Is your homeschooler lazy? Do they lack focus and drive? Are they constantly finding excuses to avoid their work? If you answered yes to any of these questions, don’t worry – you’re not alone.
In fact, many homeschoolers find themselves in the same situation. But don’t worry – there is hope!
Some homeschooling parents find that their children become lazy or unwilling to cooperate in school at home. When this happens, it is easy to get frustrated or think that homeschooling is not a good fit for the child. It is important to recognize that children may have a hard time adjusting to the parent becoming the teacher. There are some techniques that parents can incorporate to make a lazy, unwilling homeschooler enjoy learning. Adjusting to the child’s learning style, making learning fun, and catering to a child’s interests are a few of the ways to spark an interest in learning.
In this blog post, I will share 29 tips that will help improve your lazy homeschooler in just 30 days. So hop on board and let’s get started!
Evaluate What Lazy Means
When you say your child is lazy, what does that mean? Are they refusing to do any schoolwork, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, complaining about the book work, or something else?
The reason this question is important is that your answer alone may be the key to resolving the problem.
Let’s say your homeschooled child will not get out of bed in the morning. Maybe they would rather do their schoolwork in the afternoon or evening.
If they are complaining about the book work, maybe they would rather learn on a field trip, by watching a documentary, or dictating the answers verbally and having someone else write them down.
There is a multitude of reasons a child may APPEAR lazy, but you really have to dig into this question in order to figure out what the problem is.
Consider Your Child’s Learning Style
There are 3 main learning styles for children:
Kinesthetic – This type of learner wants to do it themselves and learns best by moving. A good example of a kinesthetic learner is a child who has trouble sitting still and would enjoy bouncing a ball to learn syllables.
Auditory – This type of learner learns best by hearing it. An example of an auditory learner is a child who enjoys learning songs to help remember what they are learning.
Visual – This type of learner learns best by seeing it. Visual learners enjoy color-coding their notes and often have photographic memories.
No matter which learning style your child has, there are ways to cater to the way they learn in order to help them achieve success in homeschooling.
Consider Changing Your Teaching Style
I highly recommend purchasing Cathy Duffy’s 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. Not only will this help you learn which type of curriculum is best for your child, but it also has self-assessments you can take to figure out which method of homeschooling would work best for your child.
Charlotte Mason – This style does not use textbooks, but rather uses rich literature, and asks children to narrate what they have learned.
Classical – This style teaches children how to think for themselves by using grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Traditional – This structured teaching style is the closest to the traditional school approach and is essentially school-at-home. It is good for those that are new to homeschooling, especially when they haven’t learned their style yet.
Montessori – This style takes a child-led approach to learning, catering to a child’s interests. The environment typically encourages play and exploration.
Unit Studies – This homeschool style takes a theme and uses it to teach all subjects as 1. For example, if you are learning about dogs, you might measure a dog, write a story about a dog, and research the history of that type of dog.
Unschooling – This type of education is unstructured, child-led, and very flexible. Unschoolers typically learn through experience outside of a textbook.
Eclectic – Eceletic homeschoolers take a mixture of the different learning styles to make them their own. This might look like textbook learning for math and language arts, park days to explore nature for science, and watching a historical documentary and narrating it back to the parent.
For more in-depth information, here is an excellent article about the different types of homeschooling styles.
Make Learning Fun
Now that you know what your child’s learning style is and what your teaching style is, how can you make learning more fun?
Kids, especially younger children, need to be engaged while learning. Let them bounce on a Hopper Ball while learning, go on a scavenger hunt, play UNO, or ask your child to design the school day and see what they come up with! You might be surprised that they enjoy doing school when they get to be “in charge.”
Here are some extra ideas to make homeschooling more fun!
Take a Break to De-school if Needed
If your child recently left a traditional school setting, they may need a few months off to de-school.
Deschooling helps children and parents transition out of the traditional schooling mindset and into a homeschooling mindset. It is vital to the success of homeschooling if your child had a bad experience in school.
Have a Heart-to-Heart
Talk to your child. What is wrong? Why are they struggling? What do they enjoy about learning? What do they not enjoy? Open up the conversation and try to understand their perspective.
Then, take what you’ve learned and build a homeschool program to mimic what they want their days to look like – within reason of course.
Consider Changing Curriculums
If you are using a textbook curriculum, is it a good fit for your child? If it’s too boring, not the correct grade level, or just not a good fit, consider changing curriculums. There are so many free options out there. It doesn’t hurt to try something different. It might be the best thing that ever happened to your homeschool.
Focus on the Subjects the Child Enjoys More
Does your child love English but hate history? Let them spend more time doing English, and less time doing history. Let them take charge of their learning.
They will still need to learn other subjects, of course, but it doesn’t need to be torture every day to get their history learning accomplished. Let them watch a World War II documentary, take them to a Holocaust museum, or let them make their own history book by researching different topics.
Use Positive Reinforcement
Be sure to make a big deal when your child shows a lot of effort when learning. Let your child know you are proud of them for working hard on the good days, instead of nagging them on the bad days. It goes a long way!
Stop if the Child Gets Upset
If your child is upset during a lesson, stop. It’s tempting to push through the lesson, especially when you’re almost done, but don’t. This makes learning a chore when really, the goal is to make learning fun so we can create lifetime learners.
Make Sure You Aren’t Over-Schooling
Some people think that homeschooling should mimic the public school system and take 6-8 hours each day.
Public schools have 25 children in their class, recess, changing classrooms, pep rallies, roll call, breaks to answer other students’ questions, and lots of other interruptions.
Homeschooling should only take 30 min-4 hours daily, depending on the grade level.
Here is an article that gives more in-depth information.
