{Day 27} How To Handle Bad Days
{For an overview of all 31 Days of Homeschooling click HERE.}
To advance to the next lesson, look for the “NEXT LESSON” link at the end of this article.
No family is immune to the occasional bad day. Whether homeschooling or not, life just isn’t predictable. When something unexpected happens, even the most well-planned day can fall to pieces within minutes.
How families tackle these challenges and interruptions is crucial to homeschooling success. Handling situations promptly, then swiftly getting the family back on track is the best way. Crumbling under pressure and quitting homeschooling altogether is not.
New homeschoolers may not always recognize the signs of a homeschool day about to go wrong, and may not be aware of the tactics other families use to avoid certain kinds of problems. Parents new to homeschooling haven’t enough experience under their belts to diffuse situations, and haven’t always acquired the knowledge need to figure out some other way. They may become very stressed and lose confidence. Sometimes, they throw in the towel too soon.
For new homeschool parents, the best advice is staying calm and reassessing the situation. This is almost always the most effective way to go. Taking a time out, either with or without the children, and looking at the problem objectively will help to reframe what is going on. Only after everyone is calm can parents brainstorm solutions, then apply them. It is never a good idea to make significant changes while everyone is still upset.
Some bad day problems are easy to solve. If children are tired, hungry, fighting or misbehaving, first handling the specifics, then getting back to work, is all it takes. If children are uncomfortable or whining, often checking simple things like an uncomfortable chair, the room temperature, the difficulty of a question, the grip of a pencil, or something relatively easy, will set the family back on course in minutes. Dealing with easy problems is very helpful in the long run. After addressing these kinds of things several times, parents will come to recognize the signs and handle them (or prevent them altogether) the next time.
Other bad days are not so easy to diffuse. In fact, some even require a couple of days off from homeschooling until a solution becomes clear. If a certain curriculum isn’t working, for example, it could take a day or two to figure out what to do next. If illness strikes, it could be a week of irregular schooling (or none at all) until everyone is feeling better. If out-of-town relatives come to stay or major equipment malfunctions make it impossible to accomplish anything, families have no choice but to school somewhere else or take time off. When new babies arrive, it can take even longer to reestablish a regular, “good” routine.
For seasoned homeschoolers, bad days take on a completely different form. Having already learned to expect the ups and downs of homeschooling and family life, these families are unaffected by trivial things, since they have already mastered lots of ways to turn bad days around.
For veteran homeschoolers, bad days seem to develop from longer-term challenges, like a growing boredom over a routine, lack of enthusiasm over a curriculum that has turned stale, difficulty teaching/learning more challenging material, adjusting for attitudes/needs of growing teenagers, or something of this nature. Parents who have been homeschooling for many years may also experience fatigue, a feeling they are running out of ideas, a desire to be done with it all, or a growing feeling it is time to resume a career and move forward with other things.
When bad days persist like this, a variety of factors may be at play. In these cases, more serious assessment needs to happen. Just as homeschooling takes many years to hone and fine-tune, so these kinds of situations can take some time to resolve. Long-term bad days are not impossible to solve, but require deeper thought before arriving at the right answers.
Just as suggested above, these families must also take a time out. Parents in particular should take a serious step back and assess the situation from all angles. This could take a few days, or even a few weeks, but should be long enough for the anxiety and pressure to wear off a bit, for the family to reconnect on some level, and for truly objective analysis to occur. During this period, families go on field trips and family outings, select relaxed schooling activities they love to do, or take an actual vacation from school.
Next comes taking a look at priorities. With a fresh perspective, it is time to list what is important and what is not. This creates the opportunity to remember why the family is homeschooling in the first place. It is also a time to evaluate which activities do nothing but add stress and confusion, and should be stricken from the calendar from now on.
After a time, families will be able to resume schooling with a new perspective. Should any solutions have been uncovered, or changes to homeschooling discovered, they should be implemented. Usually, bad days will vanish homeschooling returned to normal, happy functioning.
This is much more to this topic. Check the links, below, for further reading. I also invite you to consult with me for additional techniques to help restore joy to your homeschool and your family.
Further reading:
TPC – Time Off, Prioritize, Change Thinking
Leave a Reply