Ideas / Pre-K Question

I will be answering these question for our meeting on June 1st.

1) Tell us about yourself and your children as it relates to working in a group (Are you a leader, follower, easily offended)?

Well I am good at organizing, delegating, facilitating and coordinating. I am an OK teacher but sometimes lack the patients required. I also lack in the area of listening unless I have planned to listen. I do like to be in charge or at least have some influence on how thing will proceed. Once the ball is in motion I am very happy of let others take the lead. I have had to let go of some of my desires to lead because of my kids. I don't have the time or energy to do it all so I have learned to keep quite and enjoy what others are willing to lead in. I see myself as a team player desiring that all that chose to participate have a voice and feel apart of the group. Petra plays well with others and I think she would respond direction from other adults. Now the twins are another story. They are into everything and play a little rough with each other. We are starting to teach them "no" but the have in now way mastered it.

2) Tell us about any experience you bring that would be an asset to our Pre-K (patient, teacher, organized, etc.)?

Well I feel the biggest asset I bring is that of organizer. I can also provide a place for us to meet.

3) Tell us what fears or concerns you have about doing Pre-K this way (my other child is sick, mom's can't agree, etc)?

My biggest concern is that lately it seems like one or more of my kids are sick. I would hate for this to fall apart because of my children being sick. I guess one of my other concerns is how we would handle conflicts, discipline, etc. I can be very direct but at the same time I don't like to see people get angry.

4) Tell us why you want to commit to this.

I know i can't do this alone and I thrive in a group setting. i love to work with others exchanging ideas. For the kids I feel this will more resemble school. I think Petra would look forward to "pre-k" rather than dread it when I pull out her lessons.


5) Should we be open and honest about how we raise our kids (disciple, attachment, etc)?

This is really a must for me to even want to do this. For me to be able to talk about discipline issues I feel it is important that I understand how each parent manages their home. One of the main reasons for even wanting to do this pre-k is to prepare Petra to follow directions given by others. i don't expect any of our kids to do this well at 1st and that is why us as parents need to be able to communicate about how each of our kids are doing. For example if you are teaching and you find that Petra is trying to talk you into letting her do something her way I want to hear about it. I certainly don't want you to give in or even try to re-direct her. I want you to be able to be frank with me about how she isn't cooperating so we as a team can help her and all of our children to be successful.

6) Should we have written statements regarding our daily plan, commitment, discipline plan, and how to handle conflict?

I think this is a good idea. One of my friends that home schools suggested it. To be honest I don't really know what this would entail. At my work would put something like this together to develop a missions statement and we could follow some of what we did at that workshop.