Weekend Edition ~ Sometimes We All Need A Break

This article goes along with my last three part series on why some children may not seem like natural learners and techniques that may help. Sometimes even "Natural Learners", and children who love textbooks and workbooks too, and even Mama!, need a break.

When Mama and the kids start getting the doldrums of being home and the same ole, same ole, day after day. We sometimes just need to take a "inservice", or mental health day. Call school off for the day, and get outside! Walk to the park, if the weather is not conducive of being outside, find a indoor play ground or museum, or even a mall and go get a Starbucks or Orange Julius and walk around! What ever it is, that you can find to get you and the kids out of the house for the day. Sometimes we even call another homeschool family to come join us.

Do NOT feel like you are failure if this starts creeping up on you, and you just don't want to do another day of school or be in the house another day. This is normal for all homeschool families and even teachers and students in public schools too. But, the great advantage of homeschooling is, we, the parents, are in charge of what we do every single day. And we can choose to take the day off and do something else, and come back to doing a more structured school day another day. Tomorrow, next week, or even next month. It's all up to you. The important part is to allow yourself to know it is ok! Do not try to push through it, you and your children will just be miserable, and you risk squashing that love of learning right out of your children. But, by taking needed breaks to spice things up, you can keep that love of learning, and go back to the structured things later with out fights, or forcing! And every one can get the needed break and feel so much better when you do go back to your more structured days.

This is one reason "Jubilee" schooling is sometimes preferred by many. The 6 to 8 weeks of structured learning, and then 1 to 2 weeks break, and so on. Works very well for many families. Because the breaks are already built in! But, also remember you don't have to have the breaks scheduled in, you have the rights, and the power to impromptu take any breaks you deem needed or wanted! Schools take many breaks all through the year. We aren't expected or legally mandated to do more or force our children and selves to be like robots and keep forcing when we need and can take a break.

You may want to also keep in mind what I have found in my experience through the years.

The beginning of the school year, most homeschool groups start in the fall, is almost always super exciting and people have had a nice long summer break and are ready to get back to the grind. Along with they are super happy that the public school kids are back in the schools and all the public fun places to take children are not so over crowded and it's fun to go to them again. So there is almost always tons and tons of field trips schedule. Sometimes several every day. I find in my area September and October, every single day at least 2 or 3 field trips are scheduled by local museums, zoos, and such, along with most the homeschool groups also have several organized and scheduled. As the year goes on, there is less and less field trips, til almost none of the places or homeschool groups have much at all put together. But, those first two months are almost always super exciting months for the year. And then things wind down to not so exciting, and then down to sometimes down right dread!

The first month can also be extremely overwhelming if you are too strict with yourself and your children. Remember that most curricula that you buy, is written for the first 20 days to be new learning AND review and will take almost twice as long to get through a day as the rest of the curricula. So keeping that in mind, start with only 1 or 2 of the most important subjects to you the first week or two, and then add in a little bit more each week, so you aren't doing 8 hours a day of school and wiping every one out. Or review each days curricula schedule and only do parts of it that you think your children can benefit from. You can even just do half a day each day.

When I was growing up, we did not have air conditioning in schools. And the heat can get up to 125 degrees where I live. No A/C and 125 degrees in the afternoon meant that kids and teachers could have a heat stroke. Once in a while we would have a teacher who would buy a fan. But, I can promise you a fan doesn't help much in 125 degree weather in a small class room with 30 other children in it! HOT HOT HOT! So depending on the temperature every day, we were in what was called Heat Contingency Plan for the first month of school (after the first month the temperatures would go down to the 80's and 90's which was more acceptable with a fan). What the Heat Contingency Plan meant was, if the temp was over 105 degrees for the afternoon, we would only go to school a half day. Morning only. And that was for K-12th grade. None of the grades were expected to stay in the afternoon in that kind of heat with out A/C. No one worried about any one getting behind. And no one that I know of, fell behind because we had a month of half days either! We just did reading and math those days. And maybe science if there was time. We all came out fine and we can all read, write, and do math! haha

Around February to April, I find almost ALL homeschool families, and public school teachers and families are just done! They don't want to do another day. I think it's awesome that most states schedule their homeschool conferences and conventions during this time, cause it's the time we need the boost the most! It's also a time that I start heading to the park, and we have more outdoor time, and nature walks to keep us fresh and happy.

So remember just because you need a break, or start feeling over whelmed, or your kids need a break, or are feeling overwhelmed, does not mean something is wrong with you, or that homeschool is not working for you. It means you are normal! And just evaluate what you want to do, and feel no guilt in taking a break!

Weekend Edition ~ My Child is Not a Natural Learner - Part 3

I decided to stretch this article into three parts. Because, this can be a deep subject with many facets, and individual to each family. So I wanted to touch on as many reasons as I have come across on this topic.

