Five Minutes

One of my biggest fears as a current SAHM is that I'm stunting Case's mental growth. He doesn't currently go to pre-school or any sort of PDO program. He's just home with me all day, every day. The few times I've actually tried to teach him something have been a complete disaster. He does NOT associate being at home with learning. He did all of learning at "school" for the first three years of his life. Home was only for playing and sleeping. That's all he's ever known, so who can blame him for being confused? And there is a good reason that I did not become a teacher. It's not my calling, folks. I have ZERO patience for this sort of thing! But I still feel all of this pressure to be doing more with him and actually contributing to getting him prepared for school. And after taking him to his pre-school evaluation at Briarcrest a month ago, I felt even more pressure. They weren't concerned one bit that he couldn't recognize a single number or letter, but I was! I felt like a total failure. I had taught him nothing in the past five months at home and I felt like I had to do something about it. I was getting overwhelmed thinking about where to start...letters, numbers, writing his name....Ahhhhhhh....it was just leading to frustration for both of us. And then, the light bulb finally went off. I was trying to tackle too much at one time.

Case had gotten some Eric Carle number flash cards for Christmas and I decided that for just five minutes a day, we would work on his numbers. FIVE MINUTES, that's all! So I bought one of those ticking kitchen timers at Kroger (the kind they use in hair salons) and showed him how it worked. He was pumped. Every week day we do "five minute flash cards." He is excited, he is focused and he is actually learning to recognize his numbers! It's amazing how fast kids learn. What a relief! Maybe I'm not a total failure after all.