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How to Make Your Kids Hate Homeschooling? Actually is very easy and I’m sure you have been making some of these mistakes in your homeschool right now and have not even noticed.
How do I know that? Because it wasn’t until my third year homeschooling that I realized that a lot of what I was doing was actually causing my kids and myself to hate homeschooling.
** This post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.**
PIN ME!
You Can Easily Make Your Kids Hate Homeschooling If You…
#1 – Keep adding more curriculum.
We homeschool moms, are addicted to adding more to our curriculum! We need to get rid of this addiction. The reality is: all these extras are making our homeschool overwhelming and unproductive.
Every sale we see or every conference we attend is not a license for us to spend more money or to add more to our homeschool. Surely, if it is a necessity, you should shop for what you need. Otherwise, let’s manage well what we have in our hands first!
#2 – Keep changing the routine or have no routine.
If you are making this mistake, your kids are probably constantly lost like a GPS trying to recalculate their location and route. I know it takes a few weeks to find the perfect routine and a few tweaks here and there to adjust. That’s a good thing. But don’t keep changing your routine every week.
Routine in our homeschool makes our days go smoothly, help our kids be more independent and without a fixed routine your kids will never know what to do next, neither will you!
This weekly routine and homeschool assignments checklist has done wonders for our homeschool. You can download it free here:
#3 – Overwork your children.
Give them tons of copywork to do, 5 pages of Math problems and a whole lot more daily while doing school from 8am to 5pm. Yep! That’s exactly what I was doing to my poor little kids!! My kids were tired, complaining, their joy was gone and so was mine. It was way too much and at the end of the day, we were not being more productive or learning a lot more.
Charlotte Mason recommended that we keep our lessons shorts, about 20 minutes each for the youngest ones. Today I recognize that my kids only need to daily copy a paragraph and do well a page or two of math to really learn.
Brave Writer is a great and gentle Language Arts curriculum that made a big difference in our homeschool and so did CTC Math, a full online Math curriculum we use with all three children here.
#4 – Feel constantly overwhelmed.
If you are overwhelmed, chances are you are also cranky, irritable, short tempered and you’re kids are not really excited about being around. Plus, you must be in a place where you just hate homeschooling your kids right now because it is feeling like a burden and an obligation more than a calling.
Mom, if this speaks to you, you need to take care of yourself – put your oxygen mask on! Learn to relax, cut the extras that are overwhelming you. You really need to evaluate where you are and where you want to be.
Perhaps you need to consider to outsource part of your homeschool or give your children more independent learning time.
After we added some digital learning time in the afternoons for our kids, I finally have time to maintain my house in order and even listen to a podcast or read a book every now and then. While they spend 30minutes to an hour on the iPads, this mama here has a quiet time, all for herself!
PIN ME FOR LATER!
#5 – Over-schedule them.
Homeschool already takes a big chunk of our days, plus we have all the house work to do and for some of us, work to do from home or outside the home as well. Try to keep your family’s schedule light if you don’t want you or your kids to burn out!
This year we cut out on extracurricular lessons for our kids. Yep, we did! No ballet, no swimming, no ice skating, etc… Why? Because we were all running in an exhaustion mode and having no family time to just chill and spend time together.
By freeing our schedule, the difference in our family was HUGE!! We have been much happier, more productive in our homeschool and none of my kids ever complained about not going to extra classes.
[Tweet “If your kids are hating homeschool it might be your fault!”]
#6 Teach all subjects every day.
You can’t do twelve subjects in a day! Maybe I’m exaggerating but it surely feels like it sometimes.
Have you tried a loop schedule? At our homeschool, we keep Language Arts and Math as daily subjects then we alternate between science and History/Geography from Monday to Thursday leaving Fridays for fun extra subjects using a loop schedule like nature studies, picture studies, composers, hymn study, etc.
#7 Make homeschooling boring.
