As parents, we know that not every day is a great day for either ourselves or our children. That is the case with homeschooling, too, when our day-to-day lives with our children don’t turn out to be the happily ever after story we thought they would be. Sometimes our kids are unhappy. Sometimes they’re resistant. Sometimes they just plain refuse. Some days the smiles, laughter, and joy of learning are nowhere to be found. While specific answers may vary for every family, there are a few practices that can routinely rob your family of homeschooling joy. In working on this article, I enlisted the help of my children to identify eight practices that can harm even the best of intentions. These can be looked at from both the parent’s and children’s perspectives.
From a Parent’s Perspective
1. Being a Slave to the Schedule
I learned my first year of homeschooling that when learning at home is dictated by the clock, nobody is having any fun. Strictly timed schedules for learning were made for managing children in school, not your children at home. There is no need to assign blocks of time for subject learning, eating, or free play when homeschooling.
John Holt, famed educator and author who kickstarted home education in the U.S., said,
“What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn’t a school at all.”
Home is the place where your child can eat while working on lessons. Home is the place where play IS learning and breaks can be taken whenever a child needs them. Home is the place where subjects don’t have to end every 50 minutes and can take as long or as little as you and your child are interested in exploring them. Subjects themselves don’t even have to be planned ahead, but can be approached and engaged with as your child gets curious about them.
Strict scheduling in homeschool often results in stressed out kids and overwhelmed parents. Instead of living by a daily schedule, try aiming for establishing a general family rhythm. The difference is living by a flow that feels good for your family’s everyday routines and habits, instead of the clock.
A schedule suggests “we start math at 8:30 a.m., then read until 9:40 a.m., and then you can have 20 minutes of free play before we begin our science lesson at 10 a.m.” A family rhythm might suggest “who wants to help me make breakfast while we listen to the next chapter of our audiobook?” or “would you like to play your math games before or after our daily walk to the park?”
2. Not Enough Downtime
It’s very easy to fill your days with homeschool-related meetups, trips, activities, and classes. But more is not always the answer. When you find your homeschool and children feeling drained, it may be that you’re doing too much.
Having downtime is important for balance. Make time to do nothing, go nowhere, and see nobody. Let your kids’ brains rest, let them recharge, let them be bored. It’s often when my kids are bored, they spark some of their most creative ideas! Having down time is also important for YOU, the homeschooling parent, to rest and focus on the things you enjoy doing for yourself.
Homeschool burnout is real, for both parents and children. Filling all of your days to the max is a sure way to get yourself there.
3. Comparing Your Homeschool to Others
In the world of social media influencers and Pinterest perfect everything, it can be tough to withstand the constant barrage of images and messaging telling you what your homeschool should look like. But comparing your family life to images and ideas online and then internalizing the idea that your homeschool isn’t “good enough” is a mistake.
What you see online are highlights, curated snapshots of moments in time that are surrounded before and after by a million other moments that you don’t see (and a lived reality the person you’re following may never publicly blog about). No one’s homeschool is perfect. No one homeschooler has it all figured out. No one curriculum is the answer all of the time for every child. All of us are simply striving to do and be our best for ourselves and for our children. May Allah make it easy. Ameen.
What makes your homeschool special is not that it looks or behaves like someone else’s, but that it looks and behaves in the way that works for your particular family at the particular life stage you are currently in. Your family is unique and your homeschool can be crafted to serve your unique needs.
4. Stressing About Standards
Depending on the state you live in, you may be required to meet specific standards in order to homeschool your children. You could be asked to include specific subjects, keep track of grades and grade levels, or even participate in state testing. Some states require none of this. Regardless, allowing your homeschool to only be about fulfilling these standards can definitely take the joy out of learning.
Your child is more than their grades. Your child’s interests likely span beyond the six core subject areas decided by the state curriculum. Your child’s test scores do not equate to their level of intelligence, passion, or potential for success in life. Your family’s intentions and approach to home education can be about so much more than ticking standardized boxes.
