Here is rule #1: DON’T PANIC!!!
So you have found yourself home with these wiggly and wild kids, and some teacher has given you a hilarious mandate: School them! Seriously? I mean, you didn’t go to school for this, you are not getting paid for this, you don’t have the first clue about how to get your kids to sit still for 6-8 hours, you don’t remember how to do your math facts, and what is this Common Core math stuff anyway, and did you mention that you didn’t go to school for this???
Ok, step 1: Make a reward chart. I’m serious about this. Make an reward chart. For everyone in the family, including you. Only include things that you all will actually succeed at. So if you are sure you will succeed at keeping the bathroom picked up, put that on the chart. If you know that your youngest child will succeed at changing out of PJ’s for the day, put that on the chart. If you are only certain that you will get through your first cup of coffee while it is still warm, put that on the chart.
Then add one item for each person that they will have to be intentional about completing. I always start out the year by putting “finish math lesson” under each of my kid’s names on the chart, and “Read one chapter of a book to the kids” under my name on the chart.
Then set about finding the prize for finishing each thing you check off. In our house, this is generally a gummy bear. In some houses it is screen time minutes. We have used the privilege of using mom’s fancy IPad to make a movie after all have finished their chart. That’s a fun one because the kids have to work together to complete their chart for the day and thus build camaraderie among themselves.
Then stick to your guns. The key to successful homeschooling is sticking to your guns, and do what you say you will do, and do so with compassion and with a sense of teamwork. After all, you are all in this together. You will all rise or fall together. Make a family decision to rise together.
And, really, what better way to begin something stressful than to ignore the real issue, schooling kids, by doing a fun craft project where everyone gets gummy bears?
Step 2: Lay out the ground rules. I limit ground rules to 3. These are the ground rules in our house:
1. Work out differences without yelling.
2. Know the good, love the good, do the good.
3. Notice what others are doing and respond appropriately.
Yes, these are very general rules. They are meant to be. Rules in school tend to overwhelm children, I have found, but general statements about how we all should behave tend to be understandable to kids. You get buy-in when the rules are very general. And general rules make them think. What is the good? What does it mean to love the good? Am I doing the good now? What does it mean to work out differences? Does this mean that we never disagree? What is yelling? What kinds of actions would change if I notice a person talking to another person? How would I respond if I need to say something, and nobody is talking at that time? Why is nobody talking? What if I notice another person breaks a pencil accidentally and I have an extra that is sharp? How might I combine these rules to make peace in the school house? Is maintaining peacefulness part of doing the good? We often talk about these rules, not in a judgmental way, but more in a conversational way. My kids know that these are not rules that, if broken, result in punishment. Instead, they result in conversation.
For example: As I write this, Miss Bunny is taking a spelling test, and St. George is coloring a picture for a friend in a long-term-care facility. St. George is not noticing what Miss Bunny is doing. He tells her about his picture as he colors, and she becomes distracted and engages with him. I say, “St. George, notice what Miss Bunny is doing.” He says, “What?” I say, “Notice that she is taking her spelling test. What should you do?” He says, “Ohhhhhh, sorry! I should color quietly until she is done. Then I will tell her about it.” I say, “Yes! Nicely said!”
Step 3: Decide on your schooling space. Some people use their kitchen table. Some people use the play room. Others have a dedicated school room. Others, like our family, live in one bedroom and a very large multi-use space. We use the dining table for subjects the kids need help with, and the kids go to the bedroom for quiet subjects like reading. This works for us. Do what works for you.
Step 4: Figure out what you will do for the week and then do it. Kind of. Most of you were given lesson plans of some sort. Follow them as well as you can, but realize that you may discover some holes in your child’s knowledge, especially if you are like I would be and sort of let the educational process happen without much parental involvement. My mental rule for each of my children is “address their needs without impatience.” So if the lesson is on latitude and longitude, and my child indicates that double-did get multiplication is a challenge, work instead on double-digest multiplication. When they feel comfortable with that skill, let them in on the secret that they actually now know how to do latitude and longitude! They will be amazed and think they fooled the system! That is part of the fun of home schooling. The realization that one skill learned means 10 subjects mastered. If skip counting is their challenge, spend the day learning skip counting songs from YouTube. If addition is their challenge, spend the day learning addition tricks that you can find online.
