More on robot camp
Dec 30, 2004 Homeschooling
Today was the last day and he came out of the classroom smiling so I think that Noah feels that the trauma of the past three days was worth it. It certainly gave him a lot to chew on.
His robot is something from a kit and the Olympics ended up being a fun race, which he enjoyed. All the kids got pencils and puddle jumpers and the winner got a nifty periscope. (Coincidentally and unbeknownst to Noah, he’s getting a smaller periscope for his birthday.)
He was trying to remember the name the bully was using on the other kid in the class and last night he thought maybe it was “rotund.” I was surprised but figure that maybe the bully was a reader. No, Noah had it wrong. He was actually calling the other child “a retard.” So then I had to explain to Noah what that meant and how most people don’t use that word anymore — they use “developmentally delayed” or “developmentally disabled.” I told him that this word was meant to be an insult directed to the insultee but was also meant to insult people with developmental disabilities. We were talking about this on the drive home and he was getting very upset about all of it. I told him that generally speaking, people get mean when other people are mean to them. Not always, I told him, but pretty often.
When we were pulling into the driveway he suddenly said, “Sometimes when things happen, I put them away like in a box in my head. And then I take out just some parts of it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, shutting off the car but leaving my key in the ignition.
“I mean, like say I pretend that I’m Calvin and the bully is Moe and then I can think it’s funny instead of it being awful and real life.”
I told him that this sounded like a good coping mechanism for him and that sometimes it helped to get another perspective on things. And then I had to explain what “coping” was and “mechanism” and “perspective.” And by that time we were inside and the baby wanted a bottle (and a diaper change) and he was itching to show me how the robot worked so that’s all we said about it. But I heard him telling Brett about it later.
December 29th, 2004 at 11:43 pm
I am glad that N. had a good time, learned something about robots and learned some about dealing with other people.
One thing I worry about myself as a mother is if I am making it all too easy for my child, by protecting her from too many slings & arrows. I don’t think there’s an answer, but surely our children need to learn about perserverance when a task isn’t fun, and the rewards of trudging though an unpleasant or unrewarding task, and how to deal fairly with those we find personally distasteful, and how to protect ourselves in an appropriate way from the depredations of those without….limits.
I also suspect I am a kneejerk reactionary when it comes to unschooling. There’s a family in our circle who believes in unschooling, and it is a disaster. The oldest child is pushing 14 and doesn’t read. Literally. From some of the errors I’ve observed, I believe this child (who is a bit younger than mine) has dyslexia, and possibly some auditory processing disabilities. But the unschooling mother mocked me relentlessly six years ago when I cruelly “forced” my daughter into learning, by enrolling her in a Lindamood Bell intensive. (She went in reading 2 years behind grade and came out reading about 5 years ahead–matching her oral vocabulary mastery). According to Unschooling Mom, there’s no such thing as dyslexia, it is a fraud perpetrated by the Schooling Establishment.
The younger two children are just brats. I know the family from doing a sport together, in which we share an area during competitions. The younger two make more trouble that the other five or so children in their age grouping. The mother is alwasy making excuses. I find it difficult to keep my peace.
December 30th, 2004 at 9:58 am
My kidlets are in public school…and one(a small one) of the reasons to us, is to help them get the coping mechanism that Noah so clearly has!! I am very VERY impressed. (although I was impressed with Noah’s first book too? :))
December 30th, 2004 at 10:31 am
When my son was in school, the bullying of other children really bothered him. Especially in his after school program, where the bullying was much more intense. He talked about it a lot and even asked me to speak to the teachers and inervene for other kids. He spoke up himself too. But that generally didn’t help and only got him grief. When he told the teacher about a girl bullying another boy until he cried (this during a group project), she just stuck the bully in with my boy’s group. Great way to teach him not to stick his neck out for another kid. I couldn’t stand seeing kids bullied when I was in school either. I stuck up for other kids and spoke to the the one’s who were considered the losers. The thing is, it just made my life miserable. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut and distance myself, because by Jr. High the abuse was becoming physical (and it’s no different nowadays. Two of my son’s 11 year old friends have been jumped- one of them has had it happen three times!- since starting middle school this year).
I’ve never understood people who said they could see why those who had bad school experiences homeschooled, but they’d had a great experience so school was fine for them. How were they not disturbed by the daily suffering of some of their classmates? There is no way you can watch others suffer and not be changed by it. Even if the change is that you learn to ignore the suffering of others- and that’s something I’m afraid too many people learn in institutional schools.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:35 pm
Coping skills are funny things. When it comes to kids, sometimes it is hard to recognize and properly congradulate them.
I’ve blogged several times over the last few weeks about bullies - ours are a group of boys on the bus and at the bus stop. My 7 yo son did a great job on his own, but I had to step in later and I think it is wrapped up now.
I commend him for a number of things he did and I think a non-observant parent would have not realized some of the coping he did. When he came up and asked me for the movie about Lennie (I think that’s his name) when it came out on DVD, and then he corrected himself to say A Shark’s Tale, I didn’t realize right away when he meant. He wanted to see the movie again about the guy who was ostracized, picked on, shunned b/c somehow (I assume b/c he saw it with his dad) he muddled through with some sorts of skills/help and prevailed in the end.
Children are brilliant in what they draw on. Movies aren’t all bad, neither are moviemakers.