Help! My Kids Hate School!!
This is a picture of my son with my youngest daughter. He was supposed to be in school Friday, but he said he had a sore throat. Again. Doesn't look very sick does he? My daughters do the same thing, and if one gets to stay home they all cry foul. "It's not fair!!!" they say.
I am coming to terms with the fact that my kids HATE school. My son cried and begged when I told him he had to go yesterday. He completely refused to put his coat on and leave with the rest of us. I knew deep down he was fine, but I gave in and let him stay...
It's not that he has trouble there. He is one of the best students in class, and he has friends. He'd just rather be home. Honestly, I don't blame him, really. I hated school too!!
My eldest daughter is the same. I tried virtual school this year, but she got too far behind in the program, and I had to send her back to class...Now when I drop her off at the public institution, she presses her face longingly against the window of the van for a few seconds, before moping off. She just likes being home better!
The four year old tells us she wants to stay home as well. "I don't want to go!" She complains before her bus comes.
The two older children got a taste of homeschooling, and I made it work until 3 years ago, but the fifth child broke the camel's back, and I couldn't do it anymore, but that was 3 years ago.
My husband isn't secretive about what he wants. He wishes for the whole family to be together... I'm looking at all the options and I honestly don't know what to do! I know ultimately it's my choice, but I would like to get some input from the Steemit community.
Do you homeschool? Unschool? Send your kids to public school? What are your reasons? How do you do it? What does your day look like? If your children are grown, how has this impacted them? What do you wish you had done differently? I'd really like to know your thoughts! 😃
Love, snowpea ❤
Hey @snowpea.
Just wanna say that in the end of the month I'll join a team that builds a smart teaching programming platform. It's interactive and it's quite an intelligent - it could learn from kid's behaviour and know where he or she is lagging behind the program or on the contrary learns easily and need more sophisticated tasks.
I see interactive and smart teaching platform as an option for home or distance learning for a primary school in particular. Obviously while I had some time to wait for it to develop (my daughter is 4 months old :) ) you just out of this option.
Hope you'll find the solution.
Do you have any more information on this platform? I would love to find out more :)
Definitely with time they would start seeing school as a friend
I was home-schooled along with my two older brothers, older sister, and two younger sisters. 6 of us altogether.
Our day looked like this: we all had school work assigned to us for the day, and at some point during the day, at a time of our choosing, we were supposed to do the work. Additionally, we had assigned chores, and with the exception of washing dishes or cooking, we had free reign over when to do the work. On the weekends, if we had done all of the work assigned to us over the week, we could play video games all day long. We went to church regularly, but other than that, outings were rare.
We had our toys and each other to play with, books to read, and computer and television time during the late afternoon and evenings if we had completed all of our assigned work for the day. When I was younger, I remember we used to go to a lot of parks, but after the youngest turned 5, my mother immersed herself in trying to build a career as a doula and childbirth educator, so we mostly stayed home all the time.
She did make sure we took regular trips to the library, and that we always had plenty to read, of our own choosing.
She was not always diligent about checking our school work. For example, there were multiple consecutive years during which I was not completing my work, and she did not make me. I was, however, reading voraciously on my own and developing my mathematical abilities on my own, specifically to improve my strategies in the computer games I was playing, and so by the time I enrolled in public high school, after four years of working through workbooks on my own and then four years of no directed education whatsoever, I rapidly rose to the top of every class, and received special permission to take advanced courses without completing their prerequisites.
The less you let "curriculum" get in the way of your kids' learning, the more they are going to learn, and the better they are going to get at thinking and reasoning.
I am just starting to home-school my kids now. My daughter is 6, and we've just gotten through the second half of second grade math. Meanwhile, she has finished the Harry Potter series... the 8th time through. She is reading adult non-fiction dog care books, because she is interested in caring for our dog, and she spends her computer time researching dog care and watching dog videos. I allow her basically free control over what she looks up videos about online, and so far she has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to learn from her own research, and explain what she has learned to me.
I try to be very hands-off, although I do enforce certain basic skills like arithmetic and handwriting. Mostly, she spends he day as she chooses, with similar restrictions on screen time that I had growing up. So far, she is a year ahead in some subjects and several years ahead in some subjects. She would just be in 1st grade right now in a public school, being taught with 1st grade books.
As I get my s**t together, I will curate a set of computer games that I believe will foster key skills I want to encourage, and I will make those games freely available to my kids throughout the day. Additionally, I am looking for extra classes that I can sign them up for, to encourage a level of socialization that I did not have growing up, and to provide them with a wider range of activities and teachers. I just moved, and now I'm looking for a homeschooling group to provide yet more socialization.
