This frustration has increased this past year as so many parents found themselves homeschooling during COVID and now that schools are opening again there are many who are choosing to continue homeschooling. I've decided to start a series of blog posts that answer questions that are regularly asked by new homeschool parents in these online groups. I hope these blog posts will help me to mentor more struggling homeschool parents than I otherwise would have the time to respond to.
My first subject should cover many variations of the same question.
HOW DO I STOP THE FIGHTS OVER GETTING SCHOOL WORK DONE?
My first subject should cover many variations of the same question.
HOW DO I STOP THE FIGHTS OVER GETTING SCHOOL WORK DONE?
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| Joke! |
First of all, it's important for me to tell you that all homeschooling parents are struggling in one way or another to find what works best for their child (children). Choosing the right teaching methods and curriculums that best fit each child and the family culture is a trial and error process in itself. Forming the right home and school management system is as important as methods and curriculums, and really it must come first, which is why I'm taking up this topic first.
Today in a Facebook group a mother posted: "Today's first day of homeschool freaking sucked!
My daughter... was fighting me all day and it's continuing into the evening with her being out of control. Her mind constantly wanders too, something that would normally take a few minutes takes half an hour. What has helped your child have a much more successful day? And how do you stay patient when your child is throwing a tantrum every 5 minutes? I tried being patient today but you can only hold so much patience."
DISCLAIMERS:
First of all, before I answer this question, let me say that what I’m going to recommend in answer to this question is the kind of structure that children are usually not ready for until 7 years old. Before 7 school should be play based with very little direct instruction. Routines, but not necessarily structure, should rule the pre-K and early ED management. There is no reason to set requirements for daily curriculums before age 7. I've written a blog post on early childhood education and what is developmentally appropriate. If you are struggling the way this mom is with a very young child, even a 7 year old, you need to STOP, step back, and change your approach to education. Early ED (4-8) is a completely different kind of education then the kind of structure and direct instruction that comes later. See my post on developmentally appropriate education here.
Also, if your child has behavioral and learning challenges please consider whether or not your child might be dyslexic or have other neurodiverse learning challenges. Dyslexia can be caught young if you know what it is and how to look for it and it is the number one learning challenge for human beings with 20% of humans having dyslexic brains. Here is my post on the subject of dyslexia. My youngest is profoundly dyslexic and some of the challenges we have faced in education are because of his dyslexia, however, the answer to the question I will give has worked wonderfully for him and learning challenges should never be an excuse not to teach a child to self-govern.
Teaching Self-Government and Instilling Independence in your Child's Learning
What has worked for me is to realize I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my son if I was constantly in the supervisory role. If it was my program, my way, then it would be a constant fight. That is exactly how school was going for me with my youngest from about the age of 8 when I started a more structured school curriculum and direct instruction. It so happened that this was also the age that I began to suspect that my son was dyslexic and needed more intensive systematic reading instruction.
I rode my son constantly. I felt like I had made myself his school jailer and was driving myself and him insane. The worst part was that I knew I was destroying our relationship. Thanks to a very good friend and a homeschool mentor of mine, I made a major philosophy switch in my head and turned his education over to him in some key ways. It was terrifying at first and there were some almost funny fits that ensued (funny now, not then).
Inspired by my friend who is the mother of ten and had years of homeschool experience under her belt, I found a way to put my son in charge of his education and still retain a good amount of structure, which I need and I also believe is very good for my son. I created a weekly planning sheet that had vertical columns for each school day and three horizontal sections for different categories of daily tasks.
The weekly planner sheet includes the daily essentials and other good and worthwhile personal pursuits. My requirement was to do everything in the essentials category, everyday, unless excused by mom for some reason. Then, to choose at least two a day in the other category. When he completes his planning sheet then his time is all his own for the rest of the day. — Family rules and standards still in force, of course!
The best category includes all the daily essentials including duties to God, family (family chores), and self care (personal care and chores). It includes all curriculum work in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and when they graduate to middle and high school daily work in history and science are added. The other category includes academics that aren't necessary as everyday subjects during elementary ED such as science, history, creative arts, and P.E. and a list of creative things kids can and should do everyday for their personal development. It includes art, developing a talent, personal reading for pleasure, play inside or out, build something, engaging in a family activity, field trips and outings, and/or serving someone.
Today in a Facebook group a mother posted: "Today's first day of homeschool freaking sucked!