In thinking on this, I wanted to add just one more thought, we are not perfect. I am not perfect, my children are not perfect. I now have a teenager. While some parts of academics took me a while to figure out how to teach my children while they were younger, the teen years are coming up with new challenges. Hormones, and teen angst can hit the best of children. I remember, my own challenges with it as a teen. Such a hard age. So I have also came to terms with some days, we just have to sit back, and have a honest heart to heart talk with my preteens and teens. They are going through a lot of hormonal, and other puberty related growth changes in life that have a direct effect on their attitudes, feelings, and otherwise. And sometimes we just need to have open, honest, and loving talks, that sometimes include tears both from the child and the parents, with them to help them through this time. The YPA book has some good suggestions on these times as well. I put academics on the back burner during these days, but that doesn't mean they are not learning. Remember personal progress. They are learning about other things those days, and it will help them when they sort through the emotional things to make better academic progress the next day or next week. This can also be said of children who believe they are dumb or stupid, and get angry about learning. Maybe step back, even if they are not a teen or preteen, and think about having a heart to heart with them, and finding out what they are thinking, and helping them through that emotional rough patch so they can bust through it and get to the academics learning part.

I hope these articles help you with relaxing and finding confidence that you are a great teacher for your child, and maybe just need to either wait, or put away some things that may be hindering your child. Keep in mind also, that most learning does not look like what you may have in mind, that public schools have conditioned us to believe is the only way to learn. A lot of learning is from watching mom and dad, and living with you. So when you feel your children are not learning, step back, and re-evaluate what you feel learning is. What were they doing last year? What are they doing this year? It's very very rare, that a child would not have made progress in a year in some form or fashion. We just sometimes have to reprogram our thinking on what learning is, and think about the individual progress each child has made every year, every month, even every week. Living with them, we may not see it, so sometimes have to force ourselves to really evaluate this and make sure we are being honest, and most likely your child has progressed... just maybe not in what your goal was, or in the way you had been expecting it.

Weekend Edition ~ My Child is Not a Natural Learner - Part 2

Some of you may of read Part 1 of this article and said, but Heather we have done all that and our children still do not seem to really seek out learning. The next half of this article may seem controversial, so take it for what it's worth. You can try it and see if it will help, but of course I am not telling you what you must do with your family. I am only offering what has helped and worked in my own family.

I find my children are much more creative, and eager to learn, when we cut out almost all electronics. We still allow tablets at meetings, and we watch the shows on JW Broadcast. We only have 1 TV. And it is only used to watch JW Broadcast. The rest of the time we listen to the radio. I use a small MP3 playing radio, and have put all our JW broadcasting songs on a flash drive and we listen to them on the radio. They also do sometimes listen to secular radio stations as well on a radio. But, we do not have screens except for meetings, and watching JW Broadcast (limited-not daily), and once in a great while at other peoples homes. I do not dictate that others not allow my children to watch TV. We also don't play video games much, again mainly only when they are at some one's home that wants to, and that's not often. Again I do not dictate that they can not at other peoples homes, that is just too hard to regulate, and makes being a guest harder on the host. I say this because my parents are not Jehovah's Witnesses, and live in rural Kansas, among many Amish and Mennonites. One of my brothers even dates a Mennonite woman. So they have many Amish and Mennonite friends, and they would always ask my parents not to allow their children to play video games or watch tv while visiting my parents. It was really hard to constantly make sure these children weren't doing that. And my parents are more screen free than the majority of people now days. They only have 2 TVs! lol They are a NO TVs in the bedroom family and always have been. But, they live in a large home and have 4 living rooms. So there is 2 TVs one in the Great Room on the main floor, and one in the Family room in the Basement. When I was growing up they didn't have the side of the house that has the Great Room and only had the side with the Family Room in the Basement and that was the only TV they had back then. Being in the basement sometimes the Amish kids would sneak off and watch TV down there or play video games. It became quite the chore to keep them from doing that. haha So any way, rambling to say I don't expect that of hosts, for my children.

Being screen free, I would estimate at least 85% percent of the time, has really effected my children greatly. I notice a huge, huge, huge difference when they are allowed to be in front of a screen. Attitudes and attention spans are much different. I will warn it took my oldest a few days to detox each time when she was younger. And would be a little bit of a terror for 2 to 3 days with out screens after being exposed. Then she would be normal, happy, exploring self again, with much more patience, and attention span.

Many ask, what do you do then? We have a lot of things for children to do in our home. They have roller skates/blades, a basketball hoop, a trampoline, a swing set, a animal water trough, I bought just for them to swim in, all kinds of things outdoors. Inside we have books, a mini trampoline, toys, radio, etc. And what may seem odd, and might not work for your family but is huge in my family, is a bathtub! haha The bathtub provides my children with hours of entertainment, when the weather is not conducive to being outside. They put on their swim suits and spend hours playing in the bathtub like it's a swimming pool or something! haha My children never seem to get "bored". Only a few times have they told me they are bored. And I do not play that game. Either they find something to do, or I will find something for them. What I find, most likely is not something they would like to do, hint hint! Like wash the dishes, clean your room, help sort laundry. These are all things I normally have them do, but if they are going to feign boredom, they can step it up and do more. So needless to say this is not something I hear often.

There is also scientific proof that children who use their large motor skills often. Hours each day during the younger years, have a much easier time learning academics. That is another reason we limit screens, and focus on playing and moving more. It develops brain pathways, and problem solving skills that helps to learn the academics we are all wanting our children to learn. And with out screens to distract them and suck up their time, they naturally spend more of their time physically playing and being more physically active over all.

This article has become longer than I had originally planned, so I am breaking it up into a third part. Please keep following my blog for Part 3 of this topic.