Reducing Home-School Stress & Arguments!

 

Given children are usually expert negotiators when it comes to avoiding tasks they dislike, the following tips (the product of years of teaching experience!) may help to reduce stress and arguments for parents, carers and minders new to home-schooling.

 

 

1. Children like to feel some sense of control over what they have to do. Allowing for choice can eliminate many arguments. It is helpful to enumerate the tasks for the day but allow for some choice in the order in which they are undertaken. It can be helpful to tackle ‘core subjects’ in the morning, but this will be entirely dependent on each individual family’s schedule. As long as tasks are done, the order does not particularly matter. Asking your child if they would like to do their maths or English first affords them some control of the schedule but still enables the end goal of completing work on both subjects being achieved.

 

2. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, 1:1 or small-group work is more intensive than whole-class work. Use this to your advantage! If children have one hour of maths per day at school, you can afford to ‘make a deal’ with your child that they will do 45/50 minutes with you. They will likely feel that they have done well out of such a deal, heightening their motivation and (hopefully) reducing complaints.

 

3. It is helpful to outline precisely what it is you expect your child/ren to do in the learning session. It may take you a few days to figure out what reasonable expectations for a session look like. Compare what they are doing with you to work already completed in their books and copies. Monitor how they work (effort and application) in each session. 

 

• If they work with focus and complete the work ahead of time (as long as they have worked accurately and their presentation is clear), allow them to add the remaining time to their post-lesson movement break. Don’t simply keep adding tasks to fill time as it may begin to feel like a punishment. You can adapt the amount of work you set in the following session if you feel you your expectations have been too low in the current one. If, however, your child is clearly enjoying the work and is keen to continue, additional challenge tasks may prove motivational and you should praise them for their hard work.

• If they have worked with persistence but failed to complete the tasks, praise them for their hard work and tell them they can finish it tomorrow.

• If, however, they have not put any effort in on a task that is at their level, it is important they are required to complete it later. If they have opted to waste their learning time, deduct this from their free time, insisting the work is completed before they engage in free choice activities. Stand firm against complaints in order to establish productive work habits!  

 

4. Should battles arise, as is likely in the scenario above, it is important to remember you set the temperature and tone in the home. Home-schooling your child/ren will no doubt test your patience at times. It can be trying when children are restless, distracted, misbehaving, or when they struggle to grasp something you are trying to explain. In such cases, consider now what actions you might take or why your child/ren may be responding in a particular way.

 

 

 

 

Some things to think about:

 

• How long can your child typically concentrate for?

• How long has your child been working on the task?

• Is the work at a suitable level for them?

• When did your child last have a movement break?

• Is your child hungry, thirsty or tired?

• Is your child feeding off your emotions/responding to your mood?

 

5. If you find yourself losing patience, avoid demonstrating this in front of your child.

 

• Take a break, walk away and take a few deep breaths.

• Leave the task for now. Think about how you might subsequently approach it in a new way.

• Give your child a movement break before starting work again on a different topic/subject.

• If you have snapped and lost patience with them, apologise for doing so.

 

 

Although foisted upon so many with little/no notice, try to approach home-schooling with a positive frame of mind. Use it as an opportunity to learn more about your child and explore their interests, as well as sharing some interests and school stories of your own with them. Accepting this as a time to build relationships and strengthen family bonds may be the only silver lining in the current scenario.

 

If you find yourself with questions about home-schooling or teaching and learning, please do not hesitate to reach out and I will try to answer as many questions as I can.

 

Take care. Stay safe and healthy all!

 

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Image Source: Pixabay