To this day, I'm a bit of a homebody, and I think that's one of the pitfalls of home schooling. But, it doesn't have to be that way, and I'm taking deliberate steps to ensure that my kids' experience is a little more social than mine was, because otherwise my experience was pretty ideal.
Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions!! This is definitely a lot to consider. I think what I'm going to do is start homeschooling/unschooling over summer break as a trial run, and if it goes well, I will continue to school them when public school starts.
A little consolation: you might be a little bit isolated, and a homebody. I was "socialized" in public school and am a homebody too. Socialization made no difference on me. It's okay to be an introvert. 😉 Thanks for your support!!
Snow pea,
There are homeschool cooperatives. We had them in Virginia where I am from. It is homeschool, but 100% of the burden is not on one parent. It is shared. Many times there is a teacher/mom or dad that have a degree, but are home with their own kids.
Just a thought!
God bless!
Daddy William
Thank you for your comment! I was part of a Christian homeschool co-op in this area for a short time, and although I am a Christian, the women seemed kinda snotty to me and we didn't fit in. It was the only one in the area at the time, but maybe that has changed...
Some coops are very new agey. Not sure that Is a word! lol! Anyway perhaps there is a Christian coop the is better.
God bless!
You could always be be crazy like us and move to the Ozarks where our families could help one another in the goals of having our individual families together. Short of that drastic and life changing adventure, you could always do part time, or have your husband educate as well to ease the work load. It's not easy, that's for sure. In the end, if it's not working for your kids, another option could be explored. One that helps them love learning and keeps the family together more.
That really does sound fantastic in many ways!! We almost went with you! I wonder how much our life would be different, and if we would find happiness there. Definitely exploring options though. Thanks for your comment!! :)
Hmnn...my kid is not old enough for school yet, but surely this was a long discussion with my hubby wether to homeschool or not. Such a dilemna these days...when I went to school in the U.S. my host mom allowed me to have two lazy days off school for the whole year. Heeeh
I think, ultimately, you have to do what is best for your family and your children. Since they hate school, they may do well being at home and learning from you.
My oldest loves school, and has attended public school for Pre-K, K, and now 1st grade. My younger son starts Pre-K in the Fall and he's looking forward to it. I think both of my boys like having time out of the house and around children their ages. If there were problems or one of them just absolutely hated school, I would definitely consider homeschooling since I already work from home.
Thank you for your comment!! School at that age seems to be a more fun time for little ones, there's a lot of innocence, playing games, ect. My daughter in 4k doesn't like it anymore, but her teacher said at the last conference that she already met all her goals, so that may be part of it...I think what I'll do is try homeschooling them over summer vacation and just see how it goes.
My girls always complain about going to school and would do just about anything to get out of it. But the reality is that there just isn't time for us to homeschool nor do either of us have the teacher mentality.
Forcing your kids to do things they don't want to do is part of them becoming productive adults. Lets face it life is full of stuff we don't want to do. If we all said "I'm not doing anything I don't want to do" then what would ever get done in the world?
I see people who are in the 30's and 40's who constantly decide not to do something they don't want to do. Guess what, they can't keep jobs, they get divorced the second things get hard, they have zero relationship with their kids because it's hard to arrange times that work, and so forth. It's not a path I want for my kids.
As for the "being sick" and staying home. We have a simple rule, NO electronics if you stay home. If you are to sick to go to school then you stay in your room and rest. Amazing how rare my kids are "sick".
Now on the flip side both kids get 2 days per school year to take a day off just because they want to. These are their days to choose when and we typically plan a day out around them. It becomes a day about them and only them.
We also have no issue pulling the kids from school if family is in town or we want to take a vacation. The key is the kids must maintain good grades (that means B's and A's) or we can't do these things as they clearly need every minute of classroom time possible. Keeps them motivated. Plus they get paid for each A from both Grandparents and I give them a reward each report card if they do good.
Clear expectations, simple rules to get rewards, and rewards fitting of effort spent seem to keep our kids just motivated enough not to completely revolt against school. Hope that helps.
You sound so reasonable, and almost psychic about the electronics haha! We did recently pull the electronics away when he stayed home, but he was still happy to just chill with us...maybe if we banished him to his room, but that seems cruel.
As for the world turning because people do what they don't want to do... I'm too much of an idealist. Why can't we find something we love to do. What's the point of life if it's marked with constant unpleasantries until one retires? I know we need many different people that do many different things, and maybe it sounds unrealistic, but my hope is that my children find a way of ease and happiness in their occupational existence.
Not cruel, it's about setting clear rules that avoid rewarding lying. No matter how we twist it when our kids tell us they are sick just to stay home they are lying and then getting away with it. Worse they feel like it's a reward as they are skipping out on something they don't like while getting to do things they do like. Very bad pattern to reinforce IMO.
