How do you motivate your kids to do their school work?
At this point, if something doesn't change, we will not be homeschooling next year.
For awhile, I've really felt that this is what God wanted me to do. I've felt like He's been teaching me through this situation. Nevertheless, if I can't motivate my kid to do her work, then I can't continue to keep her home. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to me. And, it's not fair to the twins.
Prayers are appreciated.
Thanks.
3 comments:
I went through this too. Originally we kept them home because we never knew when Tommy would get sick, plus the lack of sleep caring for him all night.
Our thoughts were when Tommy was stable enough, we would send them back to school. I could NEVER keep them motivated. In the end, we did end up sending them back to public school and having Matthew repeat a grade because we could never keep him motivated enough. I felt he was not getting the education that he should.
Another option would be to throw out the curriculum and approach things as "unschooling". Matthew really enjoyed this approach, but we could not stick with it because of Tommy and his constant care, but it did work much better than a traditional curriculum.
Whatever you decide will be a hard decision. There are many days that I wish we still homeschooled, but I know I could never keep them motivated with their ADHD issues. We do what we have to do, I guess.
Rene
Tommys Mom
Hi,
First time reader to your blog here, so take my ideas for what they are worth!
First of all I would encourage you that if you feel in your heart of hearts that God wants you to be homeschooling your children then He has given you or given you access to all the tools you need in order to be successful at that even if you don't currently realize it. Dig deep and push through if it is what you believe to be best for your children.
The first thing I do when I seem to be hitting a wall with my kids is to reevaluate my expectations. I respell them out so they are very clear to everyone. I have probably needed to do this every 6-8 weeks all school year just to keep things fresh. We've done things like reposting our daily schedule or temporarily changing the routine to fit us better, doing more art and experiences and less "school" as sometimes the kids just seemed to need a break from the same old same old. We use a Montessori approach, so I will bring out a new work or introduce a new topic or activity and that usually helps.
For awhile I was spelling out exactly what work needed to be done by listing it on a white board each morning before my oldest (and only student with "assignments") got up. I would list 5 things that needed to be done. 1 language thing, 1 math thing, and 3 other activities. He could do them in any order, but he had to do all of them before he was allowed free play or outdoor time. I probably had to use the white board for about a month to get his work habits back on track and now I don't need it anymore.
Taking work outside for a change of pace, doing work in the afternoon instead of the morning, any number of small changes can make a huge difference.
Hopefully this will be somewhat helpful to you!
Good Luck,
Heidi
No advice, just prayers.
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