3 Ways You Are Starting on The Wrong Foot WIth Homeschooling

3 WAYS YOU’RE STARTING ON THE WRONG FOOT

It amazes me when I hear parents say  that  their kids don’t  like learning that way or their kids don’t like those books or even their kids don’t like doing school that way in a famous word of just being  ‘hard’

There are three (3) ways you could be starting homeschooling the wrong way or having a bad start. This could be happening when starting from the beginning or transitioning over from a group schooling environment or a different method of homeschooling.  We often use the Robinson curriculum and it’s a unique method where the kids are teaching themselves and it’s a top curriculum that uses the very best materials. This curriculum is very minimalistic but very effective, powerful, affordable and it teaches kids great study habits that they would keep for the rest of their lives. Homeschooling in this manner will bring a positive obvious result in the long run.

However, what others are doing and the result that the system is producing may affect you, and eventually, you could see the reason that particular system is not always the best even though, it is a popular system or approach at that time. You may have heard that is the only way to do it but that’s not correct there is a sustainable and effective way to do this that will bring the best result and also simplify the work for you without even doing much. This is how you know you are starting on the wrong foot;

1. Focusing Only on the Curriculum; When you focus too much on the curriculum versus the system as a whole. Dr. Robinson talked about this on a podcast recently, if you think of it as a triangle that has three (3) sides and these three ways are the three sides for you to have a great home school. It’s like the entire home education is wrapped up in one package. Hence, you need skills and then continue to build on those skills development as well as the curriculum, the system, methodology. The other piece of the triangle is the parental relationship. Where we can say, how you partner is how you parent, meaning it’s will have an impact on the other. This is a matter of priority, for instance, as a great mum or a great homeschooler, you think you got to work on the relationship with your husband and that is a priority and you need to set priority for your kids as well. This validates that the way you partner is how you parent. 

The tri-effective here is the curriculum, methodology, skill development, and parental relationship.  Many parents make a lot of mistakes by neglecting the two sides of the pyramid and just focusing on the curriculum and they think, that is the piece by getting the right and the most pricing curriculum, and not realizing that they were throwing money at the problem which is not the answer. In the school system, money is constantly being thrown at the problem and it is not working at all. Therefore, one way you could start on the wrong foot is by not realizing that it is more than focusing on the curriculum and then thinking that your money can buy the answers and the solutions you seek. Always remember that the relationship you have with your spouse is teaching your children more than you can ever imagine. Also, what you are choosing as a curriculum and methodology is important and always keep in mind that you’re working towards a goal of skill development that will prepare them for the real world. What profit is there for them to have this straight-A homeschool report card if they cannot manage in the real world? Try as much as possible to keep this in mind and not focusing only on the curriculum and think that you can throw money on the problem, it won’t work out.

1. To Study Too Much, Too soon; parents can be overzealous when it comes to this especially. The mistake parents make is to allow their kids to study too much and too soon. If you’re a stay home mum with little children, your day will be fill up and you’ll want some routine, some schedule and then you think the solution is schooling. Having a formal school period that will take the whole money.

However, if your children are too young, age two, three, four and you probably think that they are showing some interest. If it’s too much, too long, longer than 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes to the point where they don’t want to do the work anymore and you’re still focusing them to do it. Please stop it and don’t try to force it on them because it’s doing more damage than you think. There are many other things you could do and incorporate into their study habit at this stage that are much more enjoyable, sustainable and educational such as reading aloud, reading out loud to your kids, memorize poetry, memorize nursery rhymes, teach them nursery rhymes, incorporate them in your daily activities, when you’re cooking or cleaning, incorporate them in the chores, in the gathering work and have a conversation with them by talking with them all day. This is far better than just formal academic sessions that are too early, too soon, way too long, too much and going far and the child is getting a really bad taste for school and it’s starting too fast on the wrong foot. This will eventually do more harm and damage than what you think is being helpful. This is another way you can get started on the wrong foot.

1. Not Being Consistent: Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent and hard work leads to success. When dealing with your kids, your willpower has to be stronger than their ‘won’t power. This is because strong willpower is the key to success; it is the drive, determination, self-discipline and the ability to resist short-term desires to achieve long-term goals. Naturally, as kids, they want to try to manipulate you, throw something at you, even though they don’t know it yet and hope that would change your approach and do something else, maybe something they like better or maybe not doing something at all. To deal with this, your willpower has to be stronger. Always remember, they don’t know anything about homeschooling. It almost likes telling them to feed themselves for proper nutrition and diet. They don’t know or understand what this means and what you would see them doing is just to grab their toys, candy bars and ice cream. They don’t know any better and it’s up to you as their parents to show up and show them how to do it and what needs to be done. If you are at the point where you can’t consistently work with your kids for three (3) hours every day for reading, writing arithmetic, then there is something wrong with your homeschool approach. If you’re doing a week of math, to catch up and a week of English and also taking a week off because you’re tired and burnt out. If you’re schooling in this way, take it as feedback that what you’re doing is not quite working. You should be able to work on the 3 hours every single day. When you use the Robinson curriculum, your children can work alone with less or no supervision, the majority of the work is on their own and not on you. If you are focusing on yourself to be a dispenser of knowledge and information, then you’re going to have a hard time and that’s not sustainable at all. 

