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When we first started homeschooling, I had one goal in mind: school at home. But it hasn’t worked that way. Over the years my goal has changed and whether you homeschool your kids or go a more traditional route, you can have a similar goal.
When I’m done schooling my children, I want them to be self-learners. I don’t want them dependent on others in order for them to learn. My goal is to make them realize before they leave home that they are responsible for their own education. This also helps them accept and shoulder responsibility gradually, before it is all just dumped on them. Regardless of how their children are schooled, this is something that all parents can do.
I’m sure we’ve all seen kids who are straight A students in high school, but when they hit college, they crumble into a million pieces and bring home Ds. Is it that college is so much harder? Sometimes – but more often than not it’s because Mom and Dad are no longer standing over them telling them to do their schoolwork and checking it over before it’s handed in. This doesn’t build responsible self-learners. It creates kids dependent on an external supports to hold them up straight.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way. It means a little more work at home at the beginning, but the results more than compensate for the additional work. Schoolwork is an excellent way to teach responsibility and create self-learners.
Try to work things so that by the time your children hit their Sophomore year of high school, they are assuming many of the fine details of their schooling. I am NOT saying to make them responsible for their schooling—just the fine details of it. How does this look if you’re homeschooling? Instead of having complete lesson plans for them, just give them a framework or a timetable to work within. Tell them you want the next section done by a certain date, and make sure you tell them your expectations of the work that’s to be done. Then, leave it up to them. Check with them occasionally to see if they’re working on it, but don’t nag them. Some kids will take it and run with it, others will wait until the last possible moment, and others will hang themselves. Whichever they do, it’s a chance you have to take and then use as a learning tool for them.
If they don’t reach the goal in the time they were given, make sure there are consequences that they feel. For some children, those consequences will have to last until they accomplish the next section on time and correctly. You know your child and you know what works for them. Being soft on them now will not help them develop into mature adults who can shoulder responsibility without buckling under the pressure.
Those that don’t homeschool can do the same thing with assignments and projects the teachers assign. You need to be in the know about what’s going on at school and with their school work, but you also need to raise them so they aren’t dependent on you to get their schoolwork done.
Your job as mom (as teacher or homework whip cracker) changes from being a taskmaster to an accountability check and balance. When you do this, your children learn to accept responsibility for their education and become self-learners.
What WONDERFUL advice for all of us! I don’t remember it, but my parents must have done this with me, because that’s JUST the way I am. Thanks for the reminder to do the same with my kiddos.
LoL, yes Joanne, I you are JUST like this! You really know how to get things done!!
Sometimes it’s easier to do it ourselves than to teach our kids to do them…and you know this is something I struggle with. LoL
Thank you for sharing this! We are currently homeschoolikng and my daughter will be a sophomore next year. Just started looking at what to take for next year.
Hi Sherry! I’m thinking about next year too and working at laying some ground work now for next fall with my youngers. =] Thanks for stopping by!
I am a homeschool mom of 21 years with four I have graduated from home education. At this time their ages run from 26 to 18, with two still at home ages 14 and 4. I can say I wasn’t a mother who did it for them, they had to do it themselves, whatever it was…college admissions etc. I am now enjoying the fruit of our relaxed home education by watching my four in the adult world, while still learning some lessons along the way, not perfect, they are still learning.
What an encouragement, Janette! Thank you! =] At the beginning it seems like even more work to train them to do things themselves, but in the long run it’s more than worthwhile.