6 tips for staying motivated throughout the homeschooling year

Staying motivated can be a bit of a problem for me. There are weeks where I think, hey, its Tuesday, can’t we just rest already? There’s times when it feels like the kids never stop talking or jumping, I struggle through schoolwork I thought the kids had learned long ago, and I just want to curl up with a good book while the kids zombify in front of the youtube videos of other people playing the computer games they like.

So how do I stay motivated? How do I keep going? Here are my 5 tips for staying motivated:

1) Treasure the ways they teach themselves. My six year old wanted to write a recipe today. Great. He talked about the ingredients, asked the spelling for the words he didn’t know and wrote his own recipe. Good. I’ll skip the writing practice I was planning to do and enjoy what he’s doing.

2) Keep learning yourself. Frankly, I love new textbooks. I love curriculum, books, and literature (and I think this is pretty common within homeschooling circles). But as fast as my children learn, they’re still slower than me on some topics and I can’t meet my love of learning just by teaching them. Sometimes I’ve tried to drag them into whatever topic I’m reading about, and if it feels like dragging, then its just an extra burden on my life. Instead I’ve learned to value my own learning, my own continuing education, and keep feeding that too.

3) Take breaks. I have to pace myself through the day. I have to pace myself through the week, and I have to pace myself through the year. Trying to fight against the tides of energy takes way too much more. Instead I swim with them. There are times we will do less and times we will do more.

4) Be flexible in curriculum. If the material gets to hard, take a break, look for new ways of explaining the material or practice the steps leading up to it. If the material is too easy, skip ahead. Don’t waste time and energy on what isn’t working. If the curriculum is expensive, acknowledge the sunk costs but move on – you can’t recuperate the costs by making daily life harder.

5) Take detours. Take time to learn about random things. Visit the library and pull out books on new topics. Do an unplanned unit study on a random topic.

6) Periodically write long-term goals and get excited about the future. I don’t schedule the schoolwork out much in advance. Sunday night I’ll write out the goals for that week, but I rarely look beyond the week because its hard for me to predict exactly how much we’ll get done. Yet every so often I like looking ahead, figuring out the bigger themes and breaking down the goals into week-sized packages. If there’s curriculum we’ve been working through slowly, I’ll look at how long it will take to finish it, making sure my goals are realistic and altering how much we do or how long I expect the curriculum to last so that I can recognize we are getting where we need to in the time we need.

Check out the other blog posts about staying motivated.

17 Comments

annette @ A Net In Time

February 17, 2014 at 9:14 am Reply

good tips, we enjoy taking detours

Pamela @RedWhiteandGrew

February 17, 2014 at 10:08 am Reply

Good, practical advice. And those written goals are just so important.

Wenda Sheard

February 17, 2014 at 11:23 am Reply

Thanks for sharing your tips. Your list reads *very* much like a “how-to” for education in general. Well done!

Jade

February 17, 2014 at 2:58 pm Reply

“Treasure the Ways the Teach Themselves” needs to be turned into a billboard or even just a little shareable graphic. Would you mind if I made one? Thank you.

ChristyK

February 17, 2014 at 3:11 pm Reply

Go for it.

susanneand4

February 17, 2014 at 5:12 pm Reply

I love the idea of keeping learning to yourself. I think that when you do something like that the kids sense something ‘fun’ and they ask more questions than when you shove it at them too!

Carolyn Fox

February 17, 2014 at 7:31 pm Reply

Keep learning yourself. I do that too. That’s one of the ways I stay engaged with un/homeschooling.

loveena

February 17, 2014 at 7:44 pm Reply

lovely article. I am reminded to draw a goals list I had been wanting to write for myself, since the beginning of the year!

Yellow

February 18, 2014 at 3:50 am Reply

To keep on learning new things is one of the joys of homeschooling – for the kids and youself. I loved the “Treasue the Ways They Teach Themselves”. I think a graphic of that would be wonderful!

Amber

February 18, 2014 at 1:16 pm Reply

Great tips Christy! We’re still very new to homeschooling but I’m sure these will come in handy as we get further into our journey! Thanks for sharing 🙂

Nicky

February 18, 2014 at 1:51 pm Reply

All great tips. We frequently take detours and learn along the way.

Jen Charboneau

February 18, 2014 at 8:27 pm Reply

Great, practical advice. Thank you!

Celi Trepanier

February 19, 2014 at 11:48 am Reply

Write down goals, write down goals, write down GOALS! Great advice and I need to remember that! Thanks for such excellent motivators!

clarbojahn

February 20, 2014 at 11:26 am Reply

I hope this comment posts. I have had so much trouble posting to your blog and I love your blog! I am always passing it on to my homeschooling friends.

This post I can identify with my writing life. how to stay motivated in writing everyday. I also make goals and word counts. Daily, weekly and monthly word counts. and if some days don’t produce as much, the next better should. 🙂

Annie

February 20, 2014 at 9:17 pm Reply

I love your remark about continuing to feed our own need to learn. I always felt that was very important. First, it preserves my sanity. Second, I am modeling the very behavior I hope my boys have: a love of lifelong learning.