Did you know that you can play games with your kids while they learn? There are tons of games that are extremely educational. For example, for spelling we use a game called Roll’n’Spell from Magnobrain. My kids love playing it!
Why not add some game time into your homeschool schedule. This is a great way to take a break from books while your kids keep learning.
#8 Fall into the comparison trap.
Never compare your children and never compare yourself with other homeschool moms. You are unique, your kids are unique.
Imagine how your kid feels when you say “See, Johnny. Luke is doing chapter 30 of his math book already. He is a good student and you are behind!” Yes, that’s how they feel – sad!
Walk according to your kids’ pace, not anybody else’s. Your homeschool journey, pace, and approach are completely and uniquely yours.
To stop making your kids hate homeschooling is also easy!
Be honest and ask yourself if you are making some of all of these mistakes. Then be intentional to reverse these and create a homeschooling environment that your kids and you will love instead!
- Will dropping some extracurricular classes help ease out the load?
- Could adding some fun games or field trips make your homeschool days more fun?
- How about implementing a solid routine that will help your kids and yourself run on autopilot mode for good?
On which one of these mistakes you need to start working on right now? Don’t try to do it all at once. Pick just one or two, to begin with, or take a few days off from homeschooling and do a complete makeover!
Want a radical change in your homeschool? Sign up for my NEW e-course: 5 Days to Your Best Homeschool Years!
I can’t wait to see you thriving and loving to homeschool your kids! I can’t wait to hear that they are loving homeschooling more than ever!
Need some encouragement? Download my FREE guide: 10 Habits of a Highly Encouraged Mom by clicking the picture below.
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Ana is the unhurried homeschool mom of 3, wife, and homeschool blogger.
She loves to encourage, inspire and empower moms to go from stressed to blessed by providing them with the tips, strategies, and resources they need to succeed. Ana is the founder of They Call Me Blessed and the creator of:
5 Days to Your Best Homeschool Years,
Hebrew for Homeschoolers,
Charlotte Mason Online Conference,
The Homeschool Sisterhood,
Grow Your Blog Partying in 30 Days, and
the Beyond Blessed Life Planner.
She leads a vibrant free community for homeschool moms on Facebook and you can connect with her at www.facebook.com/theycallmeblessedblog.
Routine is huge struggle
Hi, Ashley! Thanks for stopping by!
Question: Why do you think it is a struggle? Is it lack of consistency? Is it because of the age gap between the kids? Can you make a list of the things that sabotage your routine and try to eliminate them?
This community is always here to help you. Ana. 🙂
Routine is a gift from your children’s perspective, although they might not know it if you ask them. However, it doesn’t have to mimic classroom-based schooling for it to be an effective routine. In fact, try to recreate the classroom in the home is a recipe for homeschooler burnout. When my kids were young, our daily routine was that they completed a simple form every day ( I always made it very graphically appealing and fun) that had broad learning categories and each day, they selected what they would do in that category and they could choose from many options. So the routine was to self-select their learning activities and then go make it happen. The variety was endless (singing, games, workbooks, worksheets, projects, field trips, etc. and they felt in control because it was always their choices, but I always controlled the bigger picture and made sure their learning was diverse and comprehensive through the nature of the categories and also the options they had to choose from to fill in each category each day. Most days they had to complete 6-10 categories and I kept changing the learning resources that were available for their use. These days they are excellent critical thinkers and problem solvers, because they always had to figure it all out for themselves. It takes all the burden off mom and places it squarely where it should be, which is directly in the hands of the actual learners. BTW: Some of our activity selection was done a bit in advance to allow for needed planning (field trips), but most was done daily or every two days at most.
Great comment, Jill!! I so agree with you.
Thank you so much for your input!
Ana 🙂
I was guilty of a few of these in our first few years of homeschooling. I learned quickly that adding more curriculum or changing just because something interesting came along was a bad idea for me and my kiddos!
