Saturday, January 06, 2007

Copywork for Consequences

This makes sense :
Like you, I wouldn't dream of assigning punitive copywork to a child if I thought it would give that particular child a bad taste in the mouth for ALL writing. The reason I like it as a once-in-a-while measure for Jane and Rose is because I can choose a passage related to whatever incident merited the consequence, and I really think they benefit much more from the quiet, reflective act of copying out someone else's words (perhaps a passage from Louisa May Alcott) than listening to a lecture from me. (Not that a lecture is the only alternative, but there are times a mom does need to get a certain point across.) I try not to make it a big "in-your-face" thing, just something subtle, a paragraph or two in which a fictional character is dealing with a similar fault.

I think that my kids would not only get a bad taste for writing, but a bad taste for the writer, when done as a consequence. However, I do think that choosing copywork based on their own individual personas is a good idea, and if they were at the stage when they really felt repentant about the fault and wanted to deal with it, the the quiet, reflective act of copying out someone else's words could be just the thing.

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