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Avoid the Homeschool Blues

How to Get Homeschooled Kids to WANT to Learn?

May 27, 2018 | 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Kids are a lot like us although we forget sometimes. Mood swings, motivation, and mastery of material makes a difference in how to get homeschooled kids to want to learn.

Understand How Homeschooled Kids Learn

Understanding those three mindsets will help you determine what is the cause and then how to change what you’re doing.

One last thing. Age makes a difference in how you determine a solution. What I used when I brought home my first son who was in public school Kindergarten and had lost his love for reading is not the same approach I used when he was in high school homeschooling many years later.

Look at each root cause and the tips.

Mood Swings DO Affect How Homeschooled Kids Learn

It’s easier to accept when a child has special needs that we have to adjust to his needs than it is to adjust when he does not have any.

However, the truth of it is we all have times when we feel like tackling weightier things. If a child is not motivated to learn, find the time of the day that is suited to his body’s rhythm. No, I’m not saying do school willy-nilly based on kids’ whims. I am saying that it takes a while to figure out a routine that you can stick to based on kids’ needs.

Many older kids like to be in their room and have some alone time to learn. My sons did too. However, there was part of the day when I did expect some interaction with me and the rest of their siblings. We are morning people and so that time worked well for us. The point in doing this is to try to allay any bad moods. Preparation is key to a good defense, right?

Looking back, I knew that when one kid was in a bad mood I would have him begin his day with me so I could try to soothe the irritation. Being prepared is key. It’s true sometimes a kid may just need alone time; I also taught him that his actions affect others.

It’s ultimately selfish to put the whole household in a foul mood because one member feels bad. I think today some parents are apprehensive about intervening with kids when they feel that way. But that is our job. You just have to be ready if your soothing is not met favorably.

Not wanting to add fire to a potentially explosive situation, I tried to not be sharp-tongued as a response to my child who is in a ready to fight mood. Preparation is key. It’s not easy by any stretch.

Some days I wished my kids would be more fearful of my bad moods and wrath, but they’re kids. Appreciating I have bad moods didn’t happen until they got older.

Mood swings can happen for a number of reasons and even adults have a hard time articulating why they feel off. If the moodiness is associated with a hormonal change, then we have little control of it. However, if the mood swing is a lack of a good diet, sleeping well, or getting time away from devices then we need to tackle that problem.

There is no way to completely avoid mood swings, but encouraging your kids to communicate with you when they feel that way is the first step to avoiding the fighting and fussing.

It doesn’t mean we have to have prolonged conversations when one of our kids feel bad, but not allowing kids to be disrespectful helps them to understand they are still responsible for their reactions.

Because it happens to all of us, here are some tried and true tips for moody learners.

  • Allow a child his space like we want;
  • Some time in the day be sure you have interaction with him to get a pulse on why he has the moodiness. Don’t allow silence to linger too long;
  • If it’s just an off day, ask him what does he feel like doing today. We like to be treated like that, our kids do too; and
  • Remember, it’s not coddling when we adjust the learning day to suit our kids.

Lack Luster Motivation in Homeschooled Kids

Lack of motivation is another reason kids don’t want to learn. True, it may be laziness, but how did they get that way? Again, I believe in addressing root causes instead of a temporary fix at the moment.

We’re homeschooling because we believe in an out of the box approach, but does your kid understand that? Or, have you resorted back to a public school approach? One that encourages a passive learner instead of a take charge learner.

It’s a chain reaction —  if a child has control over what he learns, he has an intrinsic reason for being motivated. Hand assignments to him each day to be spoon-fed and he’ll do the same thing he has always done which is wait to be motivated.

Mood swings, motivation, and mastery of material makes a difference in how to get homeschooled kids to want to learn. Try these AWESOME tried and true tips if you’re tired of the constant complaining. Click here to grab these tips!

Also, motivation may be disguised and is not genuine. Kids know that if they get school work done as quickly as possible the day is over. True, laziness may be flat out be an issue.

