I've now been homeschooling for 11 years. Though in my own blog I speak of homeschooling in terms of lofty ideals, if I haven't before gotten really REAL about the day-to-day grind, let me just do so now.
There is a whole homeschooling philosophy out there built around this phrase: "Inspire. Don't require." I like this idea. A lot. I think it can work and the results are inspiring. I mostly view them from a distance. The purists of this ideal I THINK I know are acquaintances who often present at homeschooling conferences and sell product built around this philosophy. I haven't had a heart-to-heart with any of them, heard their struggles, or shared mine. But I like to believe the approach CAN work.
Me, however? When people ask how I can do something as difficult as homeschooling for years on end, I joke that it's my rock bottom expectations that make it possible. What I mean is that at the end of the day, at the end of this time I've been gifted to raise my kids and BE with them, my expectation is only that they will master the skills that are necessary for their lives. That IS a requirement. Some it they get to inform: the son that wants to be a professional dancer spends a ton of time on dancing, the daughter who wants to sing on Broadway spends a ton of time on her voice, the daughter who wants to be a swimmer is expected to do exercises every day.
But some of it is MY expectation, my REQUIREMENT: what is acceptable penmanship, math fluency, speaking and communications skills, self-care/cooking/housekeeping skills. Do we INSPIRE? Well... we try to show our kids how what they are working on ties into their ideas of what life will look like in the future.
ARE they inspired? Meh. Yes and no. The younger two (10 and 7) waste a ton of time every day just messing around or playing with each other. Often they resist if I ask them to "get started on their school work."
If I WANTED to, or could remain available all day to support them, perhaps I wouldn't require that they actually get started, but I don't want to just be waiting for them all day to need me. So I don't spend energy trying to force them to do anything, but the understanding is that they can't watch anything, go anywhere, or play with other friends until they have completed their homework. AND if they gripe about covering these basics, they don't get any extras like lessons, or anything fun. (Yeah, a pretty big "require" right there.)
But this works. And my kids at these ages, lacking the perspective to grasp fully that I, at my age, do still need clear penmanship AND use my multiplication facts, and without setting the expectation for myself to daily "figure out a way to make this or that engaging," setting these requirements is also sustainable.
The other thing I would add is that while I don't think short-term incentives are included in the concept of "inspiring," these also WORK. Despite all the research about how giving kids rewards damages their intrinsic motivations, the fact remains we ALL give ourselves rewards - it's how we get ourselves to do the hard stuff, whatever we feel that "hard stuff" is. (When I finish my taxes, I'll watch a movie; when I have saved enough money, I'll go on vacation.) In our family, we like to do fun things, or even watch a movie, or have fun plans that we understand come AFTER we have put in the work. And mostly this IS effective, especially when the kids know that they will NOT get to do the fun stuff no matter what. Yes, it's a drag to cancel, or enacting the consequence of time wasting; but not nearly as big a drag as growing up non-functional because you never learned to NOT waste time. These short-term incentives work, and I see that as the kids mature, so does their sense of moving through their obligations with their allotted time, and that is "Adulting 101."
ALL of this going SO against the ideas of child-led learning and inspiring instead of requiring. BUT perhaps of equal significance to just moving through the work, I note that when I require a bit of academic structure AND even REQUIRE MORE help around the house, the kids are happier, get along better, and seem to enjoy their resulting leisure more.
This balance of requirement and incentivizing seems to be working for us. I would note that "working" is NOT measured by kids getting into or excelling in college or life - my 16 yr old DID begin community college, and survived. The others are still too young to say for sure - though my daughter IS planning to do some public HS next year. So in my definition of working, we get along with each other, enjoy being together as a family, have more good days than bad, and it seems that while the kids do spend some time being "behind," that they mature into more motivation and better pacing and don't seem "behind" in anything that matters when they get to it....
If I can get those results, and get them consistently, I'll take them!
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