Meine Kinder

Spring is looming in the air teasing me with wonderful days. I long for warmer weather. then my bubble is burst as I yet again have to have some sort of confrontation with my oldest son now 13 years. The days my sweet boy and I got along so well are well not really around anymore. Don't get me wrong we do have our good times it just seems of late we have been butting heads for a while.

What is the latest? He "hates" homeschooling. His words. When asked to produce a reasonable reason to return to ps he gave his friends. MMMM that is one of the reasons we pulled him back out. Believe me I have seen him enjoy the benefits of hs ing. he sleeps most days till about 9:30-10:00. He is in charge of what he wants to work on as long as the list of things to do is done. We got a nice science book and he has been doing the chapter tests in them. History he has been writ ting a paper on the revolutionary war, world war 2 and civil war. This started a big fight. so here it is and you can tell me if I am nuts, wrong or right.



I gave him two weeks to get this done. Do you want to know when he finally started worked on it? Friday the day it was due. He did read(research?) his history book and find some information on the net. The problem here is he went straight to wikepedia and that's it. No further search for another source. needless to say when he turned in his paper that I saw him work on for all of an hour I was unhappy with the result. I'm sorry if I give you two weeks I better see that amount of work in your paper. He got all upset when I said he had to redo it and type it up. Then his buddy called and I said he couldn't spend the night because he failed to put in 100% in his history paper on the civil war.

So he rewrites it and types it up. Let me tell you here what I saw he came up with in the amount of time he worked on was impressive I just didn't feel that it was worth 7th grade work. So I said he could spend the next evening if he rewrites the paper yet again and looses the attitude. The following day he got up fairly early and rewrote the paper. He handed it to me and said can I go now? Ugg he obviously didn't get the point did he. I think that is the part that bothers me the most. Because if he doesn't get the point he will continue making the same mistake over and over. How do I show him the error of his ways in a way that he can see.

I got one more copy of the paper and I was still unhappy . Honestly I felt with every rewrite I saw how well he could write and I kept wondering how great of a paper I would have in my hands instead I got a total of 3 hrs tops and that was with the "oh my god" and "This is so stupid" and the ever present sigh as I take apart his paper. Would you guys like me to share the paper with you? I can type up the first and last copy. I still think that his paper could have been better but I am also tired of fighting over it.