We have tried schooling year round to prevent the battle. We have tried keeping a very set schedule year round. We have also tried no work for summer, taking breaks at other times of year, etc. Inevitably, summer time activities such as swimming, gardening, and vacations get in the way of our summer time academic schedule. Nothing we do seems to prevent this beginning of the school year struggle. There is also usually the post-Christmas struggle. Oh, don't forget the every single Monday struggle that seems to last all year with a few exceptions. So what it boils down to is that I must homeschool seven days a week and 365 days a year for my children to be cooperative.
This summer, I kept a loose academic schedule, where everyone had to work at least three days per week on core subjects, usually on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. They only had to do a little in each subject. I was working with one child to play some catch up in math and the other transition to high school academics. I held off on starting the other two children on preschool and kindergarten work until August. Mid-August rolled around and the first week of school went okay. The next week, the battles began.
We reward excellence in academics and conduct. We punish poor conduct and reteach poor academics (though that has changed with my high school child, he now just gets bad grades). We have always done this, and one would think the children would get it by this point in their lives. I've said to them hundreds of times, "If you get your work done early, we can go do something fun!". Or "If you do well and work quickly today, we have some new episodes of Glee and Doctor Who to watch today!". Or, "If you will just get it done, you can go outside!". Or' "Straighten up your attitude, so we can have fun today!" Why won't they listen?
Now we are having trust issues. Instead of doing his work, my high schooler has chosen to play his favorite video game. Resulting in a lot of procrastination and very little getting done in the way of his core subject work. He is missing deadlines and his scores are falling. He is missing Taekwondo practices, field trips, and now we have even deleted the favorite video game from his computer. He is miserable because he is missing all his fun activities. My daughter is also missing things because of her attitude problems. She is grumpy, probably hormonal, and is frustrated with the world. We are getting a lot of 'victim' type of comments, which just doesn't fly with me. She really doesn't have a clue what a victim is. I try to be sympathetic when she is sad, but disrespect and whining is just not acceptable.
On top of everything, I am missing time with my younger two children because I am dealing with the older two children. This leaves them bored and wrecking my house while I deal with the problems the other two children are having. Or it leaves me forcing the younger children to play in their room for sometimes two hours a day where I am unable to educate them at all! I have heard of these homeschool moms using their older children to help teach the younger children, but when it is a battle to get the older ones to do their school work, this just isn't feasible. I don't even have a clue how I would schedule that when we are having these 6-10 hour school days that we have had over this past month.
We have tried to all sit down at the same time every day and do more of a "school at home" sort of approach. Honestly, this might work on some days, it might not on others. My three year old is particularly rambunctious and he can only sit still for a short time. Not nearly enough time to get the others educated.
If someone ever figures out a formula to get four differently aged children (the oldest of which has an ASD) to sit down and work diligently and quickly, let me know. I am totally exasperated at this point.
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Location:Homeschooling Burnout
