Little Things
I have been on Eli's case about chewing his nails and fingers for over a year now. He has always been a little nail biter, and when those are gone, he goes for the skin around his nails. It is nasty, I know, I should have a *graphic content* warning. I didn't really notice how bad it was until he got out of the tub one day, and his little shriveled tub-fingers revealed all the places where skin was missing. I begged him to please stop.
I know it is hard to break a habit like that, but I continually stressed the importance of trying. The funky stuff he touches was in his mouth, germs, disease, plain old dirt. Yuck.
About a month ago, out of the blue, Eli said "mom, look at my fingers". I looked expecting to see his dirty and extremely short nails, but to my surprise I saw healthy little 7 year old fingers. They were still a little dirty, he is a boy after all, but other than a little nail dirt, they were beautiful. I actually cut his nails for the first time in over 4 years.
So, I made him a deal. If he could keep it up and not chew his nails for the whole month of January, I would buy him a DS game. He is just 2 weeks away from a new game, and a broken habit. It is a little thing, but I am so proud of him.
A few months ago I sat down with Gabe in the school room and read from the script in our new reading curriculum. It went like this:
Say this to your child
"I am going to teach you to read. We're going to work every day for about fifteen minutes. The work is hard, but I think you can do it ......"
Gabe cut me off and said "I don't want to read!!!" and threw a pencil at me.
There was no information in my curriculum on how do deal with THAT response.
But we worked on it anyway. Just 15-20 minutes a day, on a good day. Some days were longer because Gabe had to throw a fit and "quit school" a few times before we could get through the lesson.
This week something magical happened. Gabe read "sat". And then he read "see", "eat", "ram", and a few other words. He was so excited, he didn't want to stop. Today we did three lessons because he just wanted to keep going. He is sounding out words and actually enjoying it. He is writing really well and actually asks for more homework. He still gets a little frustrated when things get hard, but he is on his way to reading and learning to control his response to being faced with academic challenges.
He doesn't have to read right now, he will start kindergarten in the fall and I'm sure they will teach him. But I wanted him to read. I wanted to sit down with him every day and give him a foundation for math, reading, writing, and memorization. We accomplished just that, and we still have 16 weeks of school left to go.
I'm proud of the little guy for coming to our school room every day with a willingness to learn (even if just for the first few moments) and for letting me teach him.
I know it is hard to break a habit like that, but I continually stressed the importance of trying. The funky stuff he touches was in his mouth, germs, disease, plain old dirt. Yuck.
About a month ago, out of the blue, Eli said "mom, look at my fingers". I looked expecting to see his dirty and extremely short nails, but to my surprise I saw healthy little 7 year old fingers. They were still a little dirty, he is a boy after all, but other than a little nail dirt, they were beautiful. I actually cut his nails for the first time in over 4 years.
So, I made him a deal. If he could keep it up and not chew his nails for the whole month of January, I would buy him a DS game. He is just 2 weeks away from a new game, and a broken habit. It is a little thing, but I am so proud of him.
A few months ago I sat down with Gabe in the school room and read from the script in our new reading curriculum. It went like this:
Say this to your child
"I am going to teach you to read. We're going to work every day for about fifteen minutes. The work is hard, but I think you can do it ......"
Gabe cut me off and said "I don't want to read!!!" and threw a pencil at me.
There was no information in my curriculum on how do deal with THAT response.
But we worked on it anyway. Just 15-20 minutes a day, on a good day. Some days were longer because Gabe had to throw a fit and "quit school" a few times before we could get through the lesson.
This week something magical happened. Gabe read "sat". And then he read "see", "eat", "ram", and a few other words. He was so excited, he didn't want to stop. Today we did three lessons because he just wanted to keep going. He is sounding out words and actually enjoying it. He is writing really well and actually asks for more homework. He still gets a little frustrated when things get hard, but he is on his way to reading and learning to control his response to being faced with academic challenges.
He doesn't have to read right now, he will start kindergarten in the fall and I'm sure they will teach him. But I wanted him to read. I wanted to sit down with him every day and give him a foundation for math, reading, writing, and memorization. We accomplished just that, and we still have 16 weeks of school left to go.
I'm proud of the little guy for coming to our school room every day with a willingness to learn (even if just for the first few moments) and for letting me teach him.
Comments
Hurray Gabe you are learning how to read that is really great.
Most of all hurray to you Clarissa. I knew you could teach your kids ! Now you know it too. Isn't a great feeling to know you make a difference in how your kids look at learning and success at a hard task for them. I am proud of all of you. Love you Mom
You too Gabe. Whoo Hoo.