Have finally spent some time out in my garden 🙂
Dug out nearly a third of last years sad and sorry vegetable patch, and hacked out most of the brambles that have grown back over the ridiculous hump. Started to remove bindweed root as well (I hate that stuff) and cleared away the evidence left by next door’s cat (*where* is our pump action water pistol? No matter how pacifist I am and how much I dislike guns, and I do, I feel that the water pistol may be our only solution now!)
Big did a small amount of digging before managing to scratch her finger and retiring in tears. 🙁 Small, by contrast, pottered around very happily – even clambering all over the hump. Had to laugh when he contrived to fall off backwards, and I turned around to find him lying on his back like a little beetle, waving his feet in the air! He really loves outdoors – it was peaceful with him there.
Did another page of Big’s book before we went out – pleasantly surprised to discover that she had done some with Tim yesterday without mentioning it to me, so the daily approach is being kept up. Since we’ve been back in we’ve been working on our first blog together – she is absolutely thrilled to be working with me, and it’s great to see her happy and involved.
Also realised that possibly I don’t give her enough positive feedback about her abilities, difficult one as I don’t want her to get arrogant or big headed, but I do want her to be realistic. (Aside, I find this sort of thing very difficult. I’m quite bright, and I didn’t do anything to achieve that, so I don’t see that it’s anything to go on about. Now, knowledge or skills I’ve aquired through applying my abilities, different thing entirely.) Anyway, we were talking about reading and maths and stuff, and she asked me about being at school, and whether we all worked on the same thing at the same time. I explained that at my primary school we didn’t, we all had individual maths books, and those who were better at maths had more difficult books that those who weren’t as good at it. She got a sad look on her face and said “I’m not very good at maths”. Um, well, actually…
She seemed quite pleased to hear that I think she’s rather good at it in reality!
Comments
19 responses to “Let battle commence!”
sounds like a good day! I am just chilling in peace. if we were going to live here, i could be persuaded by the garden idea, but i dig for no-one but me!
glad that reading still going well. Big must be gaining alot of confidence now. Also the blog sounds like a great idea. when its up and suitably password protected, I’m sure SB will want to look and comment! I hope its pink.
on the praise frontI worry sometimes that I praise SB too much. I got little praise compared to my sister cos I could do things, and she needed it, so I find as an adult I am apologetic about the things I can do and should be proud of. SO SB being raised to be loud and proud at the mo.
I think one of the good thing about home ed, is the only bench mark of achievement for SB to try and rank herself on is mine and chris’s approval. it did seem naff to start with to praise so much, but now its much easier. obviously not talking about saying aren’t you wonderful every 2 seconds, but you worked hard at that. Real wow praise is given only when i really mean it! It is not referential to anyone else. oh God, I think I may be a secret american mom sterotype! not as cloying IRL, as we temper it with a lot of humour, and ‘pigs ear’ references when it goes pear shaped.
im just SO desperate that she has more confidence in herself than I do. [steps off soapbox]
hmm, that praise thing is a hard one to get right, isn’t it. Most famous quote of my dad’s when I got 97% on a test at school was ‘where was the other 3%?’ About to blog more on that topic myself, I think!
Please can you ask Big to share her blog when she’s ready, I’d love to see it. And if she wants links etc. she can link to Anna’s and Abbie’s 🙂
That was the one that finally opened my eyes to it all – our mock maths O level. I got 95% on one paper and was told that was pretty good, but *only* 85% on the other. I was sitting there panicking, thinking how terrible it all was, when it suddenly clicked home that that was an average of 90% which was rather more than anyone else, and quite enough for an A grade, and what difference does it make after that???
First blog that Big is working on isn’t for her, you’ll see it soon 😉
ooohh exciting!
It’s difficult for us as adults to remember, but kids have actually no way of knowing whether they are good or bad at anything unless we tell them. I remember a friend of my Mum’s saying to me (when I was about 12 or so) “you’ll make a good driver one day” and I asked why and she said “you have quick reflexes” – I had absolutely no idea and no way of assessing myself as compared to anyone else. If we don’t tell them what their strengths are, who will? The rest of the world will knock them down enough – it’s up to me to build my kids up. Having said that, I too think I don’t remember to do it often enough. But with bill and I both suffering from ridiculously low self-esteem in comparison with our abilities, I don’t want that to happen to my kids if I can avoid it.
Jonathan and I have both suffered with low self esteem, and Jonathan had similar comments to the ‘what happened to the other 3%’ made to him. We praise our kids loads, especially when they try hard at something, and also when something is an obvious step forward from where they have been. They are extremely different from each other, and I don’t know whether that makes it easier or harder.
Agree with all the above- children get their selfworth from how valued they feel by us and part of that is approval and praise. If we overshoot and get a child who thinks too highly of themselves this can always be tempered with maturity and plenty of peer time but if we undershoot that is trickier to redress.