When you find your stress building about “keeping up” and begin adding pressure to your child about “staying on track,” it may be that you’ve lost sight of your bigger reasons for homeschooling in the first place. Homeschooling allows you to curate an education that fits your family’s needs, interests, and values. Focus on that.
From the Child’s Perspective
As I was preparing this list, I also asked two of my children - Layth Guadalupe, age 12, and Sufyaan Guadalupe, age 10 - how they felt on the matter. Here are some of the things they believe can take the joy out of the homeschooling experience.
5. Not Enough Hands-On Learning
When homeschool becomes all about completing worksheets and writing papers, joy will wane. Hands-on learning brings concepts to life for children, especially those who are active and love to learn through movement.
Hands-on projects, games, and activities allow for your children to process information in a multisensory way, engaging different parts of their body and their brain as they learn. And, according to my 10-year-old, “learning through projects is more fun.”
The next time you think about putting a workbook in front of your child, try thinking of a more hands-on way that same lesson can be learned instead. Can the history summary become a painting? Can you build a puzzle of the U.S. instead of just listing out the names of states and capitals? Can you play a card game to practice addition facts instead of handing out another worksheet full of drills?
With a little thought and planning, just about any topic can become a hands-on pursuit. You can even ask your child for ideas!
6. Not Enough Real Life Experiences
An extension of the above, my children believe that not having enough real-life experiences makes learning fall flat.
“When learning is just from books, it’s not very fun. We learn a lot by reading of course, but we learn even more when we get to go out and experience what we read about in real life. That’s what makes learning exciting, and it makes you want to keep learning more!” said my 12-year-old.
Experience and encounters can deepen understanding of concepts and make learning feel relevant in ways that simply providing information or pictures cannot. Museums, nature centers, and science centers offer wonderful experiences for children to engage first-hand with ideas and information. Traveling can provide opportunities to encounter new people, places, and cultures, too. Even sitting down with elderly family or community members to hear their stories can shed a whole new light on information about places and events of the past.
7. Homeschooling Alone
Interaction with other homeschooling families is important. I’ve found it increasingly important as my children grow older and enter into new life stages.
When my children were young and in their early elementary years, they cared very little for joining up with other families. At most, we did it once a week and only for a couple of hours. As they grew into upper elementary school, those weekly meetups became full-day commitments. With my oldest now in middle school, we meet with other homeschoolers, in one way or another, at least a few times every week.
“Homeschooling by yourself or only with your siblings all of the time gets boring. It’s much more fun to learn and hang out with friends in a group,” said my 12-year-old.
If you notice your children are feeling isolated or not getting enough interaction with other homeschooled children, it may be time to look for social opportunities outside of your home, such as homeschool classes, field trips, or learning cooperatives. You can also try city sports, volunteering with the community, scouts programs, classes at your local masjid, and so much more!
8. Not Enough Control
This issue is a big one for my children and it might be for yours, too. Not allowing enough choice in your homeschool can make children feel like learning is being done to them rather than a lifelong habit they’re pursuing for their own growth.
“No one likes to be told what to do all of the time,” said my 10-year-old. “When we aren’t allowed to make choices about what or how we want to learn, it feels like we have to stay inside of this box that forces us to be like everyone else. It keeps us from being able to come up with our own ideas or grow those ideas into something really big.”
Children in homeschool environments that offer little choice in what gets learned, when or how, eventually push back out of boredom, frustration, resentment, or a combination of the above.
The remedy is simple: talk with your kids about what and how they like to learn and offer them age-appropriate choices whenever possible. For example: we all know math is important and needs to be worked on. But it doesn’t have to be learned via a workbook that bores your child and ends up with the two of you arguing over the lessons. Your child can play a math game, or read a math story book, or create a math-related art project, or use real-life math by helping you finally build that garden bed in the backyard.
Homeschooling is a collaborative journey and your children need to know that their ideas and perspectives matter.
Melissa Barreto is a homeschooling mother of five children and the Co-Founder of Wildflower Homeschool Collective, a homeschooling organization based in Northern New Jersey.
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