with those lessons! (naturally)
This morning started with Tyler taking certain liberties with Mom’s work table, my school command central. That did not go over well with me. For once, I did good. I walked away and I prayed. Then, I came back to my computer and journaled. In that process, I determined that we needed a schedule. It started out with specific times. I hated that before I got to scheduling out lunch time! UGH. So, I came up with this —
They love this format, and so do I. It not only gives them a visual, but the ground rules are in writing and inarguable. It is also not very constrictive or inflexible as to require a specific wake-up time. The only clock times on there are near and at bed time. There’s also only one time limited break on there. I’m hoping this gives me the freedom I do so love, and provides Tyler the structure of expectations that he needs.
Tyler requested his own copy, and the other kids followed suit. They proceeded to enact each step of the schedule with pretend play. Tyler went from bummed and “bored” to happy in 20 seconds flat. What a difference!
Now, to stick with it.