Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Just Walk Away from the Lesson and No One Will Get Hurt!

Did you ever have a day when your child seems to have a total brain-block against something?  Yesterday, my almost-6 year old son just could not get the words correct on his reading page.  He was learning the "s" sound at the end of the word.  i.e. cats  However, he kept switching the last two letters of EVERY word he was reading.  i.e. cast  Talk about frustrating.  At one point, he just had a bad attitude and began crying.  I sent him upstairs to rest until he could come back down without getting upset.  When he came down, his attitude was a bit better, but those pesky letters kept switching around on us! 

What do you do?  With my first child, I would prolong the agony until the early evening hours.  "It's not that hard.  You just need to try."  However, I have learned that nothing is accomplished that way except for tempers flaring, hair loss, and an increased loathing for education.  Now, we just put the lesson aside for the next day.  Which is exactly what we did yesterday.

This morning, we opened up to the reading lesson and, lo and behold, the letters stayed where they were supposed to be!  He didn't miss a word.  At one point, he stopped and said, "Now I'm getting it!" 

We didn't fall behind a day in our lesson.  The lesson was to know when to walk away with the intention of trying again the next day.  God's mercies are new every morning - even in the trials of a 5 year old's education.  All was bright and clear today - especially his smile!

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