Looking in from the outside, homeschooling seems like it would be easy going and laid back. In actuality it can be quite intense since you don’t have to slow down the curriculum for other students. This is one of the advantages of homeschooling since you can go at your own pace. However, it can also be something of a negative since homeschooled children can often end up getting burnt out.
There aren’t many limits and nothing holding you back from exploring all the possibilities of learning. It is very common for a homeschool teacher to get over excited and want to bite off more than they can chew. There are some common mistakes to avoid to make sure that your child doesn’t get burned out. In this article, we will give you several tips to prevent it from happening.
1 – Let them get emotional
One thing that often gets overlooked when teaching is that emotions do come into play with students. Sometimes it’s the classroom environment that makes children bottle up their emotions, however. This leads to stress and eventually burns out.
It would seem that the homeschool classroom would be immune to this since there is a family bond at play. However, it isn’t always the case and some children have trouble managing their emotions which causes them stress.
The homeschool environment gives you as a teacher a unique opportunity not available in a school classroom setting to explore their emotions and not stifle them. It is very helpful in the long term to encourage social emotional learning for students. This will help them avoid getting burnt out in the short term and allow them to be free thinkers in the long term.
These tools will help them with self-awareness, empathy, and how to manage themselves. The last trait is one of the most important when it comes to avoiding getting burned out.
Since there are fewer chances to learn social and relationship skills then taking the time to allow them to develop their social emotional learning will help them be better students.
2 – Make it exciting
Children thrive and love to learn when the lessons are fun and engaging. A boring lesson straight out of the book is not usually the way that kids will learn much. If it is like that everyday then those lessons are going to cause the child to burn out and end up shutting down. Then it is harder for them to get back on track and start learning again.
The key is to mix things up and make learning fun. For instance, there have been a lot of advances in education technology with apps that will help make learning more of a game. Gamification is a tool that helps students learn without even realizing that they are picking up lots of information. It is used in many different applications due to how useful it is in many areas.
Try doing experiments to make it more of an exciting experience and more likely to stick. This can be used in many different subjects and not just science. For instance, you could do some math experiments that show how certain outcomes are made without having to use a book or do exercises.
Kids learn best by doing and these types of lessons are the ones that stick. If you can mix up a lot of the traditional lessons with fun activities then there is less of a chance of burning out.
3 – Adjust the schedule
One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is not needing to be on a set schedule. This means that you don’t have to be so strict about when things get done. When your child is starting to show signs of being strained, then it is a good time to slow things down. You can either give them the day off or try to reduce the number of lessons for that day. Even taking some time to do something different like making going to the market a lesson is a good way to break up the schedule.
Try to stick with a schedule that works for the type of learner your child is. There is a pace that every child has and if you don’t account for that then you will likely be going through a series of burnouts followed by a peaceful period and then followed up by another burnout. By following the lead of your student you can avoid those phases.
