When Your Child Hates Schoolwork

You’ve purchased your curriculum. You have your schedule all set. Your lesson plans are ready.

But your child does everything possible to avoid doing the work. Perhaps there are tears and temper tantrums. Perhaps books/pages are torn. Perhaps they simply refuse to work.

 

“I hate school.”

“This is boring.”

“Why do I have to do this?”

 

I’ve heard it all over the years of working with my own children, small co-ops, and private schools.

 

I started with ‘school at home.’ A desk. Textbooks. Paper to write out sentences. Worksheets to fill in answers.

 

It was like pulling teeth.

 

What I did:

 

Use unit studies based on the child’s interest. This was my number 1 go-to.

Later, as I learned about Project-Based Learning, the unit study idea expanded.

 

I also used curricula like Konos or Pray and Prepare, which were based on a hands-on learning style.

 

For younger children, hands-on is best. Boys tend to do better with hands-on for even longer periods.

 

I have come to believe that almost every subject can be taught by being out in nature.

What about reading, writing, and math?

Those are important, but there are ways to implement nature into the learning. It takes some creative thinking.

 

Sometimes children can do ‘seat’ work as long as it doesn’t last too long. It’s important for children to move.

 

We can use their age as a guideline for the length of time they can concentrate on an activity.

 

For example:

5 years – 5 minutes.

10 years – 10  minutes.

 

This doesn’t mean you only teach a subject for 5 or 10 minutes, but you change the activity.

 

For example:

For math, some hands-on counting or even a cooking lesson.

This is followed with copying the problems and writing them out. Just for a few minutes.

 

Reading could be listening to a story. Then retelling it. Later, it is reading the story and illustrating it. Perhaps followed by writing their own story. Or writing a different ending to the story.

 

Rather than focusing on worksheets for demonstrating knowledge, parents can have children do different activities. Cooking is a great example. Or figuring a budget for a trip. Or figuring out the grocery budget.

Games are fun ways to practice skill-building. There are so many options when it comes to educational games.

 

File folder games are another way to practice skill building. I’ve made dozens of them over the years. If you laminate them, they can be reused for a long time.

 

Lapbooks are another way to demonstrate knowledge on a topic of interest. The internet offers many templates for creating your own lapbooks. There are many free ones available on a wide range of topics. (Lapbooks may not be appropriate for some children due to fine motor skill development.)

 

Children learn by different pathways. Some are right-brain learners. Some are left-brain learners. They learn best and enjoy school more when their learning style is incorporated, along with their topics of interest.

 

Does it require more work? Yes!!!!

Is it worth it? YES!!!!

 

Children should not hate school. God wants us to love to learn. It’s easy to do when the parents are willing to take the time to determine learning styles and topics of interest.

Something to think about.

**I have free/low-cost resources on my SKool page, Living Ready Collective. Feel free to contact me for more information.