4 Ways to Ruin Your Homeschool

... and the cure!

On Thursdays, I plan to give you sure-fire activities and practices for how to make your homeschool hum with joy, learning, and kids who care.

But we can’t get there if you’re ruining your homeschool. In my 30+ years of being around homeschooling families, I’ve noticed that there are four sure-fire ways parents get in their own way. The cure is surprisingly simple. See if you are suffering from any of these.

4 Ways to Ruin Homeschooling

1. You research homeschool more than you do it.

Stop. No more reading, discussing, fantasizing or joining of groups. Do ONE thing right now. You know that one thing that you already know is the thing to do because you think about it constantly and keep saying that you feel guilty that you aren’t doing it? Just do it. Add the brownies, light the candles, put on a smile and do it. One thing. Not all the things. No more research. Just start.

2. You take your children’s moods personally.

Enough! These are kids. They have bad moods. They get cranky, insolent, silly, exasperated, and mad. They disrupt the perfectly planned party with sudden tears because their two-year old sister breathed on them. Almost none of it is about you! Even when it IS about you (because you, too, get cranky, insolent, silly, exasperated and mad), that’s the nature of human-ing together in a home. If you put your best efforts forward, once in a while those efforts will be a hit! Get used to having “hits” once a month or so. That’s plenty for a good homeschool!

3. You make excuses for not following through.

There are a million and one reasons not to: file your taxes, go to the dentist, shop for groceries, or renew your driver’s license. Yet somehow, in the midst of all the other endless interruptions, you do all those things. Ahem. Homeschool is exactly the same! No more excuses. If you sign up for a webinar training, go to the training. If you tell your children that you will take a hike together, take the hike. If you purchase a curriculum, open the program, read the directions, and do it. Excuses will take you back to number 1 where you research more than you homeschool.

4. You think homeschooling should be easier.

Homeschooling is a full time job with children as “employees.” It’s not easy. I mean, it’s easy in the sense that you get to stay home, drink tea, and read books! But it’s not easy when you think of all the complications of raising children and learning how to educate them. Homeschooling never stops being a new project because every year you have children in new grade levels. You will be a little confounded and floundering every year you do it until you stop. Homeschooling is not easy but it is simple—learn with your kids and count it all.

The Cure

Happiness.

Nothing is more contagious in a homeschool than a parent’s happy face.

Your delight in:

• your children

• that cup of tea

• the birds at the feeder

• the way 60 can be divided by so many numbers evenly

• the surprise that there are 3 homonyms for rain, rein, and reign

• your whiteboard and colored markers

• the new approach to writing you just heard about

• cuddles from your toddler

• amazing stories from history

• dissecting owl pellets

…these do more to change the tenor of learning in your homeschool than any amount of preparation or worry.

In fact, preparation can lead to resentment that no one cared as much as you did about this wildly wonderful idea.

Instead, DO the things that make you feel happy about learning, right in front of your children.

You get to be home with your kiddos wasting time being interested and curious every day. How glorious is that? Who wouldn’t be happy homeschooling with that attitude pulsing through their veins?

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In comments, let’s talk about how to get off the road to ruin.

What’s working this week?

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