You’ll have to determine which of the scenarios above fits your child.

I believe laziness is a bit like catching a cold. It can be infectious to not only the person infected, but to those around him. It also makes a child or person have negative feelings about himself when you expect nothing. Immediate consequences have to be put in place for laziness.

I think more kids fall under this category of lack luster motivation because of how their learning journey may have been up to this point in their life.

Look at a few tried and true tips for lack of motivation:

  • Remember, like us kids want to see immediate results while learning. So set short-term goals. If a child is young, it may be telling him that you’re working toward a short-term goal like reading a book of his choice which he has been struggling to read;
  • If he is a preteen or teen with more attitude than motivation, then ask him to write out the schedule of how to do his work. Be willing to give his schedule a try to show you’re reasonable. Learning how to manage his time happens when he is with you. Failure is a great teacher. Motivation returns because learning is done on a kid’s terms. There is nothing wrong with that as long as he is learning;
  • Choice matters when you’re dealing with an older learner. Within reason, allow him to pick his subjects. It doesn’t matter whether you study American history first or study ancient civilizations. You may have a plan of how you will teach a subject, but it’s more important that you win back your child’s desire to learn than it is to stick to a rigid plan;
  • Get creative and make learning fun. There is absolutely NOTHING inspiring about learning in a rigid environment. Benjamin Franklin helped out as an apprentice in his brother’s print shop because of his love of writing. Where do your kids learn best and how? Do they want to be outside or do they want to stand up?
  • Some kids prefer learning only through hands-on while others don’t mind a hands-on idea as a jump start to reading about a topic in a book. Don’t quickly put off a hands-on idea simply because your child says he doesn’t want to learn that way. Hands-on learning can take many forms from simple to complicated. I am a proponent of easy hands-on learning because I know it makes learning stick. I don’t give kids the complete control, but I do work with them.
  • Intense learning at home can be a shock for some kids and parents. Unlike the constant interruptions at public school, a few hours of studying at home without constant interruptions is rigorous. The point is to allow for a few breaks and understand that after two or three hours, a child can switch his focus to other passions for the day; and
  • Speaking of passions, sprinkle them in the day as your child shows an interest in one or two. It will take a bit of time off the device so he knows what interests him. I’m not against device time, but if it tugs at your child’s time to paint or draw, pursue music, or spend time outdoors, it needs to be limited.

 Mastery of Material or a Mystery?

Another reason that really dovetails with motivation is whether a child has truly mastered material or if the material feels like a mystery and learning all over.

A mistake even seasoned homeschoolers make is to think a new year equals a new grade level. It does not.

Just like my sons that have moved ahead two grade levels in material one year, we’ve equally had to stay at one grade level for almost two years. Although I felt like a failure at the time, I see now that it was just the way kids develop.  It’s so easy to forget kids just don’t develop evenly.

You have to take the good progress with the seemingly bad too.

Lack of want to can be traced back to a real struggle. It’s like hitting a brick wall. We can keep butting our head on it or allow it to crumble meaning that we wait on our child’s maturity to catch up..

All About Spelling

Look at some of these tried and true things that worked for me.

  • Instead of redoing the same curriculum in the subject he has failed or not mastered, choose a completely different vendor and/or approach in the same grade level. I did this with one of my sons who struggled in spelling. We went from using Spelling Power which is excellent for my other children and a great spelling program to using All About Spelling which targeted the critical areas that were being overlooked. It was a win. He moved up two grade levels in one year after we used it. This move sideways accomplished two things. One was that we’re making progress albeit it was the same grade level, it was a change. And two we learned that he needed a different approach for that one subject; and
  • Switching the focus is another solution. I’ve seen many perfectionist parents who think more of the same type of teaching will work. It won’t. It reminds me of when we lived in South America. My sons thought if we spoke faster or louder, it was going to help people who didn’t understand English to understand it. Learning is the same. You can be head strong and push your agenda and possibly have a child who is resistant with no change. I’ve learned that a shift in focus is the key to begin the process of watering dried up learning. I’ve learned to have an all day game day. I made sure to have some educational board games for days like that. Too, we would have an all day science project day or history day. Whatever seemed to do the trick to restore love for learning, I would do. Doing this helped me too because I would get unbalanced about our school day and not include the fun things. Having one day to do one science activity after another is so much fun. From exploding volcanoes, to shooting rockets, to cooking up some edible fudge, your kids have a reset and shift in their focus. Too, after times like this, I’ve been able to determine if my kids really struggled with mastery or if we just needed a break.

