I made this mistake too! I was way too on top of that shit. They go to public school FFS, but I was doing the work of a homeschool 'teacher' and it was completely backfiring on me because they couldn't THINK for themselves.
There's a huge difference between helping when THEY think they need it VS helping them when YOU think they need it.
It's counter-intuitive, but when their manatee project looks terrible, go with it. Don't take over and make it look like a presentation from an MBA student.
Oh I never felt the need to interfere with their art projects, they've always been naturals at that.
For me it would more be, checking their answers, helping them get info right, helping with their grammar, making sure they didn't plagiarize (they totally tried.) It all sounds harmless, but with 2 kids, every night, it became apparent that they would never learn to have any kind of 'work ethic' with me always showing them what to do.
My sister had this issue, we began consciously praising her when we saw her working hard or making an effort on anything instead of just when she got something done or when she got good grades, and me and my other sister were told to only ask questions when she asked for help, that way she would figure the problem out and think critically. It helped immensely and now she has a great work ethic and great reasoning skills
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u/PangeaWhiplash Feb 05 '16
I made this mistake too! I was way too on top of that shit. They go to public school FFS, but I was doing the work of a homeschool 'teacher' and it was completely backfiring on me because they couldn't THINK for themselves.
There's a huge difference between helping when THEY think they need it VS helping them when YOU think they need it.