My daughter... was fighting me all day and it's continuing into the evening with her being out of control. Her mind constantly wanders too, something that would normally take a few minutes takes half an hour. What has helped your child have a much more successful day? And how do you stay patient when your child is throwing a tantrum every 5 minutes? I tried being patient today but you can only hold so much patience."DISCLAIMERS:
First of all, before I answer this question, let me say that what I’m going to recommend in answer to this question is the kind of structure that children are usually not ready for until 7 years old. Before 7 school should be play based with very little direct instruction. Routines, but not necessarily structure, should rule the pre-K and early ED management. There is no reason to set requirements for daily curriculums before age 7. I've written a blog post on early childhood education and what is developmentally appropriate. If you are struggling the way this mom is with a very young child, even a 7 year old, you need to STOP, step back, and change your approach to education. Early ED (4-8) is a completely different kind of education then the kind of structure and direct instruction that comes later. See my post on developmentally appropriate education here.
Also, if your child has behavioral and learning challenges please consider whether or not your child might be dyslexic or have other neurodiverse learning challenges. Dyslexia can be caught young if you know what it is and how to look for it and it is the number one learning challenge for human beings with 20% of humans having dyslexic brains. Here is my post on the subject of dyslexia. My youngest is profoundly dyslexic and some of the challenges we have faced in education are because of his dyslexia, however, the answer to the question I will give has worked wonderfully for him and learning challenges should never be an excuse not to teach a child to self-govern.
Teaching Self-Government and Instilling Independence in your Child's Learning
What has worked for me is to realize I wasn’t going to get anywhere with my son if I was constantly in the supervisory role. If it was my program, my way, then it would be a constant fight. That is exactly how school was going for me with my youngest from about the age of 8 when I started a more structured school curriculum and direct instruction. It so happened that this was also the age that I began to suspect that my son was dyslexic and needed more intensive systematic reading instruction.
I rode my son constantly. I felt like I had made myself his school jailer and was driving myself and him insane. The worst part was that I knew I was destroying our relationship. Thanks to a very good friend and a homeschool mentor of mine, I made a major philosophy switch in my head and turned his education over to him in some key ways. It was terrifying at first and there were some almost funny fits that ensued (funny now, not then).
Inspired by my friend who is the mother of ten and had years of homeschool experience under her belt, I found a way to put my son in charge of his education and still retain a good amount of structure, which I need and I also believe is very good for my son. I created a weekly planning sheet that had vertical columns for each school day and three horizontal sections for different categories of daily tasks.
The weekly planner sheet includes the daily essentials and other good and worthwhile personal pursuits. My requirement was to do everything in the essentials category, everyday, unless excused by mom for some reason. Then, to choose at least two a day in the other category. When he completes his planning sheet then his time is all his own for the rest of the day. — Family rules and standards still in force, of course!
The best category includes all the daily essentials including duties to God, family (family chores), and self care (personal care and chores). It includes all curriculum work in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and when they graduate to middle and high school daily work in history and science are added. The other category includes academics that aren't necessary as everyday subjects during elementary ED such as science, history, creative arts, and P.E. and a list of creative things kids can and should do everyday for their personal development. It includes art, developing a talent, personal reading for pleasure, play inside or out, build something, engaging in a family activity, field trips and outings, and/or serving someone.
(I no longer have any samples of my sheet for elementary, now that my son is in high-school. My weekly planning sheet for 9th grade can viewed in this google doc. I wish I still had my planning sheets from several years ago in digital form so I could share them, but I just updated the planning sheet each year. Of course your family will build your own plan based on what is most important for your child each day.)
These weekly planning sheets were in a clip board hung in the homeschool area where he could see and use them daily. Each day he would use a highlighter to highlight each box as he completed them. He could choose to do them in any order and he made his own choices about when to start school and how to finish it. He knew he must do everything in the must do box to have any freedom at all (which to my son really means screen time because that’s what he wants). But completing the essentials got him only so much screen time (when he was younger), to get total freedom — meaning his time is his time without mom managing him — he had to complete options in the "other" section of the sheet, the purpose here is to be sure he was spending some of his time everyday in personal development beyond his academic requirements.
When my son completed the entire daily planning sheet, we began calling it a 100% day. A 100% day meant maximum freedom over his time and maximum trust from his parents. If not, he got no screen time/video games and no special activities or friends over. He could of course free-play all he wanted but none of the other stuff.
Now here’s the hard part. I had to let him fail quite a lot at first and hold to the consequences through the fits that ensued. I made it clear that I would not instruct him unless he was calm and respectful toward me as his teacher. If he threw a fit during teacher instruction time, I simply closed the book and said calmly, "You are not ready to be instructed, I'll come back when you are ready." He didn’t make wise choices at first. He planned poorly and didn’t get everything done plenty of times, and then was angry with me when he didn't earn his screen time. A few times he choose to do nothing at all — and I had to watch him do it... let him do it… thinking “Oh no! My child isn’t getting an education!!” — But I stuck to it.
