Mentoring Mothers Meeting

Mentoring Mothers: Inspire!

Introduction: "Nowhere in the Thomas Jefferson model do we advocate ignoring the student. There are two easy shortcuts...to education: ignore or require. The third type of education, Inspire, is extremely challenging. The conveyor belt seems to have conditioned this generation to believe that if you are not requiring, you are neglecting, and to say "inspire" is just an excuse to ignore (Leadership Education p. 86)."

"Leadership education wants . . . real "men with chests"... who stand with courage and wisdom and do what is needed, and real women who face the world with knowledge of what is right and the virtue and strength to bring it to pass (p.85)."

What inspires you to learn?
Some of our answers: reading & that internal thirst for knowledge, needs of the family, an early solid phase leads naturally to that desire to learn, and exposure to lots of different things.


Three Types of Motivation (from Pudewa)
1. Intrinsic: this is the best form and the one we want to eventually acheive. But that intrinsic desire won't come with everything every time.

2. Inspire: being inspired by something or someone else. When you're around someone who loves something, you can't help but start to love it yourself.

3. Coercive: external rewards. When do we use these? When they are relevent, when it is you following inspiration, when we know that the eventual outcome will be what the child needs to be motivated.

Pudewa shared an example of helping his dyslexic son learn how to read. His son wanted an air soft gun, so Dad would pay him $.01/word. For any whining, the kid was charged $.10. No other money could go toward the gun. This motivated his son into greater learning opportunities than had he not used an external reward.

What happens when there's a "slump?"
"Parents should seek inspiration to prioritize and invest themselves in the study of [the loves of their children] as much as possible in order to b prepared when the child asks questions or needs help or validation (LE, p. 163).

What do you do when you get in a slump?
Our answers: take time to see what is distracting you from your priorities, friends/each other, revisit the TJEd books, etc....

This led to a tangent discussion on Friends and the need for Building a Community (see ingredient #47). Most of us in the group agree that a scholar phase community is a definite need. However, the need for formal & organized activities for the younger groups...maybe not as necessary. I think we came to some conclusion that small group activities may be more beneficial during the early phases and one mom said that it completely depends on each child.

My Three E's of Inspiring
Exposure
Andrew Pudewa fully advocates the Suzuki method of teaching (Earliest age, best environment, best teacher, best method). What I took home from this is making all subjects part of your natural environment. Exposing our children to many different topics, ideas, questions and experiences gives them that thirst for learning and shows them all the possibilities that are out there.

One way to expose them to different things is through what TJEd calls Kidschool (we at our house call it "Group Learning Time"). This is where I have the opportuniy to expose them to what I am learning OR what I'm excited about them learning. For me this involves a lot of reading, games and a project here or there.

Here we went on yet another tangent topic: MATH EXPOSURE and making math just as much part of your daily living as reading AND getting rid of our fears of math so that we can teach and inspire our children to enjoy math. Also, we must know the facts before we understand the concept.

Example
Mothers can't teach what they aren't excited about. Wait, they can, but if they aren't excited about it that's when the requiring usually takes presidence over the inspiring. The idea of You, Not Them takes on a whole different meaning when we look at it as YOU set the exampe, YOU focus on what is needed in the family and take THEM along with you. You, not Them does not mean only focus on yourself and ignore your children (remember: TJEd does not advocate ignoring).

Emancipation (or Elbow Room....Whatever E word means "freedom" to you). :-)
I have noticed with my children that when we are overscheduled there is much less inspired learning going on. When I free the calendar and leave plenty of room in our day for exploring and questions and imagination, that is when the inspiring truly takes place. "The effectiveness of freedom truly recommends itself. More people should try it (p.68)."

Articles to Read
Are We There Yet? - Rebekah Joy Anast
Changes, Changes Everywhere - Oliver DeMille
Math Resources & Books Mentioned
Kumon Math
Fermat's Enigma (the first math inspiring book I read)
Life of Fred series

 

Next Month: Transition to Scholar Phase

Mentoring Mothers: What it Means to Mentor

January 2011 Meeting Notes
Our Mentoring Mothers group is back in action! And I don't know about the other ladies, but for me it was a great uplift and gave me the exact recharge I needed!!


We are still discussing the Love of Learning phase, for us and our children. I had many things on the agenda, but we ended up using the whole two hours on just learning and discussing what it really means to MENTOR (rather than nagging our children as mothers are so good at doing!). :-) Most of what we discussed is in Leadership Education by the DeMilles. I'll try to sum it all up as best I can (but if you really want to be recharged, the meetings are so much better!).