Now, don’t allow your kids to dictate what your homeschooling should be. I’m always a little dumb fold when I hear parents say oh! My kids don’t like learning that way, my kids don’t like those books, and my kids don’t like doing school that way, in a famous word of just being hard. So what! If you kids come to you and they say I don’t like this and that is boring. That they don’t like it doesn’t mean anything.  You are the parent, you’re the one supporting them, investing in them, educating them, responsible for them, accounting for them and who cares what they think. Don’t get me wrong, of course, there are places of their impact and we can twist here and there to make things work as a plan or maybe a swap here and there. But, once you start swapping up things, you’re changing things to the point where it’s won’t align with your original plan. Then you’ve got a problem.

You’re the parent and it’s going to work for you, you’re in charge, you know the best for them, you know the system and the routine. As Adults, how many times are we in situations where we need to do something that we don’t want to do but it’s tough and we have to do it anyway? Dr, Robinson said having itches that you can’t scratch or getting into an assignment and you think you don’t want to do it but you struggle to do it. These are mental dispositions that are necessary for life and they start now in the early years. When it’s being developed, cultivated, and being consistent with it until it becomes part of their identity when using a better approach or style.

LEARNING STYLES

Many parents want to cater to their kids learning styles but don’t know-how. Understandably, you love the children and you want to help them to be successful, but I want you to realize that in life, we all have strengths and weaknesses and you don’t have to worry about your strength but your weaknesses or your limitations. You need to work on your limitations to be successful in life because your limitation is what set you back, that is what keeps you away from an opportunity. Your strength will take care of itself. When you do this, your kids will have the whole rest of the day to themselves, practicing their hobbies, interests, and reading and learning the style they like. For instance, my son is not going to be able to go to the plant and say whoa! I’d like to listen to the menu in the audiobook for marking, can he do that? Absolutely no! Because that’s not the real world, you don’t get to always choose the medium in which you’re learning information. It’s best to work and learn by using different ways. It’s so important to read something and truly comprehend what it says, and that is a SUPERPOWER! You need to work on your limitations and your weaknesses because that will hold you back ultimately.

The parent's job is to prepare their children for the real world through their capabilities. In addition, the great thing about the substitute curriculum is that they are not limited by us or our knowledge or weaknesses. Your kids can truly go as far as they can on their own merit and abilities instead of relying on us.

Let’s recap the 3 ways that you could be starting on the wrong foot;

• You could be starting on the wrong foot when you focus solely on the curriculum as the end by spending more money every year neglecting the other crucial pieces such as the skill of development and the parental relationship.
• When you start too soon, too much, and too long, you can kill the love of learning their great effective way. There are remarkable courses and the greatest resources from the past from passionate educators and it’s very simple, very effective, and as well minimalistic. The resources are free online. It doesn’t have to be complicated or draining, it can be sustainable and you can start at age five but there are other things that you can do before then. You can read aloud to them, memorize poetry, and more but in their academics, doing too much and too soon can cause problems in the long run. 
• Not being consistent or letting your kids run the show, you have to set a sustainable and effective goal that you know you can do in the long –run and it’s bringing benefits to not just only the kids but for you and the entire family and then stick to it. However, you can twist something if the feedback comes back that way. You can twist if it comes with a better result, but try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and because they don’t like something or find something boring or there is no time is a recipe that will continue to burn you out every year.

These three things are just setting you up for a hard time when it comes to homeschooling and a lot of bouncing back and forth and riding on emotions and feelings which then dictate your behavior and then lead to just another home school environment. Instead of these three things, focus on all components of that triangle that work really well. Focus on cultivating early years of setting the stage, bonding along with them, and incorporate them in your day by talking and having conversations with them and always read out aloud for them.

Alright! If you enjoy this write-up, please comment down below and if you agree with me or not, I will appreciate your comments. If you have any questions as well feel free to comment below will answer you as soon as I can. While you wait for the next video I will leave the link to the playlist that I have here on all my Robinson curriculum videos so you can check that out as well alright talk to you soon.  Thank you for reading!

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