Hi, Emily!! Thanks for stopping by. I just shared one of your posts on my Facebook page. I love your blog!
And yes, we have all been guilty of these mistakes in homeschooling. LOL I’m just glad some new homeschool moms are learning this early in the game! 😉
And we all suffer from the shiny object syndrome. Hahaha
Love this post, thank you! I think the thing I struggle with the most (one sk boy and toddler girl/monkey lol) is having time to look for games or fun activities. We have an ok schedule this year and my son is enjoying the light curriculum we are going through but I find I struggle with creativity and finding things to do when the short lessons are done. We like to read and colour and have lots of cleaning (dishwasher coming soon!) but it would be great to find time for even more games or
activities beyond what our curriculum offers. Will look into the game you mentioned!
Alicia, create some learning boxes or a workbox for the kids and rotate some games, puzzles, coloring, playdoh or other games you have. Are you following me on my Facebook page? I can do a Facebook live video tomorrow and show you what I’m talking about. This will make it so much easier for you to always have something to do with the kids or even to let them get busy by themselves! 😉
Make sure you check my Facebook page tomorrow, I will make the video there for you! 😀
https://www.facebook.com/theycallmeblessedblog/
Thank you so much for your comment!! Make sure you also sign up for my newsletter. 😉
All of these! YES! Thanks so much for linking up at #familyfriday we appreciate it! We hope you come back next week.
Jen|Practical By Default recently posted…A “Day” in My Life: Homeschooling and Working Outside of Home
My pleasure!! And yes, I will definitely link up next week again. 🙂
Hi
I know this is a bit late for this post :). I seem to be doing all subjects every day. We are using SL and was wondering how you manage to alternate science and history as Sonlight has each subject scheduled almost everyday? Do you stretch out the core and take longer to finish it or do you do two days of history on one day and two days of science on the next day etc? It is sometimes over whelming to do both every day.
Thanks for any tips or advice using and scheduling SL.
Regards
Anne.
Hi, Anne! No worries, it is never too late. We are Sonlighters too!! 😀
Here is what I do:
Mornings: Bible (while eating breakfast), Math and Language Arts.
Then, I give my kids a quick break to run around while I get lunch ready and I try to eat before them.
Lunch time: Read-Alouds while the kids eat.
Afternoon: We alternate between history/geography and science. So this is how I do. I read our history books using my judgment to get to half of our week’s reading according to the IG. We’ve been doing Core B in two years because my kids were still very young when we started but anyways we chose to homeschool year around to stretch it out and have less pressure on our shoulders. This was something I was advised to do by one of the Sonlight advisors. The IG is to serve you as a guide. Also, don’t be afraid of skipping some of the readers. I leave them to be read during the Summer or at night before bedtime. The goal is to easy things out for you so you don’t feel overwhelmed. And do call their advisors – they are amazing!
I love Sonlight for so many reasons and I have used it for 4 years. Sonlight can be easily tweaked to meet your family needs.
Here is a post that will help understand more our homeschooling routine with Sonlight: https://www.theycallmeblessed.org/unhurried-charlotte-mason-approach/
I hope this helps and encourages you.
Please feel free to chat with me anything through my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/theycallmeblessedblog or email me at anawillis@icloud.com
Blessings!!
Ana 🙂
Hi again Ana
Well I took your advice and it is definitely much nicer not doing every subject every day. We now also do History twice a week and Science twice a week and try to leave Fridays free for art and music or nature walks. I have another question however, Charlotte Mason suggests short lessons and I’m finding that by doing 2 days SL history/science on one day is stretching out my lesson and making the lesson a bit long especially if we are adding in a bit of narration and comprehension discussion or a science experiment, how do you find this to be with the same approach in your home? I must say though I am enjoying not having to change gears from History to Science each day. 🙂
Thank you for all the tips, support and advice. xxx
I’m so glad to hear that, Anne!
