A few years ago I was given a book called Strong-Willed Child or Dreamer?, which promptly earned a prime location on my "like I have time to read this" bookshelf. Because it was my mom who gave it to me (and I knew she was likely to follow up on it later), I skimmed through the book enough to know that it would most likely turn out to be one of two things:
1) a 250-page excuse for why a naughty child might be labeled as something less indicting to the parent responsible (reason enough to stay on my shelf in case of emergency), or
2) potentially credible insight into the minds of children who take a slightly diagonal view on the world, which may or may not end up applying to my children.
If you were to watch a time lapse video of my living room over the next couple of years, you would see me returning to the bookshelf and thumbing through the pages of that book with increasing regularity and anxiety. You would see an imaginary lightbulb begin to glow brighter over my head. And you would see an empty spot on the shelf where that book used to be, which had now been promoted to end table status, complete with bookmark. What I discovered is that if a "sensitive dreamer" could be considered to have a textbook case, Seth would be a prime candidate. What strengthened this diagnosis in my mind was the growing contrast of Benjamin, who has the same parents and environment but who fits more naturally (and with great gusto) into the category of "strong-willed" with very few reservations.
Seth's "dreamer-ness" has manifested itself in various forms. One example might be that he has lived the majority of age 5 in an alternate reality, being firmly convinced (not like regular pretend play) that Joel and I stole him from his real parents when he was a baby. Don't let the obvious similarity to the storyline of Disney's Tangled fool you.... Seth will describe to you with deepest conviction that his real Father and Mother live in a castle in a place called Wagamaroo. It is Northwest (of wherever you currently are) because Northwest is the best direction, thus all the best places are to the Northwest. Wagamaroo is an island that (according to his lengthy descriptions) appears to be some sort of city-state off the coast of Alaska, but with a warmer climate. In about ten days (sometimes fewer, but never reaching zero) he plans to go back to Wagamaroo and live with his real parents. I, being a girl, will be forgiven for stealing him. Joel, being a boy and thus responsible for his actions, will be put into the dungeon by soldiers. Seth will live happily ever after, including talk of a beautiful princess. Benjamin is of course entirely irrelevant to the whole thing - would you bring your little brother into it?
A more recent example is Seth's handwriting. For a long time Seth had a strong aversion to writing at all, so I was happy with anything he put on paper. This year he's been working through a workbook learning how to write each letter and number, but it seems to be too little too slow. Because his Saxon Math worksheets require writing, I'm finding that he's already developed firmly established habits before we get to the handwriting lessons. Where many children would accept that there is a correct way of forming letters and numbers and submit to relearning them, Seth dismisses the idea entirely. As far as I can tell, the primary reason is that he KNOWS he does it the right way because he came up with it himself. He has an emotional tie to his method as its "creator" and takes great pride in it. His way is efficient and clever, so to ask him to learn a different method is a great personal insult. A couple weeks ago I posted on facebook that Seth and I were having differences in opinion about how to write the number 9, which led to many tears. The handwriting book provides a handy green dot at the top and gives instructions to "go around and then down," even including numbered arrows to make it clear. Seth's answer at the time was to go to the cupboard and get his green colored pencil to re-mark the starting point. Completely logical. As I became more persistent in wanting to see the 9 drawn from the top, Seth responded by establishing the equal validity of his method. Not only did he create a new paper with a whole row of nines with green dots at the bottom, but he drew arrows showing how a 9 is correctly drawn in one convenient stroke from the bottom, going up and around. Now if I ever question the way he draws a 9 on his math paper, he will provide me with an impromptu refresher course by redrawing the figure with arrows. Below is an example from today's worksheet.
Until this week, 9s had been the most questionable number and it was really a matter of handwriting. Today Seth enlightened me about zeros. I don't remember his exact wording, but apparently they're a bit on the sketchy side. And because they stand for "nothing" they really shouldn't be written at all. He did finally write a zero as the answer to "0+0=" to appease a nagging mother, but he knows deep down the best thing to do is to shade in the area with your pencil. Paraphrasing his long and drawn out explanation: Since "nothing" is dark and empty, shading the paper is more accurate and descriptive than writing a boring old zero. What does a zero really mean, anyway? I have a feeling homeschooling is going to be quite a trip.
