Homeschooling Questions

Mom Is Teaching posted a question from someone considering homeschooling.  I’ve opted to answer here as my response is rather lengthy.  She writes:

“Thanks for making your experiences available to others! I’m looking forward to your Friday answer days.

I have not begun homeschooling yet, but the more I explore, the more I want to try this with my family. I have 2 daughters – 5 and 8, who are entering Kindergarten and 4th grade in a private Christian school.

While I am convinced that Homeschooling is a great option for us, my husband is still skeptical. One of his main concerns is that he will come home at the end of the day and our school work will not be done.

I guess my question is, how do you deal with those days when the kids are uncooperative, especially when there are things that I feel are necessary to their education, but they don’t particularly enjoy.”

The first thing I noticed here was that her husband’s concerns seemed to be about how homeschooling might affect his afterwork hours.  Those concerns can easily be put to rest.  Homeschooling can easily be accomplished by one parent so there’s no need for him to take on the responsibility of teacher if he doesn’t want to.  Homeschool also offers ultimate flexibility in schedule.  The kids can do their work whenever it best suits the family.  If he wants evenings to be reserved for family time, they can just adjust their homeschool schedule to accomodate that.  We actually had MORE family time in the evenings when we started homeschooling as I mentioned in this post.

Second, she asks how you get the kids to work when they don’t want to.  There isn’t an easy answer to this.  Like so many things in parenting, there are many approaches and you have to find the one that works for you and your kids.  My kids aren’t always happy about what’s on the adgenda but I’ve got a few things that have helped:

• Ditch traditional teaching methods and be creative in your approach whenever possible.  Yes, it does take more effort than handing them workbooks – but not as much as you might think.  In the end, it saves time because rather than nudge them along a miserable route, with a little effort on your part, they’ll fly through the learning experience eagerly – getting much more out of it on the way.
• Letting them know exactly what’s on the adgenda really helps.  Knowing they’re free to play when the work is done, they find it easier to buckle down and finish when I clearly lay out for them what I want accomplished for the day.
• Design your curriculum around their interests. I know this sounds overwhelming but it’s easier than you think.  Ask your kids what they want to learn about.  You’ll be surprised to find their natural curiosity follows age appropriate concepts you might be considering teaching anyhow.  Knowing where the interests lie, relate the less liked activities and subject to it.  I talk a little about how I do this in this post.
• Stay flexible. The kid aren’t gonna be ‘on’ everyday.  Leave room for days when things aren’t going well and you need to just take a day off.  Best advice I got as a new homeschooler was to leave the last week or two of the quarter blank – don’t plan to teach anything new.  That way if you you’ve got flexibility built in.
• Learn with them!  The best, easiest way I’ve found to motivate my kids to learn is to be interested in learning myself.  If you’re looking at books and tell them about cool stuff you’ve read, they’re gonna come see what all the fuss is all about.  If you’re doing it enthusiastically, they’re gonna follow!  If you find it boring, they will too.  Change it so you’re interested and they’ll join you in learning without even realizing it.

I mentioned in this post that my husband wasn’t sold on the homeschooling when we started either.  Of course, now that he’s seen it in action, he’s completely on board. While I’d agree that homeschooling isn’t for everyone, I think most folks who even consider it are likely candidates to reap all the benefits homeschooling has to offer.  I encourage the author of this question to jump right in!