Keep a Log of Daily Schooling to Try to Find a Pattern
This takes a few weeks, but it’s super helpful!
Take a log each day of how your child does. Pay attention when they get frustrated, lazy, unwilling, or upset. Is it always around the same time of day? Is it always during math class?
Figure out if there is a pattern and pivot.
Be Flexible on the Time of Day
Flexibility is one of my favorite things about homeschooling! Do it in the car, at bedtime, before lunch, whenever and where ever!
If you don’t have an early riser, let them do it later in the day. What is the harm?
As a teenager, I loved to sleep until noon. As an adult, I’m up early in the morning. Just because you let your kids sleep in, doesn’t mean you are ruining them for life. They will adjust in their adult years. Kids need more sleep!
Discover What Motivates Your Child
What motivates your child? Time off in the afternoon to go to the park? A field trip to the zoo? Playdates with other homeschoolers?
Figure out what they are looking forward to and use it to your advantage. Some may call this bribery – I call it smart parenting.
Take Breaks
Some kids want to get all their work done all at once so they can be done for the day. Others like to take breaks. Consider doing 1 subject and then taking a break to play.
Cater to Your Child’s Interests
This is one of my best tips. What does your child want to learn about? Make a learning banner and ask your children to write all the things they want to learn about over the next school year.
Then, hang it up and figure out how you can make lessons based on their interests. This is life-changing!
My son told me he wanted to learn about drones and alligators. So we took a trip to the Everglades and saw about 20 alligators in the wild, and bought a drone book we’ve been reading each night before bed.
Recently, he went to Best Buy and impressed the employee with all of his knowledge on drones. He named about 10 different types and could identify them in the cases. Pretty cool for a 5-year-old!
Follow their interests and you will find that your homeschooling days go much more smoothly.
Consider Teaching Siblings Together
If you have siblings you’re homeschooling, have you tried unit studies? It’s a great way to help different grade levels learn together, and shorten your homeschooling day while you’re at it!
The more willing siblings’ motivation may help the unwilling student. Also, group settings can be more fun in general.
Set Simple Goals and Reward When Achieved
Create a reward chart for simple goals. Let your child know that once they achieve a certain amount of goals, they will receive a reward. You can even give the child options so they get to decide their reward. Family game night, ice cream sundae bar, sleepover at a friend’s house, a new toy, a field trip day, etc.
Play Games Whenever Possible
Whenever possible, try to incorporate games into school, especially for younger children.
Clap for syllables and sing songs to learn phonics.
Play Bingo! It helps with letter and number recognition, plus there’s a prize to win at the end!
A really great idea I saw recently is taking sight word flashcards and laying them out. Then ask your children to put a blue car on the word “was.” And so on and so forth. Genius!
Get Out of the House
Don’t do every homeschool day at home. Just because it is called “home” school doesn’t mean it always needs to occur at home. Go to the park, to a grandparent’s house, or to the library.
Restrict Screen Time Until Schoolwork is Done
If the issue is electronics, sorry, but no iPad or video games until after your schoolwork is done. Simple as that.
Connect with Other Homeschoolers
Maybe they aren’t lazy but they’re bored.
Find homeschool co-ops or join some Facebook groups and attend a meet-up.
Finding a homeschool network provides parents and children with support, ideas, and a general sense of camaraderie. Find your tribe.
Do More Hands-On Activities
Depending on your child’s learning style, maybe they need more hands-on activities to learn.
Make slime, build a volcano, or go gem mining. These have all been HUGE hits with my son!
It feels more like playing than learning, but it’s both.
Watch Documentaries Together
I cannot understate this enough. Cuddle up, get some snacks, and watch documentaries together. Let them choose what you learn about.
We’ve been watching lots of shark documentaries recently.
Practice Life Skills
Take a break from regular school work and focus on teaching practical life skills. This is a HUGE advantage of homeschooling.
Public schools don’t teach how to pump gas or grocery shop.
Sometimes we turn cooking into a reading and math lesson.
Let your children help you budget and pay bills. This alone can save them so much trouble in their adult lives. Good money management skills are not taught in school, but you can certainly teach this at home.
Thinking Tree has a lot of great material available to help children learn practical skills. Click here to read more!
Have a Spirit Week
Let your child plan a Spirit Week!
Here are some ideas:
- Pajama day
- Backwards day
- Beach day
- Costume day
- Crazy hair day
- Opposite day
- Alphabet day
- Emoji day
- Neon day
- Mario Kart day
- Crazy hat day
- Superhero day
- Career dress-up day
- Patriotic day
- Inside-out day
- Letter-theme day
- Animal day
There are hundreds of ideas. Let your kids get creative with their ideas. Then, make a poster board together with the schedule and post it on the fridge. It gives your children something fun to look forward to!
Have a Family Member Teach a Class
Enlist the help of a family member or friend. Maybe your child just needs a change of scenery. Maybe you need a break from each other. That’s ok!
My mom loves to do art class with my son, and I love when she does it so I can get a break!
Be Patient
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was an education. Don’t try to rush through a day or lesson. Take your time and work at your child’s pace. That’s another one of the beauties of homeschooling. It’s not a race.
Tough Love
If all else fails, sometimes that’s where tough love comes in. If you’ve done all you can do to make school enjoyable and flexible, sometimes the child just needs to do something they do not enjoy, because learning is important for their future.
Conclusion
If you are like me and have a child who seems to be naturally gifted in everything but doesn’t always love school, then this challenge is for you.
I encourage you to try this for 30 days and let me know how your homeschooler is doing!
You may find that by letting your child take the lead and doing engaging activities, your child’s attitude towards school will start to improve.
Who knows? They may even become one of those kids who love learning!