Here is a question for you: Even taking a bit longer, is it working better for you?
For our family, I have no doubt that workes better. But you need to focus on what works best for your family!
Here is an example, I love a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education, and Ms. Mason advised letting our kids have 6 hours of outdoors time daily, while I absolutely agree with the importance of outdoors time, 6 hours/day doesn’t work for my family.
I keep our Math and Language Arts are short as I can, but when it comes to reading books for History, for example, my kids can easily spend an hour or more without complaining. Same thing for Science, in fact, because we don’t do it every day, they get even more excited about it and eager to pay more attention.
So tweak what you think it is not working and keep what it until you find the perfect homeschool routine for your family. 😉
XOXO,
Ana.
Hi
Yes, even though it takes a bit longer, it is definitely better. I hear you, tweak, tweak, tweak ;). I will work on this.
Thank you.xxx
I’m glad it is working better. 😉
Thanks so much for this post! I use Heart of Dakota for my homeschool, and I’ve cut some of the non-essentials (copywork, etc.), but I still find it to be too much. I have 3 kiddos working at 3 different levels (though I have combined my 1st and 3rd graders for science, history, and read-alouds), and it’s just a lot to fit in in a day. I fear to cut too much more because I’m always worried that they will be missing something they should be learning, and all of the subjects are kind of tied together. Any suggestions on how to make this work better for us or on how you decide what’s “not important”? I don’t know what my kids think of homeschooling, but it’s definitely burning me out!
Lacey, yes! I can totally help you with that!
I have three kids too. Grades 1, 3 and 4. So I totally get where you are and I am so thankful you found this post!
Combining as many subjects together is key. I heard wonderful things about Heart fo Dakota!
I wrote a blog post for Sonlight sharing how I organize our homeschool routine, I think this will help you: https://www.sonlight.com/blog/best-homeschool-routine.html
And one more thing, if you need to redo your homeschool routine, don’t wait until you burn out! I burnt out completed 2 years ago and you have no idea the consequences it brought us. So, now I am all for slowing down and savoring every moment. It’s ok to take a break! It’s ok to do no science for 4 weeks then do a full science week and nothing else. Tweak it. Use a loop schedule. Don’t do any extras until you find what works for you.
You would love my course 5 Days to Your Best Homeschool Years because I talk about all of those things and it is really a homeschool makeover and a breath of fresh air.
Let’s keep talking! Join Blessed Homeschool Moms on Facebook.
Thanks so much for getting back to me! I have checked out your post and will evaluate how I can change things up here to maybe make it work better for us. Unfortunately, I am not on Facebook so I can’t join your group, but I definitely will be checking out your blog further for more tips and ideas! Thank you for the time and effort you put in to help other moms succeed!
Awesome, Lacey! I am planning on launching a new membership area for those who are not on Facebook so I can help them there in a more personal level.
Thanks for the great reminders. Awesome article!
Thanks for the reminders. Definitely time to reevaluate over how we do things for the new year.
Baggage dump in 3…2…1. I’m a homeschooling…..DAD!!! Steel toe boot wearing, chainsaw using, muscle bound, gun loving pastor who home schools while my wife leaves us 3 every day to go to her teaching job. You cannot imagine the amount of support, resources, forums, support groups etc for homeschooling moms I have access to and yet I cannot find a single one for homeschooling dads! I get it, supply and demand. I’m not the guy who’s boo hooing over people not catering to the one dude who home schools. BUT!!! I figured I”d mention it. I really enjoyed this article. We are starting home school in the fall. I live In an area of NY where NO one home schools. Both our families do nothing but throw stones at it and our friends don’t care to understand so I appreciate the feedback. I will heed this advice ( I bookmarked this page so I will look over it again and again). Thanks for the material, keep doing what you’re doing.
AJ, you’re right! And we definitely need to get a list of homeschool dad bloggers together to share here.
Here is one I found: http://www.homeschooldad.com/