Stimulating kids as you can see is a learned art, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You only have to learn what is your child’s sweet spot.

While it’s true that you may have to barter with your kids regarding device time or completely taking it away until you get done what is important, try to find the reasonable point.

In today’s society, our kids are learning that devices are part of everyday essentials. That is another topic. The point is that communicating with your child at the right moment and in small measures when he is not feeling in the mood to learn teaches him that we all have bad days, but we’re accountable for actions.

Allow kids time to rest or change their circumstances like we want done for us when we’ve had a bad night up with a newborn or are just subject to hormones. I’ve learned too that it is better to be lenient and reasonable to begin with than to just dig in your heels and demand what is going to be done.

By not doing that, I always had a reasonable response to my sons if I did have to go there. They knew I tried to tackle the behavior several ways and I had included them.

When you treat your kids like that and as they grow, they will treat you the same way into adulthood. It takes a while for it to return to you, but it does. Don’t let them break the peace of your home or ruin their siblings day constantly.

Mood swings, motivation, and mastery of material makes a difference in how to get homeschooled kids to want to learn. Try these AWESOME tried and true tips if you’re tired of the constant complaining. Click here to grab these tips!

You’ll love these other tips:

  • 3 Wrong Ways to Homeschool a Hotheaded Child
  • 3 Smart Tips to Avoiding Busywork in Homeschooling 
  • 24 Borderline Genius Ways To Relieve Language Arts Boredom

What do you do when you have a lack luster learner?

Hugs and love ya,

1 CommentFiled Under: Avoid the Homeschool Blues, Be an Exceptional Homeschool Teacher, Build Character in Homeschooled Kids, Homeschool When Nobody Wants To Tagged With: fearless homeschooling, homeschool, homeschool challenges, middleschool, resistant learner, teens

3 Ways to Choose the BEST Online Homeschool Curriculum (Psst! Don’t Miss Black Friday!)

November 21, 2017 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’m PROUD to partner with Time4Learning. However, Time4Learning did not pay for this post. All opinions of any curriculum are always mine, but I wanted you to know that I’m proud to have Time4Learning as a sponsor.


In the past 10 years, it seems like online homeschool curriculum has popped up and taken over the homeschool market.

We’ve never had so many choices in choosing online homeschool curriculum as we do now.

When I chose to use Time4Learning,  I had a lens through which I chose online curriculum and it worked.

ONLINE HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM THAT ROCKS

[ad] You'll love reading these 3 timeless tips about how to choose online curriculum, but come on over for Black Friday BOGO from Nov. 24 to 27! Hurry!!

Sharing 3 ways to choose the best online homeschool curriculum, I want you to look past all the blinking beacons on websites and look at these tried and true tips.

One/ Flexibility. Don’t underestimate the value of it.

One of the reasons I started homeschooling was to decide when and how my kids would learn.

During my homeschool journey, I’ve experienced many exhilarating planned adventures like living overseas in South America and trekking the Amazon Rain Forest and many unplanned sad and stressful times like time spent in the ICU as my husband recovered.

I needed laid out lesson plans and I needed a variety of grade levels to choose from. It’s why I chose Time4Learning.

I don’t want to have to check in with a teacher like an online school.

I simply did not need the stress of answering to the schedule of another person.

Second/ Curriculum on the go. 

Until I moved overseas, I didn’t appreciate the value of curriculum on the go.