"There is nothing more challenging in the entire educational world than an excellent Love of Learning Phase. Day in and day out, week after week and year after year, the parent-teacher's role is to inspire the child to happily, consistently and unswervingly study, learn, search, discover, enlighten, know and apply." - - Leadership Education, p. 86

There are 6 "How To's" of Mentoring

1. Use the Classics - we tied this in a bit with the current events "how to" (#4) in how using the classics and history to prepare our children for disasterous or violent things that may happen in our current society. If we are well-versed in the Classics and our children are familiar with them, it's easier to relate to the events that may be occuring at the present time.

2. Personalize - We talked extensively about this one! Sometimes, especially with multiple children and only so much time & energy as a mother/mentor, it is hard to figure out HOW to completely personalize our child's education. Some ideas we came up with were:

- Holding a quality FEC & personal interviews with each child (this seemed to be #1)

Of this the DeMilles say, "We discuss the children individually . . . concerns, needs, opportunities, problems, struggles, hopes, fears, doubts, talents, any particular impressions one of us may have regarding them, etc....This is the first and most important step to mentoring a child in any phase (p. 64)."

We also talked about how this doesn't always have to be the formal sit down setting. One family hold their "meetings" on the parents' bed because it's comfortable and informal feeling. One father prefers to hold the interviews on an as needed basis while doing other things with an individual child, rather than as a sit down personal interview. There are ways to make FEC and personal interviews work for YOUR family... it just important to make it happen...consistantly. And sometimes all this means is giving them a chance to talk and knowing you will listen!

- Knowing your children - who they are and what they can do

- Looking at the Adult Skills list in the Home Compaion to see what each child needs

- Sometimes is requires dropping what you're doing & to get involved with them. One mother said, "I chose this life." In other words, it's okay and necessary to put other things on hold to devote to what I have chosen to do, which is being a mother and a mentor for my children.

3. Keep it Simple - Stick to the basics! Read, discuss, & write. One example I think of is my friend, the author of Frolic & Farce . She covers so much, but keeps it basic and simple...with lots and lots of reading! We also mentioned the need to be aware of your family rhythms. Is it a moment for a long, drawn out mini-unit? Or do we all just need to veg in front of a great classic movie for the afternoon? We need to be flexible and aware of our family needs rather than sticking strictly to the schedule Mom has in her mind! :-)

4. Apply lessons to life (we discussed this along with classics) - We also talked a little bit about being involved in the Great Debate and discussing ideas and current event issues with our children.

5. Only Accept Quality Work - HOW do you do this (without the nagging and pulling out your hair)?!?
First - it starts with chores. Hopefully, simply by saying, "Not good enough, do it again" will sink in one day and they'll realize they will have more time to play if they do it right the first time. I realized after the discussion that I need to expect more quality work from myself. Sometimes I do my chores to the "just good enough" stage.
Second - This also relates to character building. We expect quality in characteristics, not just external work.
Third - often times we need to show them what quality really is, not just expect them to already know.
Fourth - it's okay to let them fail to discover quality work for themselves. One mother shared how her daughter started to care about her work when she realized her friends couldn't read her writing.

6. Set the Example - Involve the children in what MOM is doing, learning, planning, preparing. Children need to know their opinions matter. They need to know that their mentor thinks they are capable of doing the things the mentor is currently working on. Involve your kids in your church lessons, the cooking, your blog posts, your life! Let them know you want them to be a part of it. We talked about how making our children feel needed boosts their confidence and gives them that sense of longing to be scholars. Talk that came up during this discussion was Elder Perry's, "Mothers Teaching Children in the Home" (April 2010).

Here are some of the things we do to be better mentors:

* Seek time with our higher source, alone and prayerful each day
* Getting up early in the morning before the children to center ourselves
* During that time, write inspired thoughts on sticky notes to post where you can see them and be reminded of what you need to do that day/week/month
* Bedtime self-control!
* Prioritize and lessen the guilt; clear our plate to devote specific time to our children (i.e. don't give them an assignment and then run to get our stuff done)
* Be aware of our own attitude and reactions throughout the day
* LOVE - think more of their needs rather than our wants

One Concluding Thought

The overall theme of the day, for me anyway, was that we need to make it a priority to mentor & to focus our energies on what we have chosen to do in our lives. In doing that we need to free our lives of things that can be put on hold. We can evaluate what is taking up most of our time and how we can better manage those demands on our time.

The DeMilles put it nicely, "It is important to have an over-arching view of what you value and how you want to spend your time." If we can do that on a daily basis, put our values and vision first, we can be successful Mentoring Mothers!