In my deliberations about homeschool, I received some feedback on a Facebook post about using a Montessori Curriculm (which tends to be less structured than traditional schooling and lets the child lead the teaching by their current interests) to teach my boys.
Andrew Angle, President of NetGainAssociates.com, voiced his concern in the following:
doing things that we are NOT interested in doing. “
Thanks, Andrew, for sharing that legitimate concern! One of my favorite quotes is “We aren’t raising children, we are raising adults.”
I think when parents are able to shift their perspective from “raising children” to “raising adults,” it really changes the way they view parenting and how they interact with their kids.
My response to Andrew’s concern (and this is how I will handle doing things my boys don’t necessarily enjoy) is to help them find something that intrigues them about that subject or task they aren’t looking forward to and focusing on that aspect of it.
I know this works, because that is how I made it through calculus! I always hated math in school and I always strugged with it. I remember when I thought double digit division was going to be the end of me! By college, I knew that I would have to complete several higher-level math courses in order to get a Finance degree. I discovered that I could respect math because it was very structured. That allowed me to get past my deep loathing of math so I could earn a B+ in calculus!
The preschool my son is in right now is structured so they are doing something different every 5-10 minutes and he is thriving with that, so I would be replicating that short interval in our days, but I would like to let my boys’ current interests lead what we are studying. My main goal with all of this is to help them love learning about everything. From personal experience, I know that you can be intrigued by a subject you otherwise would detest. (That’s how I made it through calculus!)
There are ample opportunities to teach your kids the importance of doing tasks they may not be thrilled to do when homeschooling, and there are also ample opportunities to teach kids the rewards and satisfaction of completing those distasteful tasks. (Laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, gardening, etc.)
Helping your kids shift their perception of something is one of the most powerful tools you can give your kids. If you can change the way you look at things, your whole world changes before your eyes!