When I learned that we could take only two suitcases each for our move overseas, I almost passed out.

My shoes (ha) wouldn’t fit in two suitcases let alone our homeschooling books.

Oh sure. We could have paid thousands of dollars to ship my physical curriculum or I could look for a PreK to 12th grade curriculum to cover multiple grades. That’s another reason I love  Time4Learning.

You simply sign up and sign in each day and follow a routine set up for you.

Third/ Know the difference between choosing online curriculum and an online school.

When you first start homeschooling, you may think you want an online school.

Soon, you realize that it’s just public school at home. Look at my tips The Great Homeschool Hoax – Public School At Home.

You move to another phase of your journey, the one you stay at longer and learn then what you really need is curriculum help and not an online school.

For me, what I really wanted was NOT another school telling me what to do, but homeschool curriculum laid out in an easy way for me to use.

That is one BIG reason I love, love Time4Learning.  It’s not a school but curriculum.

It’s not like those online schools designed to stress you out because they want your kids to test, meet with you in a parent/teacher conference, and dictate what my kids should learn.

I’ll decide if I need that for my kids since I’m the one with them each day.

There are many online schools, but not many all online homeschool curriculum providers for Prek to 12th grade that have been around for a long time and understand homeschoolers.  Because Time4Learning is not public school at home, it’s not offered to public schools.

It’s just what it says, online homeschool curriculum that does not bring public school to home just because you chose online homeschool curriculum, but supports you when you need help.

You’ll love how easy Time4Learning makes it for you to teach and guess what?

You can try them out because for Black Friday they have a super nifty deal. It’s a BOGO. Buy one month, get the 2nd free!

HURRY- BOGO November 24 to 27 or Mark Your Calendar

[ad] You'll love reading these 3 timeless tips about how to choose online curriculum, but come on over for Black Friday BOGO from Nov. 24 to 27! Hurry!!

Have you tried Time4Learning? What do you like best about online homeschool curriculum?

Also, look at these other super helpful tips.

  • Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List 
  • 31 Day Free Homeschool Boot Camp

Hugs and love ya,

2 CommentsFiled Under: Avoid the Homeschool Blues, Be an Exceptional Homeschool Teacher, Begin Homeschooling, Choose Curriculum Tagged With: curriculum, digital, homeschoolcurriculum, online learning, onlinewriting, sciencecurriculum

3 Foolproof Ways I Cope When I Can’t Homeschool (or Blog)

January 7, 2017 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Foolproof Ways I Cope When I Can't Homeschool because of life's crisis. Go from stress to strength @ Tina's Dynamic HomeschoolWhile homeschooling, I’ve experienced a pregnancy requiring bed rest, cared for my husband who survived a massive heart attack, cared for my sister who was in ICU and needed long-term care and now we’re facing our dreaded fear that we have an aging parent who can’t care for herself any longer. You’d think I would have coping techniques down pat.

What I’ve learned so far is that each crisis in life is different. And though these types of experiences are never welcomed, I find that with each hardship my ability to cope is better.

Today, in sharing how I cope when I can’t homeschool (or blog), I hope to energize and encourage you to not lose your balance. Easier said than done.

Look at my innermost thoughts I bring up when life happens again.

►One/ Most changes are temporary.

Most stressful situations are temporary. Even if a stressful situation is prolonged, I always find a way to make it easier on my family.

For example, when my sister was in ICU, the long-term care facility she stayed at allowed me and my boys to visit for a long time. The room was large enough to bring my boys and her young girls.

Looking back, six months past quickly though it didn’t seem like it at the time.

Unless You Want To Be In A Bed Next to Them . . .

►Two/ Focus on what you CAN do, not what you can’t.

I can’t say enough about a positive attitude. It affects your physical well-being and unless you want to be in a bed beside your loved one, you have to shift your focus to positive.

I wanted to be with my sister, my husband and now my aging parent at all times and as much as I could, but I learned that they are receiving professional (hopefully) medical care.