But no matter how much I love doing my business there are plenty of things I don't love that must be done. Like tomorrow morning I need to be on the road at 5:30am, which will feel like 4:30am due to the stupid time change. I'm a night owl so getting up at what will feel like 3:45am is not even remotely something I love.
If I took the not doing things I don't love then tomorrow never gets started, my kids don't eat, mortgage doesn't get paid, and so forth. Now 1 time wouldn't cause the end of things, but a few days of skipping the things I don't love would quickly lead to financial ruin for my family.
Now this is from someone who picked what I'm doing. Built my own business doing what I want to do. I still have parts of my day each day that I'll never love, or even like, yet must be done.
So yes I do feel it's unrealistic to think that anyone can get by in life by only doing things that they love. It's a great goal to constantly strive for, not the pursuit of only doing things we love but rather to fill our lives with as many things that we love as possible while doing the necessary things in life that allows us to do what we love.
This is quite the dilemma whether to receive alternative education (homeschooling , virtual school etc) or regular schooling. If your child is doing well in his schooling environment and recieving good grades and has friends , to uproot him from that could potentially set him back further. Sure kids would like to stay home , their kids after all , it happens to all of us no one likes being in routine for too long even children . I believe public schooling will benefit kids as it also has the socialization aspect in there as well which cannot be truly given at home schooling. School teaches you more than academics and is a great tool socialisation wise for introducing your child to the "real world" .Hope this helps.
I started unschooling back in 2004, when my two kids were 4 and 1... My oldest had his unschool-graduation and moved out last year! I now have five kids, ages 18, 15, 10, 8 and 6--we are still unschooling with zero plans to change it.
I unschooled thru a divorce, thru extreme poverty, health issues, lack of social or family support. It was hard AF, but I'd still do it all again (just maybe with less fear on my part).
My son has a job he loves teaching gymnastics and martial arts to kids, and he's preparing to go RVing around America with his girlfriend and her parents for two years. He's already visited Iceland. He never wrote more than a paragraph until he challenged himself to write a paper for graduation, and it turned out to be 16 pages of amazing, college-level critcal thinking.
My 15yo is on Steemit, posting nature pics from her job at a local nursery. She's a better grief counselor and life coach than most adults I've met, and she's been writing poetry and creating art since before she could read.
My 10 yr old is currently studying herbalism, and making bath bombs. She's launching her business website next week, and is on her 5th re-read of ALL the Harry Potter books.
My 8 yr old is strong, and proud of it. He wants to train his body to become better. He practices yoga with us and can cook meals and tend chickens, all on his own. He's also got amazing balance and is teaching himself to solve a Rubik's cube.
My 6yo takes no shit, even from adults. He has a solid sense of mutual respect and awareness of others beyond his years. He's naturally good with numbers and patterns, and has a keen eye for precision and detaisl that he's currently applying to learning computer coding.
ALL our kids act like people--capable of holding conversation, managing their environment, helping each other and solving problems together.
Unschooling is about allowing kids to step into their natural abilities, to thrive and to succeed--free of fear or coersion.
Fish swim, birds fly--they can't help it. And human beings LEARN. Trust the process and UNSCHOOL!
What an amazing testimony of what unschooling can do!! Did you put limits on them or give them any curriculum at all? I've decided to give it a go over summer break and just see how it works out. Thank you for your comment!! :)
it's been a continual dance of stepping back, reevaluating, stepping back more in some places and forward in others. We always involve them in decisions made for the family and for themselves.
We ask the kids for feedback on what they think can be handled better, and we set goals together for things like keeping up with the housework which affect everyone in the household.
As they get older, they have asked to learn specific things, and we've offered curricula, textbooks, online learning programs, etc. My 15yo is learning French, for instance, and she's got a 150-something day streak on the DuoLingo app.
My oldest searched out Khan Academy, a free online resource which teaches things like algebra and world history thru videos. He completed a lot of those programs because he felt like he wanted some structure, and wanted to make sure he wasn't missing anything major.
When my 15yo was about 12, she went thru a phase of "feeling dumb", and felt like she needed to go to school. We talked about the many things that were driving those feelings, and one tangible thing that worried her was that she felt like she knew nothing about math.
We found online videos for her, fun lift-the-flap books on fractions and decimals, workbooks, and even the old school primer texts from the 1850's that are full of nothing but word problems.
She pored over those things by herself, and then asked for help, because "she wasn't getting it". When I went to help her, it turned out that she was second guessing everything because it was all so easy she thought she must be doing something wrong. "All my friends think this is hard--?!"
Yes, go for it, and just keep going! Unschooling is full of ups and downs, and sometimes the payoff of "evidence that it's working" doesn't fully show up for many years.
It's so worth it, all the same.