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  • Expressions of Frustration

    Posted by Nicki Lynn Sclama on September 8, 2024 at 5:58 PM

    UGH, I am sitting at my dining room table at 5:42p on a Sunday early evening while he catches up on school work from the first day of school.

    Not only is he aggravated and frustrated because his classes were all setup and he worked on them the first two days of school and on the third day they got reset to a different variation (he utilizes an online class model with success coach in-person support at his Hockey Academy)…..so the reset caused two to three days of work to be done all over which is why we’re here on Sunday night trying to catch up to be on pace going into his second week tomorrow.

    This work is a longer version/variation of what his regular days are like, in other words, we are cramming four lessons into one day when a typical school day has him covering one or two main lessons. So it’s double the work – ‘’more frustration and aggravation’ for my 12 year old boy who’s attention span is like that of a fly, landing one spot to the next every half a milli-second.

    The only way through this is for me to sit across the table and work on my own work and to time things for him and then give him breaks in between but it’s a lengthy day long process of doing the lesson (we agreed to half an hour breaks in between) before the next lesson.

    Then add in all the 12 year old boy emotions and attention deficits, poor kid just wants to go ride his bike or play outside with his dogs….which I’m half tempted to let him do but honestly going into the new week setback won’t emotionally feel good either. Especially when there’s only four other kids in his 7th grade and the other three kids are current because they are doing things a little different than he is as he doesn’t understand or know how to do the lessons like they are.

    I digress, a long discussion note for me to vent my own frustration because of the situation the school put him in by not being prepared, granted, things happen and need to be course corrected – especially in an online learning model. This is just new territory for my 7 year Waldorf student who spent 3/4 of his school day outside.

    The inconsistency’s and fluctuations and constant challenges he (or we) are learning to adapt to. Back to sitting here at the table, when the redirection happens it’s a constant battle….”you’re not fair” when he was given a 30 min break and he wasted an extra 10 coloring an apple symbol and playing with the dogs and I took 10min off his next 30 min break. Or when he vehemently puts his foot down and says “I’m not doing it” and then I have to implement a consequence for the resulting behavior and lack of respectful listening…”you’re mean and your’re always implementing consequences” with no relativeness to the frequency at which he decides to not listen or meets my requests with a challenge.

    UGH, parenting is not for the faint of heart that’s sure!

    I’ve spent my day working with him, no meditation, little self-care or fitness today – barely got good nutritious food in for us both while I’ve literally sat here for the day micro managing of sorts. if I walk away he is apt to jump on Google or mess around with something non-school related and hours just go by. In some respects, a day on and with and for him is a day well spent, I just am desperate for some ME time! Bedtime can’t come soon enough!

    UGH, please tell me this gets easier?

    Tina Waldrop replied 1 month, 2 weeks ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Tina Waldrop

    Member
    September 19, 2024 at 8:01 AM

    Oh Nicole! I feel for you! As a 35 year veteran educator I wish I had a magic wand to wave but alas I do not! Takes me back to pandemic days when we all went virtual…my teachers had a 45 minute tutorial the day before we broke for Spring Break on how to run a virtual classroom!! I held a lot of teacher and parent hands during that time and the one thing I kept saying is “give yourself and your kids grace”💕 In all reality no one is really prepared to teach in a virtual world, now or then! It’s too new! So everything is trial and error. And yes, you are parenting but you are also teaching!! And mental health breaks are important to both of you!! Take the breaks as often as you need in the beginning! The need for them will taper off as you both get in the groove!!

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