Sometimes I'm asked if there are any repercussions with my son since I'm the one who stays home, rather than his mom. I have to admit, I don't know any other dads who stay home with their kids, work a job from home via the Internet, and who take care of the homeschooling chores.
But after almost six years at it, I don't see much of a problem. My son is able to understand the reasons for Mommy going to work, and he's able to see the advantage of having one parent at home to do everything from chase him around the house and play games with him to teach him number skills and reading. As a parent, I'm a little ambivalent about the whole daycare scenario. Like good parents and bad parents, there are good and bad daycares. Everyone does the best they can under the circumstances, and the kids are almost always resilient enough to withstand the best of intentions. :-)
Something I had thought about was the possibility of a disconnect with his mom, but that has not been the case at all. On the contrary, if he had to make a choice of which parent to spend time with, if he could only be with one for whatever reason, he always starts out picking Mom. That stings sometimes, but I understand the different kind of bond that children have with their moms. I felt the same about mine, but she was a stay-at-home mom. I would have thought the preference thing would work in reverse, but that has definitely not been the case in our home.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The reading milestone
I've gone through this several times in Jordan's life, and it's happening again. It happened when he started crawling and walking, then when he started feeding himself. Potty training was a big one--remembering the last time I had to change a diaper. "It's been years since I wore a diaper," Jordan said the other day.
A big jolt occurred when he started pre-kindergarten. He was growing up, becoming his own man.
And now, he's reading and writing and doing math. He's been reading "for years," too, but only small words and not as a rule. With the onset of kindergarten, he's had to increase his reading time, and with a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, he's learning at a super pace, enjoying every minute of it. There have been times when he even amazes himself.
Of course, there is a down side, which is also an up side: He comes to me less and less to read him what's happening on his games. He still does it by habit, but I coach him to read what it says, and he recognizes the words. I see the muted thrill in his eyes as he doubly understands that he can read and that he has deciphered what his game is telling him. Then it's ho-hum, back to the excitement of the game.
For me, however, the excitement is watching his unique potential turn into reality, remembering where he's been and wondering where he'll go.
A big jolt occurred when he started pre-kindergarten. He was growing up, becoming his own man.
And now, he's reading and writing and doing math. He's been reading "for years," too, but only small words and not as a rule. With the onset of kindergarten, he's had to increase his reading time, and with a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, he's learning at a super pace, enjoying every minute of it. There have been times when he even amazes himself.
Of course, there is a down side, which is also an up side: He comes to me less and less to read him what's happening on his games. He still does it by habit, but I coach him to read what it says, and he recognizes the words. I see the muted thrill in his eyes as he doubly understands that he can read and that he has deciphered what his game is telling him. Then it's ho-hum, back to the excitement of the game.
For me, however, the excitement is watching his unique potential turn into reality, remembering where he's been and wondering where he'll go.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Winning or losing, somebody has a good game
Home school continues to rule, and not only because we are never late to class.
Children must be taught the right way to win and lose. Jordan is used to winning, and he likes the feeling. If he loses, however, he is wont to show extreme sadness, even anger. Enter the concepts of the gracious winner and the good loser. Oddly enough, both sides start out saying and doing about the same thing: Shake hands and tell the other player "good game." Obviously if he won, he had the good game; if the other person won, that person had the good game. Nobody needs comment on "the bad game."
Understanding that the other person may feel the same way about the outcome of a competition is a small revelation to children, at least to my son. I think he is beginning to cope with it, though.
Our game of the month is foosball. He learned of it at a friend's house, so we found a table on craigslist and brought it home. Turns out it was a left-handed table, but that's another day's post. I learned a little of the art of the foos in my army days, so I regularly beat the boy and his mom, either or both, sometimes with one hand figuratively tied behind my back. But as they are both fast learners, I must revel in my king of the hill status while I can. It will not last.
After a couple of days of having to shake hands with his foosball opponent (me) and say "good game," he is developing the habit. Plus, the act has the added effect of switching his mental gears from angry sadness if he loses.
One thing I find interesting is that when Jordan accidentally kicks the ball into my goal, he laughs about it. But if I'm ahead and close to winning and score a point, he's disappointed and adamant that I should not have been able to make that point. Another interesting phenomenon is that if he's ahead--especially if I've spotted him some points--he also doesn't mind if make a score or two. It's just when I get near winning the game that he gets concerned.
I don't always have to win, though, and a couple of times, when I've spotted him some points, he's beaten me fair and square. He has some good shots!
Additionally, there is some geometry and perhaps some elementary physics to be learned from our recess break games of foosball. Nothing like studying the roller coasters on the field trips to King's Island will be next year, but it's all good.
Children must be taught the right way to win and lose. Jordan is used to winning, and he likes the feeling. If he loses, however, he is wont to show extreme sadness, even anger. Enter the concepts of the gracious winner and the good loser. Oddly enough, both sides start out saying and doing about the same thing: Shake hands and tell the other player "good game." Obviously if he won, he had the good game; if the other person won, that person had the good game. Nobody needs comment on "the bad game."
