Learning Time

So, I had all types of ideas for the summer. Goals, projects, and other big plans...I have now realized that summer is already half over, and these summer dreams have not yet come true. The biggest failure has been Adilyn's "learning time". I really thought that she would sit down with me for at least 30 minutes a day and do some sort of learning activity. My goal for her was to learn to write all her letters in capital and lowercase. She can trace them all, of course, but I wanted her to be able to write them on her own. Well, we are at "Dd" and it has not been going well! Every time we sit down to do it, she acts like she can't do it, sometimes she doesn't even know how to hold a pencil anymore. Amazing! I have tried rewarding her for doing it, taking things away for not doing it, sitting with her and praising every little thing she does, but nothing works! I have tried doing it in the playroom, in the kitchen, on the couch...nothing! I have come to the conclusion that she is just ridiculously stubborn! She doesn't like to be told what to do. We were working on her C's, and she didn't want to write the letters, so she drew rainbows all over the paper. She said the rainbows were "like C's." I tried to explain to her that yes, they were like C's, but they weren't the right way. She said, "I like them like that'." Yesterday, I was determined to win the battle. All she had to do was trace A-D and write 2 on her own. It took 25 minutes of battling, but finally I won. She did it. I felt proud of myself, but then I wondered...what is this doing to her idea of learning? I want her to want to do it. I want her to listen to me when I ask her to do things. But, in the big picture - is this making her dislike school work? Is she just struggling with me because she wants to do it her way? As a coach, I always tried to stay away from using running as a punishment because I didn't want to ruin the bigger idea of running as exercise for them later. I wonder if me forcing Adilyn to sit and "do learning" as she calls it will make her dislike it later? I tend to believe that she is just being stubborn, but it still made me think about what is really important.

Our other goal is Adilyn learning to swim. She is doing really great in the water, except she doesn't put her head in the water. As we have learned, (even though we already knew) it is pretty difficult to swim without putting your head in the water. She is learning to tread water like a champion, though. The girl can sit there and tread water/doggy paddle for at least 30 seconds! She will jump off diving boards to us, and she will jump off the side and put her head under, but she just will not do it while she is swimming! Again, her stubbornness shows. She says, "I can swim without putting my head in the water." Oh boy!

One goal that we actually did accomplish was her riding her bike. She is using training wheels, but she can actually get out there and keep it going for a while. Before, she kept getting stuck, and wouldn't push down hard enough to get it going again.

So, 1 out of 3 isn't too bad, I guess! Maybe next summer, I will just make one goal, and work on that one thing!