However, so that I could take care of my sister’s children and my children and take care of my husband when he recuperated, I had to take care of my physical and emotional well-being.

Guess what? That requires rest not just for your body but for your emotions.

This is very different than saying to dismiss negative thoughts. That is almost impossible because negative thoughts are tied in with the present stressful situation. They can consume you unless you find something stronger to replace it with.

Hear my heart on this because the very thing that could add to your stress at a tragic time is the very thing you should allow to consume your time when you need a break.

When I was pregnant and was on bed rest, I wanted to follow my well-laid out lesson plans perfectly. Why do we do that to ourselves?

I had to swallow my self-will because continuing on with my lesson plans was just not going to work because I was limited in how much I could be on my feet during the day. And I needed to save the time for taking care of my preschoolers.

The day I relented, my preschoolers had an all day marathon movie watching day. I learned a valuable lesson from that first time, which is that doing something normal consumed my mind and time while my body rested. It eased a stressful situation.

“After all tomorrow is another day” (dramatic but true)

Then, when my husband had a heart attack, it seemed like the longest drive of my life to get to the hospital not knowing whether he made it or not. I still have those texts from him on that day. (Yes he texted me while having a heart attack because he thought they would be his last words. That is all I can say about this.)

And after I found out that he survived when I arrived at the hospital, I could hardly stand. That night I came home to a very quiet and dark bedroom. It was so easy to just mentally collapse thinking of how close he was to danger. And I allowed myself time to have a good cry in private. But, then I hit a reset button.

Allowing too much sadness to overcome me was not going to help me to get my husband on the long road to recovery. Plus, I had three boys to think about.

Again, I turned to something normal to fill my time instead of my emotions and that was homeschooling.

Unlike my bed ridden pregnancy many years before, this time I learned that I should do some homeschool but that I needed to lighten my load.

Digital products were a life saver then because my boys could take their devices in their backpacks and already have some kind of school work to do whether we sat long hours in a waiting room or were in the ICU with my hubby.

►Three/ Write it down. Close the book and forget it.

Another coping technique, which I can totally relate to when it was told to my aging parent by a clinical psychologist was to write your worries away.

The doctor encouraged my parent to write her worries in a book and close it for the day. She can look at it tomorrow, but to give her mind time to rest, recuperate and re-energize.

I had an aha moment because I felt like I could relate. This must be one of the very reasons I blog.

Writing has a way of allowing all negative thoughts to escape, loom, fill and overflow the space on the page so that your mind is empty, calm, peaceful and serene. Then, it can reset.

What I find ironic is that I don’t feel like a writer that pines to pore over every word of creating a story. I do prefer writing that is full of facts and help and not story telling.

Whatever type of writer I am, writing or blogging allows me to put each crisis to rest.

Accepting when I’m limited makes me powerful, rested and ready to cope with the present challenge, which now is an aging parent.

These coping techniques are tried and true. They worked for me, they will for you too.

Remember one last thing. And that is to allow people to help and support you. Being an independent, capable and competent momma doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept help. We all need encouragement to not give up homeschooling and especially when experiencing hardships and what may be overwhelming sadness. Allow others inside and don’t keep up the wall.

As I learned from my husband’s text to me the day he had the heart attack, words matter.

Look at some of these other blog posts that you’ll find helpful when going through a crisis. Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List, Taking a Hit Doesn’t Mean to Quit– Homeschooling Through Crisis, and What I Gave Up to Homeschool (and what I got in return).

Hugs and you know I love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Avoid the Homeschool Blues, Be an Exceptional Homeschool Teacher, Homeschool During Crisis, Homeschool Simply Tagged With: homeschool, homeschool challenges, homeschool crisis

3 Reasons to NOT Avoid the Homeschool Middle Ground

August 6, 2016 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Reasons to NOT Avoid the Homeschool Middle Ground @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Fighting mini battles while we homeschool becomes part of our homeschool lifestyle. And it’s true that for many issues involving education, homeschoolers don’t wade in lukewarm waters nor take the middle of the ground approach. Being firmly decisive is key to surviving the harsh amount of negativity that is thrown our way.

