These are undoubtedly crazy times, and with ongoing COVID 19 challenges, some parents turn to homeschooling their children instead of sending them back to the public classroom. The online learning experiment, these past couple of years, revealed some valuable information.  For perhaps the first time parents could see their children in a learning environment (even if it was at the kitchen table). They had a new appreciation for great teachers’ skills and, for some, found the glaring gaps in our school system. 

There has been a massive shift in the way we conduct ourselves, and for many, it has been a challenge. However, with each challenge comes a new opportunity. For those taking on homeschooling, we now have the chance to gift our children with not only the fundamentals of learning but with the things that matter the most for success in adult life. 

Homeschooling Tips Parents Should Know

Work these skills into your homeschool program, and you will be gifting your children with solid success fundamentals. 

Persistence

One of the hallmark attributes of success is persistence. Whenever you attempt to do something difficult, it’s unlikely you will be perfect right out of the gate. Persistence is a necessary trait to possess if you’re going to be a highly successful person. Mastery of any skill takes time. With home school, you can ensure your child masters a skill before moving on to the next level. This can be as simple as ensuring they master mental math before attempting higher mathematical computations. Also, ensure their reading skills are sound and they utilize these skills to bolster their writing abilities.

Consistency

Do you maintain the same goals until they’re achieved, or do you keep changing your mind? Can you perform the same boring, but significant tasks day after day? Can you maintain a positive attitude? It is challenging to teach this skill in a class of 35, but now you can gift it to your child. Teach them how to be consistent with their behaviour, beliefs, and goals, and your child will not only become a successful adult but a stellar student.

Daily work

Doing something every single day is the key to becoming more successful? You can be amazingly effective with a relatively small amount of work performed every day. It’s too easy to wait until the last minute to study or write a paper in school. Some people can get away with this in school. However, this strategy won’t work in the long term out in the real world, no matter how intelligent you might be. Homeschooling is the perfect opportunity to teach this skill. This doesn’t have to take a long time, but creating a helpful routine can go a long way in creating habits for a lifetime.

How to deal with discomfort

The ability to deal with discomfort is one of the best predictors of the level of success you will achieve in the future. Acting despite discomfort allows you to go to the gym when you don’t feel like it. Teaching your children this valuable skill will enable them to take action when they’d rather do nothing.

How to deal with failure

We have all experienced failure at one time or another. Successful people have an effective strategy for dealing with failure. They learn from failure, improve their approach, and try again. Overcoming failure requires persistence, consistency, and dealing with discomfort. These are valuable lessons for your children.

How to make good decisions

Over a lifetime, few of us consistently make great choices. Most of us make choices based on emotion rather than reality. We rarely make the best choice. We make a choice that is psychologically comfortable. This goes back to being able to deal with discomfort effectively. Imagine if you can empower your children to make good decisions at a young age, how powerful would they be as adults?

How to think long-term

A long-term perspective is necessary for long-term success. Most of us are too focused on living day-to-day rather than have a long-term plan. If you spend your time putting out fires each day, you’re never working toward anything over the long haul. Help your child avoid the pitfalls many encounter by teaching them vision and creative thought.

Surviving isn’t the same as thriving.

As a homeschooler, besides ensuring the fundamentals of learning, you have the power to take on the responsibility of teaching your child the things that matter most in the pursuit of success. If you don’t, who will?

Sometimes it is the parents who need some additional help.  We hope these homeschooling tips for parents are helpful.

Check this out – Parents.com has 13 ways to help you kids learn even in the summer months.

At UP Academy, we realize every child is a unique individual. We love and honour that! Up Academy considers these differences in all programming by meeting kids at their skill level and taking them to where they need to go in the way that serves them best.

Whether you’re looking for a free reading assessment, one-on-one tutoring or the benefits of a 100% independent private school, we have you covered.

Let’s connect!

You’re Thinking About Home Schooling… NOW WHAT?

One of the comments I hear often is how parents are becoming increasingly frustrated with our government-mandated school systems. Because of that alone, many parents are turning to the notion of homeschooling as an option.

The idea of gathering the kids around the kitchen table and teaching them with more attention and focus has a certain attraction.

Visions of the younger ones busily colouring whilst the older ones read their stories or work on basic math questions is one most parents would aspire to.  The flexibility to go out to the park, run errands, and take family vacations anytime you want or to pack the fam jam up is indeed alluring.

Three questions to ask yourself before committing to homeschooling:

1. Are you the right teacher for your children?

You were your child’s first teacher for those milestones of crawling, walking, running, eating and getting dressed.  You may have even taught them nursery rhymes, the alphabet, how to count and basic printing skills.

But are you prepared, patient and skilled enough to take them beyond the basics?

2. How long are you willing to commit to homeschooling?

You can plow through the curriculum in less than ten months when you home school – but remember that equates to several hours every day.  The question would be, how many years are you willing to balance being the parent and the teacher?

If you are committing to take them through to junior high before sending them to the public/private school system, will they have the right skills they’ll need when they get there?

3. What are your future dreams and expectations for your children?

What opportunities do you want your children to have?  When you think of education, how far do you want them to go? What kind of experiences do you want to share with them? What do you want their future to look like?  These are all valuable questions to ask yourself.

Homeschooling can be rewarding and an amazing opportunity for your children. It’s important to understand it can also be time-consuming and frustrating for a parent. Putting the boundaries of schooling in place in the home isn’t for everyone, so if you only take one thing away from this blog post, it’s to understand your limitations as a parent.

Whichever you decide, you might like to discuss the options with Lani Donaldson. Lani can help you weed through some of the logistics so you can make the best choices for your family. 

At UP Academy, we realize every child is a unique individual. We love and honour that! Up Academy considers these differences in all programming by meeting kids at their skill level and taking them to where they need to go in the way that serves them best.

Whether you’re looking for a free reading assessment, one-on-one tutoring or the benefits of a 100% independent private school, we have you covered.

Let’s connect!