I have said this before and I’ll say it again because it hasn’t changed š “My patience as a mother is completely different from my patience as a homeschool teacher”. I love my son and like any Mom with their kids, I think he is pretty dang genius š so as his teacher I get frustrated when I see him not doing something correctly. Don’t get me wrong, if I see him struggling I am 110% on his side, helping him and guiding him. It’s when I know he knows how to do something because he’s done it 20x before but he is not doing it because he’s only halfway paying attention to his work and mostly looking at his Captain American shield across the room LOL. That’s when I get a tiny bit frustrated.
I never thought I could be the homeschooling kind. Like never. I always thought it was amazing when parents could homeschool their children but I thought to myself “I could never have the patience”.
But now, I keep going back and forth on whether or not I might homeschool Landon when the stay at home order is lifted. The whole learning from home thing is all so amazing but also stressful. I don’t know. I’ll let ya’ll know when I have two (maybe three) of them running around the house LOL.
No matter if you are homeschooling right now because you choose to or if you are forced to, here are 7 tips that help me be more patient.
7 TIPS THAT HAVE HELPED ME BE MORE PATIENT WHILE HOMESCHOOLING MY TODDLER
- Know Your Child’s Triggers and Your Own – Try out doing school time in the morning and then in the afternoon and see when your child is more attentive. If they are better at school work during the morning then make it the same time every morning. What is their learning style? Sit down and do paperwork or are they more visual and hands on? Landon is a little bit of both but I learned that paperwork and fun, visual, artwork type of assignments have to be completely separated. For example, I can’t have him doing tracing letters and then bust out an art project. It totally throws him off and he’ll just want to continue doing the more fun thing and can’t get back into the “other” thing that he doesn’t like as much. We will usually do all of his writing/math exercises first and then move onto crafts. Use the method of trial and error until you find what works for you guys and stick with it.
- Forget Perfection – Like I said, my child is a genius š lol. So when he thrives one week with an alphabet letter and has a little trouble the next, I used to get frustrated and think “you totally know this” but the truth is we all have good days and we all have off days, so do the kids. Unrealistic expectations cause unneeded stress. Allow permission for good to be enough.
- Be Consistent – Landon thrives on having a schedule. He knows when to expect breakfast, he knows when its nap time and he knows when its play time so if he has his little heart set on play time and I’m like “let’s do school work!”, you better believe he’s gonna rebell. I’m literally laughing out loud right now as I type this because I am being so serious. When he knows that after breakfast we are going to do paperwork he is (for the most part) so well behaved. If I try to throw it in another time and he doesn’t expect it, I better be prepared of the longest hour of learning time with a toddler who is not happy.
- Do The Work With Them – A few times I sat and watched Landon trace letters and it kind of was making me crazy every time he would make one tiny mistake. I didn’t say anything of course but by me watching him it made me notice every tiny thing. I’m crazy I know. Have you ever watched a nail technician paint every single one of your nails and notice everything that she might be doing wrong? But then at the end she fixes whatever you thought was wrong without you even telling her and it looks perfect? It’s kind of like that. When Landon is coloring or tracing now, I typically do the work with him. 1) It allows him to learn from how I do it 2) He feels like it’s something more fun because we are all doing it and I’m not just watching him like the Mrs. Mama teacher I am lol and 3) By me looking at his end result and not every move, I am actually able to appreciate it more. Even some days I think he did an okay job on something, the next day I look at it and I’m like, “wow that is actually really great!”
- Limit Your Sit Down Learning Time– After researching homeschooling more and more it’s actually quite interesting the recommended number of hours they say kids should actually be sitting down and learning. It’s different for every age but I’ll tell you, no age says you should be learning in classes 7+ hours a day. As I mentioned in this post, your day to day activities are filled with learning opportunities for kids so there is no need to stress yourself or your child out by sitting at a desk all day. We do 1-2 hours or school work a day and school work activities vary each day to keep Landon interested.
- Take Breaks If You Need To – I typically try to do about 20-30 minutes of school work before I ask Landon if he needs a break. If he seems to be enjoying the activity we are doing I won’t ask and sometimes before the 20 minutes is up he will tell me he needs a break. A break from work or mama, I don’t know but I’ll let him he can do whatever he wants to for 5 minutes. I’ll always set a timer so he knows when it goes off, it’s time to get back to it.
- Set A Timer– Speaking of setting a timer I’m not sure why Landon has no problem listening to a timer but argues with me “5 more minutes” every time I tell him the time is up LOL. Whatever play time or task you have given your child with a required time, set a timer to avoid any arguments. Works for us every time!
Well that’s all I got today folks! Again, not a pro homeschool teacher AT ALL but I am learning what works for us by trial and error each day so I hope this helps you out a little!
If you have any other tips please drop them below!
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This is a great post!! Such helpful tips!!
Iām glad they are helpful! Thank you