Reflections on Homeschooling: Schoolwork Is NOT Always Fun For Children

At this point, I can't even imagine my children going to a traditional school.  The 2010-2011 school year marks our 8th year of homeschooling.  Over the past years of educating my children at home, I've learned some basic truths about homeschooling, myself, and my children.  In a series of posts, I plan to discuss these basic Lessons Learned While Being Busy At Home.  The first basic truth that I've learned about homeschooling is that Schoolwork is NOT always fun for children.

Gasp!  Did I really just say that?  Yes, yes, I did.  As I read homeschooling blogs, books about homeschooling, and curriculum catalogs; I often get the feeling that as homeschoolers, there is a vague, generalized myth that if a child isn't ENJOYING learning about a subject then something is wrong.

With at least 1,300 days of homeschool tucked under my belt, I feel completely and totally confident in saying, without reservation, children will not enjoy every single day of every single subject in their schoolwork.  It is completely and totally unrealistic to expect children to think that every day in every subject is fun.  As a homeschooling mother, if I expect my children to enjoy every single day of every single subject in their schoolwork, then I am setting myself up for discouragement.

I'm as guilty as anybody else of feeding into the "schoolwork is always fun" myth.  I've posted pictures of my children having fun making salt-dough brains while learning about the different areas of the brain.
  I've posted pictures of my children having fun while making Shabtis for our Ancient Egypt studies.

I've posted pictures of my children having fun while engaged in hands-on science experiments. 

I prefer to post pictures and discuss the fun times in our homeschool because, well, it is just much more fun to do so!  But in focusing on the fun, I think I can sometimes give the impression that all I have in my house is never-ending, constantly eager, always happy and interested learners.  That's just not true.  Really, it's just not true.

I have no picture to share of my youngest in tears at the end of our school day today because, "This day sucked.  My English was hard, Megawords was hard, and Mason got highlighter on my favorite baseball cap." 

I have no picture to share of the very-less-than-interested-or-thrilled look my teenage daughter gave me over the brim of the microscope today during her mushroom lab.  While I was totally jazzed to see the spores under the microscope, she was just happy to be getting done with her lab.  Sigh.

I have no picture to share of my middle son scowling over a challenging English assignment involving rewriting a paragraph with pronouns today.  I didn't post regarding his complaints about how the assignment was going to take forever.

Sometimes one or more of my kids actually moan when I pop in the history DVD that we're watching for the day.  I've seen my children have a complete meltdown over their long division lessons.  I've had my kids tell me that they think the book they have to read is utterly boring.  My daughter has pronounced all spelling rules evil.  The big, red, college dictionary has been referred to as a "tool of torture."  I think you get the picture, it's not always all rainbows and unicorns around here.

So, what do I do about the sometimes apparent lack of joy in learning?  Usually, I do nothing. 

For the most part, my children are eager to learn, enjoy the majority of their schoolwork, and take pride in doing well.  I try extremely hard to include fun, hands-on projects, and take my children's individual learning styles into account when planning lessons.  I consider their abilities, preferences, and interests when choosing books for them to read.  I use some tangible rewards and many intangible rewards to encourage them to try their best and take pride in their schoolwork.         

But, everybody has bad days.  While I try to be pleasant, some days I'm a little bit down.  Some days I'm a little bit tired.  Some days I wish I could just stay in bed all day.  On days like that, I don't need somebody harping on my all day about my bad attitude.  My children don't feel any differently.  I try to respect that and just overlook the occasional bad day or bad attitude. 

In reality, most children have at least one subject that they don't really like all that much.  If the curriculum for that subject is working but the child is just not thrilled with the subject, well, they just have to try to make the best of it.  That's life.  My middle son will never LOVE grammar, but he does his work without (much) complaint and tries hard even though he struggles sometimes. 

But, sometimes a change in curriculum is in order.  For example, my daughter struggles with spelling.  When the chosen spelling curriculum last year was inciting anger and discouragement in my daughter, I just dropped it and backed off for a while.  This year, I've found a spelling program that she's OK with completing each day.  She doesn't love it, but she's not feeling angry and discouraged either.  So, while I don't feel like I need to start looking for new curriculum the minute one of my children isn't completely thrilled with a school subject, I also don't force myself to stick with something that truly isn't working because of curriculum guilt.

Homeschooling for the long haul is a long haul.  When my daughter graduates from our homeschool in 2015, she'll have spent roughly 2160 days learning in our homeschool.  2160 days is an awfully long time to always be completely eager, happy, and excited about learning in every single subject. 

While I expect good attitudes from my children, I don't make a big issue out of an occasional complaint or bad attitude.  I try to make school fun and interesting for them, but it's unrealistic to think that every subject and every project is going to be met with the same high enthusiasm that I love to see in them.  Much of the time, my children do enjoy school, sometimes they don't, and that's OK. 

We all have work to do.  Right now, my children's work is the work of being a student.  Sometimes being a student is hard and working through hard things is good.