Homeschool Community

 I do not know what I've done wrong, but we can't seem to get through a day in a decent amount of time.  This is our first year of home schooling, and my two girls (ages 12 and 9) are constantly distracting eachother, usually with giggling but sometimes with arguements.  The older one can handle it pretty well and manages to get her work finished eventually. The younger one would rather stare at her math paper and cry for 3 hours than actually DO IT!  I know she can do it if she wants to because one day she will finish in 20 minutes with everything done correctly and the next day it is 2 or 3 hours with complaints that "I don't know this stuff. It's too hard."  They spend so much time doing their basic work that there is no time left to go do anything else.  I have some serious cabin fever! I try to explain that we could be doing other things if they would just get done, but it doesn't seem to work.  I've tried separating them, taking away privelages, giving rewards, giving extra chores, changing schedules, changing the way we do things, threatening to send them back to school - nothing works.  They would rather take 8 hours to do 3-4 hours worth of work.  I feel like I just live to sit here and tell them to get back to work.  I can't leave the room or I will come back to a guinea pig running around on the desk and the school work pushed on the floor to make more room for the guinea pig.  I WANT to keep them at home and continue home schooling, but I'm going a little bit nuts!  Any suggestions?

Hi there,

 It's possible that at the time you wrote this post your children had some serious cabin fever such as you stated about yourself.  Here a few ideas that may help. 

- Try taking a break from the basics as you and your children currently experience them. Begin to incorporate the basics into field trips, creativity projects and every day living activities.  This will break up the mundane daily routine and give a much needed break while sparking new interests.  You may feel as though you are veering off track according to "the curriculum schedule" ...it's OK!  It sounds as if that has already happened anyway with the constant procrastination, meltdowns, and distractions.   

- Ask your children what it is that they would like to learn.  What is it that interests them personally?  Allow them to be a part of the process in decision making as to what they would like to learn.  Let them create their own lesson plan according to that interest (with your guidance).  You may be amazed at what they come up with and how much you can incorporate the basic lessons that you are currently trying to implement into the new ideas.

- Sometimes the first year of homeschooling can be the most challenging.  Especially if your children have experienced either public/private schooling.  Many 1st yr. homeschoolers end up de-schooling for the first year and getting a feel for what type of learner their child is.  IE - is your child a visual learner?  Do they do better with auditory input,  tactile or kinesthetic learning?  It's possible that your children are not being receptive to the curriculum that is being used due to specific learning styles and needs.

-Sometimes children are more receptive to short lesson spurts and work time.  Sometimes trying 15 min. blocks of time is all that a child can effectively absorb.  Allowing for creativity, play time and down time in between is also helpful. 

-A great book to read on this topic is called Homeschooling the Challenging Child written by Christine Field.  This can be found in the HSI shop.  It offers great insight and offers ideas and tips.  Christine is a seasoned homeschool mom herself and has written various homeschool publications.  I highly recommend that you check out this insightful publication!

-Keep posting here on the forums, asking for help, gaining insight and ideas. 

Most homeschoolers will admit that the first year is the toughest.  There is a lot of adjustments to be made.  Even classroom teachers struggle their first year and change things often to meet the needs of their students.  Eventually you will figure out what works/doesn't work for your children.  Value their input and trust yourselves that you are doing great work.  Remember it's not so important to have quantity of work as the focal point but quality, interest, and understanding.

 Best of Luck to You!

~hsiamy

 I agree with what 'hsiamy' had to say. I just finished homeschooling my 7 yr.old and the first few months were extremely challenging.  I soon realized that she had a lot of adjusting to do as well.  She needed time to get used to this different environment as well.  So I just pulled back a little and let her do as little as mu conscience would allow and just resisted getting into it with her at all.  This lasted for about a week and a half, then I let her choose what subjects she wanted to do and when and I very slowly eased back into it.  I tried to make lessons fun and not always following the book page for page.  S

Some days I would do everything on white board.  Another day I would find relevant exercises on the net.  Sometimes we would build a huge forte in the living on the floor and work in there and she would not even realize how much work we got done.  

I think that your girls will settle down eventually, but they are not used to the kind of freedom that they have right now.  It sounds as if you have them working in their room, maybe you should bring them into the dining room or kitchen where you can keep an eye on them and they can understand that even though they are allowed a little more freedom and a more relaxed atmoshere, the objective is still to learn.

Stick with it and have heart.  This is still the best thing for them (imo) 

My eleven year old daughter and I just completed our full first year of homeschooling. Wow! what a challeng. I know exactly what you are feeling. I did also try everything. I agree with one of the threads as to take a break and go out of the box. Go and study things hands on and make things fun. My first mistake was to mimik public school at home, and I quickly learned that this is "not home schooling". We do have lots of freedom to make learning fun. I used to think that we would loose valuable learning time, but so is tantrums and pushing away curriculum currently. I too did this my daughter would have a daily "meltdown" I finally told her to choose a favorite place to go and do studies and we went to a bookstore with a great coffeeshop and good atmosphere and therefore it was a little more difficult for us both to loose the battle. This worked for us both. Now my daughter is used to the routine. By the way I have tried to have her do her studies at various time of the day to please her. I found out that what she is really wanting is a very structured day. I now plan her curruculum and she has her own datebook with time incriments of fifteen minutes and she gets the freedome to set her day up as long as she follows and not deviates. This is working. I am soooooo glad. Good Luck to you and your children things will get better I promis.