Growing Without Schooling 96
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Parents often ask us what they should do when their child finds a particular academic subject diJficult or uninteresting or perhaps just hasn't gotten around to pursuing it yet. Should they just stay out of the way and not push thechild to do it? Should they try to find creative ways of introducing the subject or working on it together? Should they try to find someone else, outside the family, to work with their child? Should they wait until the child says, "I'm ready to deal with this now,"
Vallie Raymond is among those who write for this issue's Focus, "When a Subject is Diflicult," p. 14- 16.
Inside this Issue: News & Reports p. 2
in School p. 3 A Homeschooler Goes to School -
Advocating for Kids
for a Day p. 4-5
Apprenticeship
in Belize p. 6-7
Homeschoolers
in
College p.
Young Homeschoolers p. Announcements
&
8-9
l0-ll
Requests p.
11
Watching Children Learn p. r2-r3 Marine Biologr, Electronics, Older Reader, Museum & Libra4r Volunteer, Computers
Subject
FOCUS: llrhen
Book Reviews
p.
is Difflcult p. 14-16
t7-20
f994 Directory of Families & Organizatlons p. 2l-38
and asks for help? The answer, probably, is all of the above. When, for this issue's Focus, we asked several young people to tell us what they wanted their parents to do in such situations, they mentioned all of these options, sometimes saying that different ones had worked for them at different times. This kind of answer can be just as frustrating to parents as the math or writing or geography is to their kids. It would be easier for adults if we could simply know, without a doubt, what to do in every situation. But the more I work with young people the more I feel that trying to be a helpful adult means hovering, constantly, in the balance between too much and not enough. I strll worry whether I should have said something when I didn't, or whether the suggestion I made was too intrusive. I still wonder about whether the help I offer will be welcomed, or resented, or not the right kind, or too late. One thing I do feel sure of, though, is that kids and adults can work this kind of thing out, if a few essential elements are in place: if the kids know that they can say no when they need to, if the adults are willing to try something different when the old way didn't work, and, most important, if the kids have a chance to develop, in their own minds, a genuine desire to work on the difficult or frustrating thing. Many of the writers in this issue talk about needing help or reminders or encouragement. They are not, contrary to a misconception about self-directed learning, working all by themselves in a vacuum. And they speak as often about truly wanting to get better at whatever it is they find difficult or distasteful. That's tuhy theywant help. This discussion, like so marry discussions in GWS, comes back to the distinction between helping kids achieve their own goals and tryrng to make them achieve someone else's goal. Vallie Raymond writes that she often needs her mother to tell her to do math before she goes out with her friends. But Vallie explains that by the time that happens, "IVe already confirmed, with myself, what I have to do." That's the point because Vallie has already confirmed it with herself, her mother's insistence works. It comes across as helpful
rather than irritating because Vallie really knows that she wants that kind of reminder from her mother. The balance, the sense of what it is appropriate for an adult to do, is still difficult to maintain, but with these distinctions clear in our minds, things get a lot easier.
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Susannah Sheffer