Being there for your kids

It Takes A Village to School Your Child

Many kids feel banished to their rooms and not come out until that homework is finished "young man!!" Home schoolers can feel isolated throughout their school day. As parents, it is vital that your kids know that you are there for them as they struggle to complete assignments. Draw on and draw in other resources to bolster your child's homework and home schooling experience. As they find more creative, engaging, unique, and interesting ways to tackle assignments, with your oversight, school becomes more of fun experience. Help your kids use all of the resources at their disposal. Be the sounding board. Active listen when you see them being stuck. Be the cheerleader with their efforts and their success. It takes a village to school your child.

Reframe Failures as Blessings in Disguise

Everybody who has failed, raise your hand. Yep, that's everybody. If your hand's not raised, you are lying :(  Interestingly, failure is a critical part of success. How can we know what's right, if we first don't know what's wrong? How you handle your failures provides a critical role model for your kids. How you help your kids deal with failure is a critical component in their building character. When you help them see that each failure is also a blessing in disguise, you help them build up steam to learn more.

Start with your child's strengths

Getting your child to embrace homework can be rough. Complaints, stall tactics, moaning and groaning can abound. After clearing the way with active listening and helping him get down to task, help him see and start with his strengths, what is shorter to complete, what he's good at. This strategy helps him build up a positive head of steam heading into the hard stuff. Find ways to break down the hard stuff into more time manageable pieces. Go for shorter work times with alternating break/fun times. With these successes, he will be better able to tackle the harder stuff.

Encourage a context for learning

Everything happens for a reason. If your child is not getting down to task as you directed, try to understand the context for his stalling. Such questions as, "What else is going on?" and, "Why now?" are good starters for conversation. Use your active listening to help him lower his emotional fever, and then help him problem solve before redirecting him to task. Understanding the context for his delay, and resolving his distraction, will clear the way for his focusing fully on the task at hand.

Developing Your Child's Growth Rhythm

As important as the 3R's of schooling are, and adding to the list the fourth "R," the goal of parenting our kids through their school experience is helping them build character and develop a growth rhythm. That's what serves them best in being all they can be as an adult. Being a good role model, helping them make good decisions, teaching them about putting their energies into what's most important are all ingredients to good character and a good growth rhythm. Our kids find 80% of their personality in their interactions with us, only 15% with their peers, and just 5% on their own. How we are with our kids will define how they will be with others. Are you up to the task?

Relationship, the 4th R of homeschooling

What kind of home school teacher are you? It's tough bouncing back and forth between being parent and teacher to our child.How do you navigate that? It is critical in this context to embrace the 4th R of schooling. The original 3Rs are reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Most important, however, and the best context within which to teach the first 3Rs is the 4th R, relationship. Of course, as the parent, you are constantly aware of building your relationship with your child. As home schooling parent, you want to come from a position of earned authority for your new role. By understanding your child's school needs, wants, and feelings, you can better craft a learning experience for him. Therein lie multiple academic and life-based teachable moments.

Mutual respect sets the tone for schooling

When helping your child with schooling, balance your approach. As you can work with each other with mutual respect, the task becomes easier and quicker for each of you. Use your active listening to settle your child into task. Brainstorm options for task completion. Plan ahead and use a daily planner dry erase board so that your child knows what to expect each moment of each school day. Give clear, specific, and time sensitive for better cooperation. The more creative and unique you can make the tasks, and the more involved you can get your child in the process, the better the outcome.

Tools for Academic Success

You wouldn't start a DIY project at home without the proper tools, would you? Of course not. Some parents, however, just let their kids do homework and home school willy nilly, whatever. There's a saying that applies here: For anything worth doing, you get out of it what you put into it. To help equip your child for academic success, give him the proper tools to get the job done. To create the habit of homework and home schooling, equip your child with structure and routine. Application of these tools consistently leads to their ultimate tool, muscle memory. Muscle memory enables your child to get it done without hassle, distraction, or excuses. It leads to greater efficiency on task and greater retention come test time. Structure, routine, and muscle memory are tools for academic success

 

Add Transition Time to your Home Schooling

Quick changes in activity level tend to throw a child off kilter. While this might save time, such quick changes actually extend the fussing and delaying before getting into the rhythm of the activity. Double for homework and home schoolers. To make the most of difficult situations, active listen your child's foot dragging and frustration about doing schoolwork at home. Make sure ahead of time that the time alotted for study is consistent and dedicated. Add a 5-10 minute transition time both to address stall tactics and excuses, and also to help your kids gear up for the task of schoolwork. Finish school time with another transition of 15-30 minutes where you can heap praise and positive reinforcement on them. Transition sets the tone for home schooling.

Awlays start where your child is

Having to deal with all of this pandemic stuff and we also have to help our kids stay on top of their schoolwork? Really?? Yep, that's a sign of our times. How you get started with this task will set the tone for how it's achieved. Use your active listening to hear your child's upset and frustration. When you see the emotional fever subside, start problem-solving. Plan ahead and stick to your plan. Set parameters. Alternate fun with work. Be with him in the moment. You've got this. You can get through it together.