Watching our children grow up

As our older two daughters grew older they increased their focus. They became more disciplined about staying on top of tasks and managing their time. They were pretty responsible about owning their education.

But our young daughter was often distracted. She seemed to have a harder time staying on task. She might finish an assignment and then take a “short” break which ended up being an hour or two. Our impression was she just wasn’t as responsible about doing her school work as her sisters. Though to be fair part of it may just have been that we were subconsciously comparing her at 10 to her sisters who would then be 14 and 16.

This has changed noticeably this year. Our youngest daughter, at 13, has stepped it up a level or two in being on top of her school work. She is much better about making sure she gets her assignments done. Both Janine and I have noticed the change. She will even do school work in the evening, without any prompting from us! And recently she’s been asking me to help get her out of bed at 7:00 AM so she can get a jump on the day.

She isn’t perfect and still gets distracted at times. But I no longer worry. She is heading in the right direction. She wants to be responsible.

We've long know that some children need extra time for their brains to develop before they start to read.  I really didn't start reading until I was nine or so.   Maybe we just need to relax and realize that some children will mature into young adults at different rates than others.

I’m so glad that homeschooling allows us the chance to work with our children at their pace.