John and Alyssa Webster 14: Is It Time to Say the Family Is Complete?

[Seeking]

1 hour ago, Seeking said:

Wow SOTDT strikes again with Alyssa attempting to teach her daughter how to write letters. SMH

Alyssa, if you read here, teach them to always start at the top

Quoting myself to continue. If something this basic eludes her, these girls are in for a world of educational hurt going forward.

[JDuggs]

Maci just turned three years old and doesn’t need to be writing letters yet, but I think I was probably guilty of pushing that on my kids too early also (not a homeschooler). I think that a lot of the Bateses seem to start their kids a year early in school. I think Alyssa likes to have her kids sit with a workbook or a screen instead of engaging in skill-building play that’s messy.

As a former middle school math teacher, I’ve seen a lot of handwriting, good and bad. I don’t think it’s emphasized too much in schools either. If I couldn’t read a student’s numbers, I’d try to give tips, but I don’t know if it really helped.

[Johannah]

Wow. If this is a handwriting assignment from an Abeka book, then Alyssa is likely so checked out from schooling that she has no idea that Allie didn’t write it. Probably just seized on it as good content for posting. 
 

Either way, this brook friend sounds disturbingly similar to an authoritarian parent/punitive God who invalidates emotions, which makes me sad for her. 

[gobucks]

The little poem has to remind all these isolated children that being lonely isn't so bad. YIKES, if I think about it too much, it will gross me out how they are isolated and this poem is trying to remind them that they are fine without friends as they are trapped at home. hashtag homeschool life. 

[Kiki03910]

8 hours ago, Tdoc72 said:

Her penmanship is on point but there’s a few spelling mistakes. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Her penmanship is better than mine. The more I use computers, the worse my handwriting (and I'm one of those people who told cursive to fuck off as soon as it was no longer required).

[HermioneSparrow]

12 hours ago, EmiSue said:

Someone on Reddit said she coppied the poem from an Abeka book as an assignment. Not sure why that warrants Alyssa's reaction.

Ohh I didn't know that. Makes sense then.

[SassyPants]

Copy work is a huge component of homeschool curriculums. Allie just copied that from a workbook. This is not about learning but about compliance and obedience. 

[JDuggs]

Alyssa responded to the comments asking about how she was incorrect showing Maci how to form letters. Alyssa seemed somewhat offended that there was criticism because she wasn’t really teaching Maci anything. It was just “busy work.”  I think she might have said on the original post that this was Maci doing preschool, so it seems logical for people to assume Alyssa was attempting to teach her. Today Maci was doing preschool by watching a video which is probably Alyssa’s passive aggressive way of confronting her critics.

Alyssa says that she starts her kids in kindergarten at age 3.5. Why is she in such a rush?

Spoiler

 

[nolongerIFBx]

17 hours ago, EmiSue said:

Someone on Reddit said she coppied the poem from an Abeka book as an assignment. Not sure why that warrants Alyssa's reaction.

Reddit may be right but it doesn't pop up on Google.

[Giraffe]

Starting the kids in Kindergarten at 3.5 is sub an odd flex for someone who does the bare minimum educationally. If she were big on academics I could see using it as a "we're better than others" but since all they're doing is a woeful bit of pseudoschooling it seems even more bizarre. IMO As it is it just comes across as her showing just how shockingly ignorant she is of what good schooling actually is!

Edited March 27 by Giraffe

[Keys]

Yeah, that poem is a bit disturbing to me - a child writing about being lonely, sad, and “unkind”. I think more concerning if Allie did in fact write it herself. Still not great vibes if it was something she had to copy out 

[Sk8ter]

3 hours ago, JDuggs said:

Alyssa responded to the comments asking about how she was incorrect showing Maci how to form letters. Alyssa seemed somewhat offended that there was criticism because she wasn’t really teaching Maci anything. It was just “busy work.”  I think she might have said on the original post that this was Maci doing preschool, so it seems logical for people to assume Alyssa was attempting to teach her. Today Maci was doing preschool by watching a video which is probably Alyssa’s passive aggressive way of confronting her critics.

Alyssa says that she starts her kids in kindergarten at age 3.5. Why is she in such a rush?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Why the rush? Because then the kids graduate at 16 or even earlier. Because an early graduation lets them claim that homeschool education is soooooo superior to public schools because "look we graduated at 15!" Because the girls can be done and get married at 16 and then Alyssa is done raising them sooner.

[Melissa1977]

2 hours ago, Giraffe said:

Starting the kids in Kindergarten at 3.5 is sub an odd flex for someone who does the bare minimum educationally. If she were big on academics I could see using it as a "we're better than others" but since all they're doing is a woeful bit of pseudoschooling it seems even more bizarre. IMO

With Allie, I think Alyssa started kidergarten soon because the girl was smart and Alyssa had some energy to homeschool. Their homeschool was not screen based then (just crafts, paper sheets, etc). I think TV *school* started with Lexi or Zoey, in order to keep them entertained for hours without mom guilt.

[CaptainFunderpants]

17 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

With Allie, I think Alyssa started kidergarten soon because the girl was smart and Alyssa had some energy to homeschool. Their homeschool was not screen based then (just crafts, paper sheets, etc). I think TV *school* started with Lexi or Zoey, in order to keep them entertained for hours without mom guilt.

Allie is being wasted... All of the girls are... Just like Alyssa and her sisters were -even Erin.

