The Smartest and the Not So Smart Things I have Done in Our Homeschool.
Being a parent highlights your strengths and weaknesses. I am creative and loving, but lack patience and I’m a little type A. Kids are people with their own strengths and weaknesses and sometimes this moving set of strengths and weaknesses between parent and child(ren) can be like tectonic plates crashing together…. the result can feel like a natural disaster. This is all multiplied when you are a homeschooler. The roles are expanded and sometimes it feels like those strengths and weaknesses are magnified.
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I had to make some changes:
The smartest thing I have ever done as a homeschooler is to take stock of who I am and who my kids are. Temperament goes a long way. For instance, I hate a rigid schedule. It feels very stifling to my creative side. My kids need a lot of structure because they are kids and they have the additional layer of some issues with executive function skills like time management.
Rather than continuing to fight that, I have created a flexible schedule. This meeting in the middle seems to be working for us right now. The kids know that things have to get done and they have time frames and guidance from me (there is some teaching here and there as well;-).
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The not smartest things list is a little longer.
I went into homeschooling expecting the kids to jump for joy at having me as their teacher and being able to use their passion for learning to be the only thing that guides our school day. My kids have interests and passions, but as I mentioned in this post it is never going to include writing a strong paragraph.
Not only does that approach exaggerate their weaknesses, it then triggers all of my need for control and lack of patience (my weaknesses). It was a disaster in the making. It was so disastrous it was our undoing on more than one day. You can only fix a problem once you see it. I would add that you can only fix it when you can see that you have a role in fixing it.
Now I have accepted and even anticipate that every learning opportunity is not going to be met with utmost enthusiasm. In our house, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value. It means that it might have to become a non-negotiable item. The non-negotiable items for us are grammar, spelling, math practice, and reading.
How we handle the non-negotiables:
We use a crate system to organize our less than enthusiastic items of school work. I don’t wait for their lead to decide what information to pull. I have a plan (similarly to when I taught professionally) and they have an expectation. They know that all the work in this week’s folder is due on Thursday (they have tutorial on Friday). This gives me flexibility and gives them the structure (expectations) they need. Usually, they ask how much they need to do each day.
Scheduling
We have a calendar that is similar to the one you see in an elementary classroom. This calendar has the days of the week, but it also has field trips, off days, holidays, birthdays, etc. They can look on the calendar and ask (or even anticipate) that they need to alter their work schedule to get everything done.
We also use the calendar to talk about months of the year, days of the week, and patterns. It is one of my favorite homeschool tools.
Nice & Neat
I can work with piles everywhere. My kids cannot. It makes my husband wish for a cleaning genie. I have cleaned and struggled with the school room, but I just completed a complete declutter project for the school room and I have been amazed by the results.
Everything has a place. I have removed everything from the room that we aren’t using right now or in the near future (within the next 6 weeks). The best part was I did it over 2 weeks in 20 minutes a day without disrupting our school days. That is a whole different post, but getting our schooling space where there weren’t too many clutter distractions AND the kids can help pick up at the end of the day has helped everyone.
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The negotiables
I wasted time creating situations where all the basic skills were a huge power struggle. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was the outcome. The worst part was that I didn’t offer any real reward for a job well done. I believe in intrinsic motivation, but external motivation often has to come first. Planning differently has helped tremendously.
We do more history, science, and even video games than we did before. We have made time for the negotiables so that we are enjoying learning and each other. I wouldn’t want to live a life of only laundry and dishes and I don’t expect my kids to either.
When I began to focus on our strengths and create situations where the weaknesses could be minimized I transformed our homeschool. Don’t get me wrong… there are still days of frustration. There are a lot more days where we are talking about Ancient Greece and the Civil Rights Movement or are exploring the action of forces on helicopters than days where a kid is shaking in anger and frustration over math.
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The Reality for You
There is no silver bullet that will change your homeschool. It takes a lot of time and reflection to see that what everyone else is doing may not work for you. There are lots of ways to homeschool and lots of schools of thought, but I think the best thing is to realize that your homeschool is special, because of the people in your home. When we honor ourselves and our kids as individuals, it makes that home a better place.
