When Your Homeschool Children Rebel
Life with children is challenging. Homeschooling days can be up and down. While many days can be rewarding, let’s be honest. We all have those bad days. And there are seasons in our lives when our children REBEL.
And I’m not just talking about during school. Talk to any parent any you will find that they all have seasons of good and bad. Whether that is externally influenced or something internally, they will say they have had times when their child or children want to completely go against the grain, go against the rules and find every “gray area” when it comes to the everyday.
So what do you do when you are trying to homeschool (especially homeschool multiple children) and one or more rebel? We’ve been there. We just got through one rough season of ALL THREE children rebelling at the same time. But now that we have gotten past it, we are better for it. We’ve learned. We have grown. And we still homeschooled. Never give up. Whether teaching or parenting, both come with the challenges and rewards of the everyday living and maturing.
Your Children Won’t Cooperate (Rebel)
- Set clear expectations.
- Set boundaries.
- Make rewards.
- Decide punishments.
- Get creative with the content.
- Work with them through an entire lesson one or two days to reassure.
- Encourage and then push them past the difficult parts (just like any job in life- we have to move forward even on the bad days or with people or content we don’t like).
- Take a break, breathe from the material for a day and come back to it.
- Assess if they are analytical or emotional about it and why?
They Hate their School Subject(s)
- Take a deep look at their subjects – one by one and sift through an entire lesson.
- Review their written answers with them verbally to find out what the “hiccup” is in the material.
- Pinpoint the subject or subjects that they “actually hate” and find a way to accommodate.
- Slow down or speed up a subject by adding or reducing lessons, adding more content or less.
- Add in activities with the lesson.
Refuse to get work done or do half a job
- Are they being lazy? – clarify expectations and set aside time.
- Is the lesson too hard? – find out what is confusing and set aside time to reteach.
- Is the lesson too easy? – find resources to increase difficulty or add activities.
- Is handwriting or typing difficult to get the task accomplished? – spend extra time on that skill for a week or two to increase proficiency and positive self-esteem.
- Are they not familiar with their resources available? – show them how to use the glossary or ruler etc.
- They are forgetting, avoiding or not wanting to commit time – place them near you so you can observe and remind them to stay focused.
The House is a Disaster (Life is a rebel)
- You can’t keep order or papers in one place – consider trays and shelves.
- The kids do not put anything where it should go – try cube organizers.
- There isn’t a good system? – consider reconfiguring the room
- If all else fails: Pull everything out and get rid of what you aren’t using and evaluate what curriculum is working. Take a day or two to just organize – have kids help.
What Can You Do?
- Consider checklists
- Consider buckets and baskets for order
- Choose folders and binders for materials that are messy and frequently used
- Reorganize your homeschool room or centers
- Reassess your expectations and requirements
Our Children Are Not Perfect – Here’s How Ours REBELLED
Rebel 1: The Silent Protestor – Eldest Child
Becoming a teen is never easy. We also warned our eldest that his school load would be gradually increasing. We explained that as he got older, the level of difficulty would increase as well. So would our expectations of his completion. Being the eldest and often much more attentive and organized, we weren’t too concerned. But children can fool you.
While we were checking in with him, we were also giving him a lot of trust that when he said tasks were completed, that they were completed. However, completed had two different meanings. He had been silently protesting the “hard” work by not asking for help and doing the bare minimum to say it was “complete” but it was completely insufficient.
So what did we do?
- The benefits and privileges of being a teen began to temporarily disappear.
- There were more detailed check ins – such as not seeing friends until the schoolwork is to our satisfaction,
- More explanations of the content – what did you learn and what were three key points.
- More writing – write more than a paragraph per question.
- Harsher grading – that essay was now dissected with rubrics and made to fix it multiple times until correct.
We had to do this for three to four weeks – and our son who seems to be a quick learner – he got the idea. Suddenly he was bringing me his schoolwork before I asked. Showed me his essays and corrections. Wanted to tell me all about his experiments and journals. But this required diligence on our part. We had to be consistent. Direct. Set boundaries. Our expectations were made clear and then he had to live up to them.
This may not be the same for you and your teen but for us, our NT child learned very quickly – though he argued through many of the weeks. We got through. He learned. And now schoolwork is better for everyone.
Rebel 2: The Forgetter – Middle Child
The middle child. Creative. Has ADHD. And is wildly inquisitive and aloof. While he would rarely intentionally ignore schoolwork or protest it because it’s hard, he did often forget. He still does because some things can’t be 100% fixed when it comes to ADHD.
However, what we have learned with him is that when he forgets, we are clear about our expectations of how much can be “conveniently forgotten” when it’s asked and requested. On his bad days, we let it go and gave him time to complete the schoolwork. But there was a time when his good days had the immediate response of “oh I forgot- oops” because he had something he wanted to do more.
What did we do?
- Put his checklist in a clear spot that could not be lost or ripped
- Frequent check-ins both verbally and physically
- A secluded quiet area to focus on a subject to “catch up” on what was forgotten
- Going through each subject and asking if something is confusing or not
- Losing privileges until schoolwork was completed – setting hard deadlines of mid-week and end of week to warn and encourage.
- Managing content by verbally quizzing for understanding (to find out if completely skipped or just forgotten sometimes)
It has taken him a long time but over the years we have made gradual progress and now he’s more honest with himself than anything. That’s a great start. He takes responsibility for what he doesn’t do. He also asks for help all the time. Which we love. A lot of times a simple example or answer can make everything make sense.
Rebel 3: The Constant Procrastinator – Youngest
I’m not sure where to begin when it comes to our youngest. The tinkerer. The clever independent and wily child. He’s an NF and mechanically inclined. There are a thousand other things he’d rather distract himself with than schoolwork. School is mundane. Boring. Repetitive and not exciting for him all the time.
He’d rather code or work on a robotic project than complete a journal. Getting him to complete more than one subject was impossible. He would wander off and work on his electronics box and a couple hours later – we would wonder what had happened to his math lesson and typing. He’d just shrug and say he would get to it later. What madness and how frustrating for us!
So what did we do?
We completely overhauled our expectations and scheduling for him.
- Checklist posted clearly and made multiple copies of the same list so we could review it with him
- Spaced out the volume/amount of the lessons (so instead of Math lesson A & B – we went down to Lesson A then B etc. each day.
- Consistency – checking in everyday at end of day for a while.
- Consistent punishments for lying or avoiding work after a full week.
- We changed what he did and when he completed it – he did a subject or two in the morning, then played and then came back to the other subjects. Such as math, science, then do piano, play, then typing, then back to journal or writing. It spaced it up well for him.
The Rebel Will Fade…
Whether your child or children are an hour into their rebellion or you are three weeks deep in it – remember it will pass.
For us, it felt like they all our children took turns avoiding or hating their schoolwork. Then this past semester, it’s like they had a team effort! All three joined forces and wanted to rebel. It’s okay. Work on one issue at a time, fix it and rework it until you get past the struggle.
And if that fails, you as a parent have the authority to do what you need to do. This is their education and it’s important. Prioritize the learning and help them shape their habits by modeling and correcting behavior.
Over time, they will learn what works for them and this will help prepare them for the future when they get a job and need to be competent and work with others in a workspace. Keep going. We all have those REBEL moments!