The best we can say about Alyssa's parenting is at least her kids aren't hungry, dirty, nor sexually abused (that we know of... yet). Neglected in every other way, yes. We'll see if there's an accidental drowning death. I feel like if they had a pool in Rocky Top, at least one of the 19 would have died.

[Mama Mia]

Wait —- you all learned to write your letters starting at the top? I distinctly remember writing from the bottom, up, then down or across - whatever puts the letter in as few motions as possible, so it kind of flows —- is that not right? It was a zillion years ago but I used to have nice writing - both printing and cursive, before computers ruined it.  As far as I remember that’s what I taught my kids too, about half of them had very nice writing, and half of them terminally bad. Is this like one of those things where one person has a completely different memory???

[QuiverFullofBooks]

13 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

Wait —- you all learned to write your letters starting at the top? I distinctly remember writing from the bottom, up, then down or across - whatever puts the letter in as few motions as possible, so it kind of flows —- is that not right? It was a zillion years ago but I used to have nice writing - both printing and cursive, before computers ruined it.  As far as I remember that’s what I taught my kids too, about half of them had very nice writing, and half of them terminally bad. Is this like one of those things where one person has a completely different memory???

I remember the lower line of the ruled paper being like a baseline, and most letters started there. If it was something like a capital D or F, those start closer to the top.

[HeartsAFundie]

Abeka has a Grade 4 paperback book titled "Song Of The Brook".  It's from a series about a pioneer family and their children, Hilda and John.  Apparently each book has a theme and this one deals with envy and to be content with what God has given you. 

I know Allie is doing grade 4 work so I am willing to bet the poem/assignment stems from this novel. 

https://www.abeka.com/ABekaOnline/BookDescription.aspx?sbn=97772  

[lumpentheologie]

Wow, I’m so glad 4th grade me was reading about adventures and magic and not about working on my contentment. Children should be encouraged to explore, but these people have really made a religion out of purposefully hobbling them. 

[Melissa1977]

8 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

Wow, I’m so glad 4th grade me was reading about adventures and magic and not about working on my contentment. Children should be encouraged to explore, but these people have really made a religion out of purposefully hobbling them. 

Allie work reminds me my mother's school calligraphy worksheets. She still keeps some of them. It was all about religion, obedience, keeping sweet, etc. Guess what? It doesn't work. Feelings, specially hard feelings like envy, loneliness, anger, can be hiden for a while, but always come back. But probably the purpose of that exercices is just learning to hide feelings in order to be *a good girl*.

[lumpentheologie]

7 hours ago, Melissa1977 said:

Allie work reminds me my mother's school calligraphy worksheets. She still keeps some of them. It was all about religion, obedience, keeping sweet, etc.

And this was state education under a fascist dictatorship, yes?  Alyssa’s lot love to call public schools in the US fascist brainwashing camps and wow is that a lot of projection. 

[Mama Mia]

19 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

Wow, I’m so glad 4th grade me was reading about adventures and magic and not about working on my contentment. Children should be encouraged to explore, but these people have really made a religion out of purposefully hobbling them. 

4th and 5th grade school reading for me was all about the holocaust and “Diary of Anne Frank” , and “Farewell to Manzanar” about  Japanese kids thrown into internment camps during WWll. And “Ishi,  Last of his Tribe” And “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” - on audiobook (maybe that was a little older) . And all the many dead pet stories. I hated it. I was sooooo anxious all the time. I couldn’t grasp how people were so terrible to each other in an organized way. Individual horribleness I could get, but as a planned thing, with every one else going along? No. Couldn’t deal. 

[Melissa1977]

5 hours ago, lumpentheologie said:

And this was state education under a fascist dictatorship, yes?  Alyssa’s lot love to call public schools in the US fascist brainwashing camps and wow is that a lot of projection. 

Yes, it was a horrible catholic fascist dictatorship. But at least my mom went to school everyday and could play with many friends (at school, at the street, parks...). Allie is mostly stuck with little siblings... and in fact her life looks very fascist too.

[AbysmalCollins]

On 3/27/2024 at 5:06 PM, Melissa1977 said:

With Allie, I think Alyssa started kidergarten soon because the girl was smart and Alyssa had some energy to homeschool. Their homeschool was not screen based then (just crafts, paper sheets, etc). I think TV *school* started with Lexi or Zoey, in order to keep them entertained for hours without mom guilt.

This is exactly it. Alyssa starts "homeschooling" her kids ASAP because it gives her an excuse to sit them in front of a screen for hours every day. PBS kids on all morning? Lazy good for nothing mom! Abeka DVDs? Wow theY ArE so adVanCeD. 

[EmiSue]

8 hours ago, AbysmalCollins said:

This is exactly it. Alyssa starts "homeschooling" her kids ASAP because it gives her an excuse to sit them in front of a screen for hours every day. PBS kids on all morning? Lazy good for nothing mom! Abeka DVDs? Wow theY ArE so adVanCeD. 

PBS Kids would probably teach them more!

[Kiki03910]

On 3/28/2024 at 6:19 PM, lumpentheologie said:

Wow, I’m so glad 4th grade me was reading about adventures and magic and not about working on my contentment. Children should be encouraged to explore, but these people have really made a religion out of purposefully hobbling them. 

We lived in a Maine beach town when I was in 4th grade. We were right across from the ocean in a shitty basement apartment, but it was magic to live there. Almost no one was around in the winter, so I'd ride my bike all over the place looking in empty houses and dreaming which one I'd live in when I grew up. (Fast forward: I never really grew up, and ended up in New Mexico lol.)