>>And another big topic that comes to mind is — when do we push children to take on something that is hard for them, and when do we let them make their own decision on whether or not they want to pursue a certain area? Examples in my family: one daughter decided to drop out of a class she was taking. Another daughter would rather not study a certain subject that I feel is important. Etc.<<

I’ve had this dilemma a number of times over the years in our homeschooling.  The choice I’ve come to is that I’ll insist on something if a) I know it’s something they need and they’ll later be disadvantaged; b) it’s something that they won’t need but will regret not having the skills for later on.

The first tends to affect academic type issues – I want my kids to have the skills to navigate life successfully.  There are things that I think are important to that goal – for example, because I feel that strong reading, writing, and math skills are an asset and a person is disadvantaged without it, I’ll insist on this regardless of whether a child wants to do it or not.  However, I’m very flexible about at what age I expect a child to do certain level work.  I also try to help the kids find ways to impart the information in as enjoyable way as possible.  So insisting doesn’t mean making a child miserable and being rigid.  There’s a lot of flexibility and personalizing that goes along with this.

So let’s say a young child hates writing.  I’ll back off this and let it be for a while – this means knowing your child and paying attention to their cues.  I did this with ds7 and he’s just now finishing the lettering for the ABC.    I know the readiness wasn’t there before this and pushing wasn’t going to help and probably would be damaging.  But with some time, the resistance generally fades and the readiness builds.  At that point I’ll start them off slow and pay attention to how it’s going for the child in question.

To do this, you have to be confident that 1) your child wants to learn and 2) will learn when given the chance, or you’ll get hung up on what kids in school are up to and put yourself and your child under lots of unnecessary pressure.  This gets easier to do with time, but is sometimes agonizing the in the beginning, as you’re going out on faith that the principles of true education and relationship building will work before the results are there.  At this point it’s much easier for me since I’ve gone through this so many times, and seen that in the end they get where you want them to be- happily.

The second area to think about pushing is regarding things that they don’t need to do, like lessons you sign them up for in the spirit of fun.  Years ago my ds16 had an unpleasant experience at swim lessons (at age eight) and refused to go back.  I didn’t see the point of pushing it, and since he continued to be resistant to the idea over the years, he didn’t go back for lessons.  It would have been a mistake to make him go back right away, because it really was a frightening and unnerving situation he was put in.  But looking back I think there was a point where I could have encouraged – pushed – him to try lessons again, maybe two years after the initial trauma.  I didn’t, though, because I was unsure about how much to push, and now despite the fact that he’s an extremely athletic young man, his swimming skills remain weak.

Several months ago ds10 told me he wanted to quit piano lessons.  I grappled with this, since this isn’t something he needs to be able to do long term.  After asking him why he wanted to stop (answer: he wasn’t progressing at the rate he wanted because he wasn’t putting in enough practice time), I told him that he needed to continue and to find time to practice more frequently so he’d see progress.  How did I decide on this?

Aquiring competence is a discipline – it’s wonderful to play music well, but it doesn’t happen by itself.  I know that, but he doesn’t.  I didn’t want him to give up and years later, instead of a skill he would have taken pleasure from would be the memory of giving up.  I told him that he didn’t have to stay with it if he didn’t like it, but that I didn’t want him to quit without really making a fair effort.   He’s now really enjoying piano and is very glad he didn’t quit.  He had a recital last week and is at the beginning intermediate level, now able to play simple classical compositions and performed duets with each of his sisters in addition to his own two pieces, and gets so much satisfaction from it.

Again, it’s critical to know your child.  A general tip I would say is, if you’re feeling the desire to push because you feel fearful, then wait.

Avivah