I said that this step is “figure out what you will do for the week,” and hopefully you noticed that establishing a weekly plan might actually mean that you establish weekly goals, and change them as needed. You have not been the teacher of your child, but you are now. You child was one of 30 kids before. Your child is getting 1-on-1 tutoring now. Your child’s school teacher cannot possibly attend to all of the personal academic needs of the children in the classroom. You child will have holes that you will notice. What a great opportunity to fill those holes!
Step 5: Learn why your child gives you pushback, and give tools to engage. All kids give pushback. There is always a reason for it. It is rarely for the reason your child gives. If your child says, “I am bored of this,” boredom is likely not the problem. Figure out what the problem is. If you child says, “That’s not what my teacher says,” or, “That’s not how my teacher does it,” figure out why your child is saying that. In my experience, there are generally 3 reasons a child gives pushback: 1. Stress over something, 2. Distracted by another desire, 3. They need a break, 4. They need to stand up or be allowed to wiggle while working, 5. They are hungry.
I homeschool 4 children, and 2 give me almost daily pushback. The Lion becomes frantic and skips math problems. I check his math for completeness daily, and he almost always has skipped math problems. He generally needs help by doesn’t want to bug me. And he is constantly hungry. So I check his math and come armed with a carrot/granola bar/yogurt/toast with butter, and his tummy is then filled while we go over why he skipped particular problems. Sometimes he cannot find a conversion chart because he was so hungry. So I help him find the chart. Sometimes he has done 5 of the same type of problem, has gotten them all right, and is sincerely bored by them. So I cross the rest out. He munches away and finishes his math like a champ.
Miss Magpie doesn’t skip things, but she does not let information sink in, so while all questions are answered correctly on paper, she has learned next to nothing. She is VERY goal oriented, and once a job is done, she moves on, never to look back. It is her personality. She is my kid who gives pushback when I quiz her on her knowledge. She doesn’t know the answers, so she has to go back and memorize. She thinks the goal has been accomplished, but it has not been. We resolve this problem by setting the goals as “you can accurately answer 7 out of ten questions mom asks you about the material you read without looking up the answer.” Then I confirm that she has reached her goal when she does, and I praise her for it.
St. George doesn’t want to sit down at all. He is my kid with remaining sensory issues. He does his addition while jumping. He spells his words while jumping. He does his math with many kinds of manipulative, such as marshmallows, dry beans, rocks from outside, sticks from outside…and he collects these things, so he is excited to use them.
I homeschooled Miss Blue for a year while her mama worked, and she gave me a TON of pushback at first. Her biggest issue was “You are not a teacher!” I acknowledged this: “You are right, I am not a school teacher in the way you are used to. I am a homeschool teacher and a college professor. How about this: You teach me something about how you are used to being taught, and I will teach you something about how I teach, and we will figure out what works best between us.” Whenever she gave me pushback, I would ask, “How did your teacher show you this?” She then showed me, and I would try it that way, “Like this?” “No, like this,” “Oh, ok. Yes, that make sense! Thanks for showing me that! Let’s do three problems that way, and then may I show you a trick I teach my kids?” “Ok!” I cannot begin to tell you how well this worked! She was very stressed out that I would teach her in unfamiliar ways, and that is a very valid thing to stress out about! After all, she had been pulled from all that was familiar to her, and I wanted to do what I could to bring something familiar back to her. I don’t know if I succeeded, but she definitely appreciated that I was trying rather than forcing my way on her. It worked out really well after a week or so!
Every kid has their pushback trigger. Figure it out. Work with it. It’s not something to overcome. It is them asking you to treat their personality respectfully rather than smashing them into a box.
Step 6: Stop before you get angry. Impatience is one thing, but when schooling a child, it can very quickly turn into anger. Know that MANY homeschool teacher find themselves fit to be committed on a fairly regular basis at first. You will too. Learn to say, “Let’s take a break!” And that means that you get a break. Go wherever you can to be by yourself, and do whatever you need to do to resume a peaceful mindset. For me, this is creating anything, so I go to my sewing room in the basement. Does this mean that we may not finish the school I had planned for the day? Yes. That is exactly what it means. And that is 100% ok. You have already taught your child more today than he or she would have learned in school in 8 hours.
Ok, that’s enough for today. Have fun with it! Tomorrow I will post a list of links to educational sites we find to be actually helpful, rather than simply games or endless links. There are many scammy sites out there just waiting for you to enter your e-mail address. Be mindful of what you sign up for!
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