Keeping Your Homeschooled Child Motivated Through Graduation

One of the questions I get most often is "Tonya, how can I keep my child motivated. They never want to do school, and it's like pulling teeth to get them to have a good attitude about anything. I'm sorry to say that motivation is not a thing... Before you tune me out, watch the corresponding video and read this blog til the end. Plus, reading til the end will ensure you get ALL of the bonuses included in this training!

So, again, motivation is not the thing you're looking for… discipline is!

Motivation is an emotion elicited usually by outside circumstance, so if we’re giving our kids a pass because they’re “not motivated”, we’re telling them that they only have to do the work if they “feel” like and that it’s someone else’s job to come along and make them “feel” like doing the work.

Having said that, give grace because we all have days where we’re not disciplined. No shaming, no stressing or belittling, pinpoint the problem… poor discipline or poor character and help them fix it in easy to digest bites.

Something I do is allow Glori some control of her own schedule. I wouldn’t do this at the beginning, but once your child is doing the work consistently, I’d try it. We school 5 days per week right now, but Wednesday is a very short day, usually 3-5 independent subjects. Having said that, if she’s having an off day Monday, we’ll talk about her doing a lighter day and then doubling up on Tuesday or Wednesday, or Tuesday is light, double up on Wednesday or Thursday. She has a little control of her schedule, and when she does school, as long as when she says she’s going to make it up she has a good attitude and does it. She loses that privilege when she doesn’t keep her word. In keeping aligned with that thought, communication also comes in to play here. Your child needs to know it’s ok to have off days and be able to speak up when they come without fear of being punished or being made to feel ashamed.

Tonya, doesn’t discipline mean my kid needs to do it even if it’s not fun. Yes, and you can absolutely insist that they do the work regardless if they like it and as the parent, that’s your right. Here’s the thing though, taking your parent hat off and putting your educator hat on, one of your primary goals are to have your kids fall in love with learning. Inside of a classroom, it's wise to use lots of games, crafts, hands on projects, any thing that makes learning fun. Not every subject has to be fun, but you want school to overall be something your child looks at as being pleasant vs being something they dread doing every day. What I’ve done is included a fun, summer activity pack for free for you guys to download to get a jumpstart on the fun!

Kids enjoy doing things they excel at, but things that are still somewhat challenging. If something is too easy, they’re going to get bored, too hard and they’re going to be frustrated. In addition to paying attention to how they’re reacting to each subject you want to be sure you’re speaking their learning language. There are 4 kinds of learners: kinesthetic, textbook, visual, and auditory. Click here to explore the 4 learning styles and discover which one fits your child best.

This is a huge one. Schooling year round doesn’t mean we sit at a desk and do workbooks for 8 hours a day 365 days per week. It’s ok to take breaks. We take 4 different types of "breaks" depending on what's needed.
-totally off, do nothing (mental health days)
-unschooling breaks, life skills, cooking, shopping trips, field trips
-game schooling (see video) year round homeschooling
-themed days

These are 4 ways that I keep my daughter "motivated", but in reality I’m really teaching her discipline and character. My goal is not to elicit the feeling of motivation, it’s to instill the love the learning, so she does the work regardless if she feels like it. She does it because it’s the right thing to do and she does it with pride in knowing she’s doing the best she can. This is a skill that will not only carry her through graduation, but throughout life.

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