Standing Firm on Homeschool Middle Ground

However, many things in homeschooling are more successful when you can step back and straddle the middle road. Sometimes taking an all or nothing approach can be counter productive, even extreme at times.

Look at these 3 reasons to NOT avoid the homeschool middle ground.

ONE/  When you do a unit study with multiple ages of children.

You can set your homeschool day up for failure when you use a learning resource that is too high above your oldest child’s head or one that is too young below it.

It’s a common mistake; choosing a unit study resource that is the grade level of your oldest child.

The secret to individualizing a delightful unit study topic is to  choose the middle grade between the ages of your children.

Seasoned homeschool veterans know that it’s easier to scale down activities for younger grades. Use the example of a plant unit study.

Younger students can color, label and dissect a plant. Older students or high school students can use the same unit study, but expand the activities on it to a high school level.

For example, older students can include plant history, learn about the local plants in your area and even spend some time in an apprenticeship learning from local professionals about herbs or plants. Ideas to use for an older student spring from the middle of the grade resource that you are currently using.

Not all ideas are so easy to round up for an older learner, but they are more useful than a resource used for your youngest learner.

TWO/ When you mix and match homeschool curriculum.

It’s easy to use the same curriculum provider with all of your children. Why would you do that though?

Each child is as unique as each homeschool family or should be.

Take the middle ground, avoid the extreme by choosing just one homeschool curriculum and use pieces and parts of a boxed curriculum, unit study and another curriculum to create a study that is unique for each child.

If you’re using just one type of curriculum, then one or more of your children may not be benefiting from it as much as another child. Mixing and matching homeschool curriculum will ensure a better fit for all of your children.

THREE/ When you begin homeschooling high school.

I did it too when I started homeschooling high school and that is to right away in 9th grade take a sock it to him attitude when planning.

High school is not about controlling your teen through his high school years, but it’s about working alongside each other. It is a give and take.

You give because your teen is a different person than you and your husband and he has goals and inspirations now that he too wants to meet. But it’s a take also because you don’t want to give up all your goals or plans for your teen’s future and some things will be must-haves in high school.

What I’m saying is that you choose the middle ground in high school when you help a teen keep balanced in all subjects until he decides his goals.

Some adults don’t even know what they won’t do, so don’t put a lot of pressure on a teen. Take the middle road by keeping subjects balanced until a mommy track, college track or job track is decided.

Also, grab some other tips from my other articles Homeschool Confession – My Homeschool Mistakes, Go Ahead and Make a Mistake: Homeschool Without Fear and Homeschooling – Beginnings are Usually Scary, Endings are Usually Sad, but It’s What’s In the Middle that Counts!.

Don’t give up the fight in touting the decisive ways we need to take a stand when it comes to homeschooling, but just know that the middle ground can not only be productive, but necessary many times in your journey.

What else do you take the middle ground on while homeschooling?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

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Leave a CommentFiled Under: Avoid the Homeschool Blues, Be an Exceptional Homeschool Teacher, Begin Homeschooling, Choose Curriculum, Homeschool Simply, Teach Unit Studies Tagged With: boxedcurriculum, curriculum, homeschoolapproach, homeschoolcurriculum, homeschoolmultiplechildren, new homeschooler homeschool curriculum, teachingmultiplechildren, unit studies

How to Grow to Love Being a Homeschooler

June 19, 2016 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to Grow to Love Being a Homeschooler. You can begin to homeschool without adopting the homeschool lifestyle but you would be missing out @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Whether it was a last-ditch decision or you planned for years to homeschool before your first child was born, everybody who begins to homeschool has to make the decision to grow to love being a homeschooler or not.

It can just be an educational choice or you can decide to passionately live the homeschool lifestyle.