Very jealous of the gardening- this one is just too small to contain Pip (who is sometimes big headed and arrogant but always boisterous!!) and a veg plot :0(
Mmm.. .the praise thing. I was in the “B” class at school – and consistantly got an end of year average of 69% every year – i was getting earache about this from my Dad one day and said “Yes, but the bottom of the A class haven’t got an average of 69%, i’m doing better than them” and he said “yes but you aren’t IN the A class are you?” – it really hurt. I really don’t think about praise levels at all, i just say what comes out – if i can see they’ve tried and they arep leased i praise, if they seem to want to improve it, i help – if i’ve asked for something and they’ve messed about and its nothing like as well done as it could be, i ask them to try again.
Yay on the gardening front!
And I sometimes I think I don’t praise D enough – as when I do, her little face lights up and she seems to sit taller. Maybe I should make that my spring resolution – be more complimentary to my kids! 🙂 As long as it’s not excessive or unwarranted. Oh, the fine line…
I praise but I am also critical! I try to be positive about it though and would never ever ask about the other 3%!! Or other any %
Sounds a good day to me- the weather was lovely here too but I didn’t go out.
hmmm i had this debate with myself a while back when D started to actively seek praise from others whenever he heard it being dished out to other children. I have concluded that I praise plenty but I cannot do it for praises sake, otherwise I would feel like i was just patronising them and it would be false and insincere. I do praise when I feel praise is due – when they have done something which has been praiseworthy against their own standards. I am conscious of building up their own self worth but I do worry that over-praising is simply encouraging them to base their own self worth on the opinion and validation of others as opposed to them feeling it for themselves. As such my praise will tend to take the form of ‘well done, you did really well at that, you made a real effort / improved from last time / worked really hard. I am proud of you – are you proud of yourself? you should be’ type stuff. I would rather hear my child say ‘I am really proud of myself’ once than be praised by me and a thousand others.
Praise – tough one. I think to me it partly depends if you’re saying it to manipulate in someway, or as an honest comment. Is the praise meant to be a reward? I found the book Punished by Rewards really interesting reading. Do they know how well they’re doing – to a certain extent, why does it matter? But then we all just do compare ourselves against peers, don’t we, so perhaps it does matter. I’m not very sure what I think on that! It’s such a balancing act!
tha is my concern actually kath. i try and thing of positivity rather than blanket praise, in all aspects of SB. such as lovely wakeup smile, bounciness etc, as well as any ‘work’ [using the term loosely]. i guess i now find positive things to say on most things we do, whether it be pointing out she is better at grating nutmeg, laughing at her rhyming etc. The praise may be a reward i guess at times, but now i do it amost unconsciously, certainly not self consciously. I never do it in a comparitive way. if i have 2 children ie sb and nephew, i usually say different positive things to each so as sure no comparisons.in fact the only comparisons we do are maths ones!
i do find it a worry, but decided that freely given praise in abundance should be my strategy.
in fact i blogged on mine with ‘confidence’
I think praise is lovely when it comes from the heart. On the other hand I think it can be very patronising at times when doled out as a reward. I try hard to appreciate what my kids do, especially when they produce something that’s important to them, without setting myself up as some kind of judge. I hope they will grow up looking to their own feelings first and other people’s opinions after, when it comes to their work and their lives as a whole.
I was thinking about it, and you know, I *would* want to know what happened to the other 3%! Pretty sure my first words would be that 97% was an excellent mark, but my curiosity would make itself known pretty quickly 😉
On a personal level *I’d* want to know what happened to the other 3%, but it’s the first reaction that counts. I’m not sure that I ever got congratulated on my results as such, it was just always taken for granted.
I praise and give positive comments as much as possible when I feel it is right. I think positive comments possibly have the edge on praise as to a child they can mean the same thing sometimes. I just remember a) not getting any of the above and b) if I ever did it was always ‘good but’ followed by a negative. Doesn’t do anybody any good. Constructive criticism is OK if the child can take it the way it is intended and that takes practise. I think it depends on the child’s ability to assimilate what you are telling them at any given time – I don’t believe this depends on age just emotional and critical maturity. At the moment I feel that Little chick needs all the encouragement she can get as she only has two people to give it to her in the area of her speech and other areas where she needs to learn. She doesn’t need any encouragement in the area of naughtiness however LOL
I earnestly beleive that children need and seek our approval- not so much of what they do but of who they are, which often manifests as what they do-
‘well done, didn’t you try hard at that’-
but it is just as important to praise, and hence give our approval for them as people-
‘Pip, I love the way you thought of Titch before before doing that, I really like that about you’.
I base this beleif on my husband as he is one of the most confident, self assured epople I know- without being cocksure; he is capable of great humility. His mother and father praised sincerely and often and I’ve discussed this with them and observed how they are with my children- giving praise and *encouragement* about who they are and what they do, and they STILL do this with their adult children. mil often tell’s him he’s a great father, wonderful musician and also that she thinks he’s really great to know. It’s sincere and she means it but it is so refreshing to be amongst people who value each other and SAY so. As a consequence he values himself and knows his parents value him. What harm is that in a world where personal insecurity is rife?
nice to get some good feedback on my strategy for confidence!