Understanding that the other person may feel the same way about the outcome of a competition is a small revelation to children, at least to my son. I think he is beginning to cope with it, though.
Our game of the month is foosball. He learned of it at a friend's house, so we found a table on craigslist and brought it home. Turns out it was a left-handed table, but that's another day's post. I learned a little of the art of the foos in my army days, so I regularly beat the boy and his mom, either or both, sometimes with one hand figuratively tied behind my back. But as they are both fast learners, I must revel in my king of the hill status while I can. It will not last.
After a couple of days of having to shake hands with his foosball opponent (me) and say "good game," he is developing the habit. Plus, the act has the added effect of switching his mental gears from angry sadness if he loses.
One thing I find interesting is that when Jordan accidentally kicks the ball into my goal, he laughs about it. But if I'm ahead and close to winning and score a point, he's disappointed and adamant that I should not have been able to make that point. Another interesting phenomenon is that if he's ahead--especially if I've spotted him some points--he also doesn't mind if make a score or two. It's just when I get near winning the game that he gets concerned.
I don't always have to win, though, and a couple of times, when I've spotted him some points, he's beaten me fair and square. He has some good shots!
Additionally, there is some geometry and perhaps some elementary physics to be learned from our recess break games of foosball. Nothing like studying the roller coasters on the field trips to King's Island will be next year, but it's all good.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Financial education
The way they teach in kindergarten is by repetition. Jordan learned the alphabet, days of the week, the months, everything, by repeating them.
As I edit and write about the stock market, I've had to share what I know about it with him, because the graphics and pictures grab his interest. The charts in particular intrigued him, so I told him they tracked the price of stocks through the day. Then he wanted to know what the dashed red line across the chart meant. I told him it was to show where the market opened so you could trace if stocks were up or down.
Wrong. So why, he wanted to know, did the chart start higher than the red line, as in the graphic above?
First I had to correct my answer to say the red line showed where stocks closed the previous session, then we got into how the markets around the globe open and close at different times relevant to where we are. That led to talking about the rotation of the earth, the earth's path around the sun, and finally we got back to the graphs.
We'll go over it some more, throwing in some continent, country, and capital names, and slowly but surely, he'll learn how money goes around the world and winds up back where it started. That information took me over 40 years to even begin to figure out. Jordan will be six in December.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Soccer season 2007 in the books
Jordan had his third successful soccer season end a couple of weeks ago. Still the tallest, most eager to get the ball player on the team, he didn't take long to get the ball and drive it to the net. He started taking longer shots, like the one pictured, instead of trying to get almost inside the net before shooting. As you might be able to tell from the little girl guarding the net, being in front of one of his power kicks does not feel good.
Jordan learned more about passing this season, as did several of his teammates. He also learned more about defense, because after he would score his first two points--usually about two minutes after he was in the game--the coach would put him on defense. He didn't like not being able to take the ball to the net, but he did what was asked of him, and a couple of times, he nearly scored from the half field stripe.
We're in the process of figuring out where indoor soccer is here in Dayton, or maybe trying out basketball. Not sure how kid-friendly basketball is. Seems like it'd be all right. I've heard that T-ball can be boring for a lot of the kids, especially in the outfield. Soccer, on the other hand, is pretty much everybody running all the time, more or less.
By 2022, which is only 15 years away, btw, maybe soccer players will be making big bucks like baseball and basketball players.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Happy with homeschool
I brought up to the boy the possibility that we might put him in half-day kindergarten while continuing to homeschool him, mostly so he could see other kids more often. The possibility's still not off the table, but Jordan at the time said he liked the way we were doing it now. Then he asked me if I liked it, too. I do, very much.
It's a little difficult putting together lesson plans so we both know what's going on every day, but with his mom with a bachelor's in elementary education, she can tell when we're not where we should be. And the thing is, we're at least two months ahead of where he's supposed to be. At this pace, he'll have to start first grade by next spring.
As for friends, he's seeing another soccer friend today, and he's still having a great time in children's church, though I've yet to crack the code to get into that clique of parents. Same with the local homeschooling co-ops, but it's coming along, slowly but surely. We have more lists of places to go and things to do. It's only a matter of putting it all together around the necessity of a little bit of work and a little bit more sleep.
It's a little difficult putting together lesson plans so we both know what's going on every day, but with his mom with a bachelor's in elementary education, she can tell when we're not where we should be. And the thing is, we're at least two months ahead of where he's supposed to be. At this pace, he'll have to start first grade by next spring.
As for friends, he's seeing another soccer friend today, and he's still having a great time in children's church, though I've yet to crack the code to get into that clique of parents. Same with the local homeschooling co-ops, but it's coming along, slowly but surely. We have more lists of places to go and things to do. It's only a matter of putting it all together around the necessity of a little bit of work and a little bit more sleep.
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