Enjoying the benefits of the homeschool approach without adopting the lifestyle is possible, but not without being short-changed.

How can you adopt the homeschool lifestyle or be sure that you are embracing it to the fullest extent that your circumstances allow?

Look at these three ways how to measure your growth.

ONE | You have stopped trying to find the perfect curriculum.

It was about five years into my homeschooling journey when I learned that the challenge of choosing curriculum wasn’t going away. I knew that teaching my sons through everyday life was paramount.

Nurturing a Love for Lasting Learning

Living the homeschool lifestyle means that curriculum is now just a tool and you learn that it doesn’t really teach anything.

Sure, I need to have objectives and choose curriculum that gives me the freedom to teach my worldview, but I am doing the teaching.

What you are willing to do to teach your children is way more valuable than what you are willing to buy to teach them.

The challenge in homeschooling is not the endless pursuit of curriculum, but in helping your child to maintain his love of learning that he had when he was young.

Adopting the homeschool lifestyle means that you have moved beyond curriculum, progress reports, tests and needing accolades from friends and family that you are doing a super job.

Now, you simply don’t care what other people think. Did I mention it’s really liberating?

Learning that your life, no matter how boring you may think it is, it’s full of rich meaning for your children.

TWO | You maintain a homeschool routine, but not necessarily a rigid schedule.

Another tell-tale sign that you have embraced natural learning is that no longer do you fight to maintain your homeschool routine, but now homeschooling is not something extra you do in the day. It is the way you spend your day and everything else now revolves around it.

It’s hard for anything you begin to become a lifestyle overnight.

I think about being newly married or when I lost a lot of sleep when I brought my first son home from the hospital. Significant changes in my life called for significant effort to make them part of my life. It’s not long after the new changes in your life that you realize it’s hard to remember a time without your kids or your spouse.

Homeschooling becomes the same way. You are not constantly worried about completing curriculum or making grades and testing. Like life, you realize homeschooling has certain tests that need to be met, bt you meet them like you do anything else in your household.

THREE | You learned that you can’t homeschool on an ‘island.’

Associating with and joining with homeschoolers is like being immersed in learning another language. Until you do it, you can’t see where you’re coming up short.

For example, I didn’t fully appreciate how much faster we could learn another language until we had moved overseas. Having studied Spanish for many years, I had a good command of the vocabulary, but it was fragmented.

After we moved to South America and received total language immersion, it made me fully appreciate the language, lifestyle and culture.

When you refrain from meeting up with other homeschoolers or isolate you and your kids, it’s not only unhealthy, but it’s unnatural.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not telling you that you have to be a social butterfly and join every possible homeschool groups. Some groups are just too extreme for my taste and I tend to be very picky.

How Are You Measuring Up in Adopting the Homeschool Lifestyle?

What I am saying is that when you and your family stand in stark contrast to those in your neighborhood or your friends, you need a support system with others who are like-minded.

Instead of being overly critical of other homeschoolers’ choices when you meet with them, look at what you can learn from them. I received tips on how to homeschool multiple children, make time for myself and move ahead on curriculum when we were hitting a brick wall. Without the tips, I would have struggled longer.

Growing is part of everyday life and it’s amazing. If something or someone is not growing, it’s always a sign that something is wrong.

Have you adopted the homeschool lifestyle?

Grab some more ways to be an empowered homeschooler below:

3 Reasons Why Homeschoolers Are Take Charge People
Go Ahead and Make a Mistake: Homeschool Without Fear
10 Books That Boost Your Homeschool Zen (When It May Be Sagging)

Hugs and love ya,

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Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

 

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Leave a CommentFiled Under: Avoid the Homeschool Blues, Be an Exceptional Homeschool Teacher, Begin Homeschooling, Build Character in Homeschooled Kids, Gauge Homeschool Progress, Homeschool Simply Tagged With: essentialstohomeschooling, homeschool, homeschool challenges, homeschool lifestyle, homeschoolprogress, preventinghomeschoolburnout

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