I found myself befuddled when instead of us fighting as we used too -- me pushing him to get this and that done on my time table, and the fits he would throw during instruction time -- he was instead yelling at me to “get back here” when I calmly walked away, or he'd say he wanted “his other mom back” when I would say, “It’s your education, you decide how your going to get it done.” It was painful for the first few weeks — rocky for a month or so — and then the miracle happened. My son began doing his work. At first, just the must do section for a little screen time he desperately missed and wanted to earn. Then more and more. Till he was doing 100% days nearly every day.
What I found was that when my son did all of the sections each day it took a good school day to complete, and therefore, he was spending most of his time in worthy pursuit and personal development. I felt better about our structure and his accomplishment and progress and he began learning how to prioritize his time and be a self-driven learner.
Over the months he even learned that the order of subjects I had used when I was managing things was the best way (hard stuff first thing in the morning, then everything else) and he began choosing to do it that way all on his own. Over the years since I’ve made this change he has become a self-starter. He picks up his daily agendas and gets to work, he plans his instructional times with me around my schedule, he gets his work done earlier in the day realizing that if he doesn’t procrastinate he has more time for the things he enjoys. He values his freedom and his autonomy — don’t we all!
These weekly planning sheets were in a clip board hung in the homeschool area where he could see and use them daily. Each day he would use a highlighter to highlight each box as he completed them. He could choose to do them in any order and he made his own choices about when to start school and how to finish it. He knew he must do everything in the must do box to have any freedom at all (which to my son really means screen time because that’s what he wants). But completing the essentials got him only so much screen time (when he was younger), to get total freedom — meaning his time is his time without mom managing him — he had to complete options in the "other" section of the sheet, the purpose here is to be sure he was spending some of his time everyday in personal development beyond his academic requirements.
When my son completed the entire daily planning sheet, we began calling it a 100% day. A 100% day meant maximum freedom over his time and maximum trust from his parents. If not, he got no screen time/video games and no special activities or friends over. He could of course free-play all he wanted but none of the other stuff.
Now here’s the hard part. I had to let him fail quite a lot at first and hold to the consequences through the fits that ensued. I made it clear that I would not instruct him unless he was calm and respectful toward me as his teacher. If he threw a fit during teacher instruction time, I simply closed the book and said calmly, "You are not ready to be instructed, I'll come back when you are ready." He didn’t make wise choices at first. He planned poorly and didn’t get everything done plenty of times, and then was angry with me when he didn't earn his screen time. A few times he choose to do nothing at all — and I had to watch him do it... let him do it… thinking “Oh no! My child isn’t getting an education!!” — But I stuck to it.
I found myself befuddled when instead of us fighting as we used too -- me pushing him to get this and that done on my time table, and the fits he would throw during instruction time -- he was instead yelling at me to “get back here” when I calmly walked away, or he'd say he wanted “his other mom back” when I would say, “It’s your education, you decide how your going to get it done.” It was painful for the first few weeks — rocky for a month or so — and then the miracle happened. My son began doing his work. At first, just the must do section for a little screen time he desperately missed and wanted to earn. Then more and more. Till he was doing 100% days nearly every day.
What I found was that when my son did all of the sections each day it took a good school day to complete, and therefore, he was spending most of his time in worthy pursuit and personal development. I felt better about our structure and his accomplishment and progress and he began learning how to prioritize his time and be a self-driven learner.
Over the months he even learned that the order of subjects I had used when I was managing things was the best way (hard stuff first thing in the morning, then everything else) and he began choosing to do it that way all on his own. Over the years since I’ve made this change he has become a self-starter. He picks up his daily agendas and gets to work, he plans his instructional times with me around my schedule, he gets his work done earlier in the day realizing that if he doesn’t procrastinate he has more time for the things he enjoys. He values his freedom and his autonomy — don’t we all!
Now that he is in high-school his reward and consequence structure is different, in that I don't dole out screen-time by the "hours" per his achievement. Now he works for the privilege of adult like autonomy in our home, with the exception of some hard clad family standards over media content. What he wants is not to be controlled by his parents and be allowed to manage his own time and bed-time. For this we developed a new phased system for earning and losing privileges based on demonstrating mature character traits.
The beauty of homeschool is that your child can learn to learn independently, they can learn to be self directed, to manage their education, to take control of their own lives. It’s marvelous preparation for real life and far superior to the constant supervision and coddling they get in public school. To do it you must turn it over to them, make them responsible, set the expectations, create the structure and house rules, but stop fighting with them about it. Stop micromanaging everything. Take this leap and you will transform your homeschool.
The beauty of homeschool is that your child can learn to learn independently, they can learn to be self directed, to manage their education, to take control of their own lives. It’s marvelous preparation for real life and far superior to the constant supervision and coddling they get in public school. To do it you must turn it over to them, make them responsible, set the expectations, create the structure and house rules, but stop fighting with them about it. Stop micromanaging everything. Take this leap and you will transform your homeschool.
