Burnout and Motivation

Two issues have come up recently that made me think about how I homeschool and raise my kids. A post on Amongst Lovely Things about burnout/winter blues as well as a secular support group discussion on motivating your kids to do school work/chores. The motivation discussion has two schools of thought. One is that the carrot/stick or "logical consequences" is best, while the other group as best as I can tell believes in finding solutions for kids who are unmotivated. Burnout and the motivation question are related in that they both deal with kids not interested in what you as the teacher and parent want them to do, and the suggested solutions are pretty similar for both.

Once again I find myself not agreeing with either side, but somewhere more in the middle. I should start by saying that I am not a good housekeeper. I struggle with schedules and have few routines that stick, and routine is the only way I have found to maintain a clean house, regularly prepared meals, etc. I am also not particularly fond of busy work and constant repetition for kids in their schoolwork. I also tend to avoid the annual burnout homeschoolers experience - though the lack of motivation thing happens more often than I like to deal with.

Every time things like this come up, I go back to my homeschool mission statement which has changed over time and boils down to:

At the end of our homeschool journey, my goal is for my kids to
1, have a strong Catholic foundation (meaning they know and understand their faith) and
2, can find any answer they seek.

I used to have "love of learning" in there too, but I accept that not all kids are going to love the process of learning and that is ok (though at this point none of my kids seem to be headed that direction). Of course there are short term goals the kids and I set, but as a guiding star I always come back to those 2 things. If what I am doing or worrying about does not fit, then I let it go.

Unschooling fits into this by allowing us the freedom to decide what works based upon our own criteria and not what society or schools or family and friends around us think. Setting up a mission statement for me really was the best tip the "how to homeschool" books gave me. Knowing that everyone has a different mission also helps me recognize and accept that there is no one right way to homeschool. I do not believe that unschooling is for everyone just as I do not believe school-at-home is for everyone. A parent knows what their child needs far better than any stranger, even if the parent ends up not meeting their kids' needs, the damage done by a loving parent is far less than the meddling of a well-meaning stranger. That said, I do offer my opinion when asked for by a parent though I try to make sure I don't say anything in front of the kids that would cause problems for the parents (one of the many reasons I love being able to send emails), and I do talk about my own views on schooling in front of my own kids and other parents who tend to agree with me.

Where I run into strife with other homeschoolers is my belief that it would be beneficial for more parents (and schools) to see the damage done by the current assumptions of the "best" way for kids to learn. I have seen the negatives to forcing kinesthetic learners to sit at a table and do timed worksheet after worksheet because the textbook says it is important, or the slower learner/burnt out child who just can't wrap their head around a concept, yet have to push through it because the curriculum says they have to have certain facts memorized in a certain grade, or the child passionate about a subject who has to wait until it is in the prescribed curriculum before they can learn about it. Fortunately those cases in homeschooling have been very, very rare. Most parents (even devoted boxed curriculum school-at-homers) at some point can see when their kids (and mom) need to take a break and/or change the way they do things. However, I have seen parents get frustrated enough to send their kids back to school (or to school for the first time) when they run into those kinds of obstacles, I was there myself at one point - though it was very early on and I am grateful that I let go of my preconceived notions about schooling before burning out (mostly thanks to the unschoolers in my daughter's Girl Scout troop).

While I may allow my kids to study academics at their own pace and in their own way, I am not so laissez faire about other areas of the kids' lives. There are moral and ethical rights and wrongs, as well as skills they have to learn for survival in our modern world - whether they want them or not. We have chores the kids must do and consequences when they do not do them. Everyone in the house has to pull some weight to keep things going. Laundry has to be sorted and washed then folded and put away, dishes must be cleaned, things need to be picked up so that no one slips and hurts themselves, etc. We re-evaluate the chores about once a year or more often if there are major issues with getting them done and the kids choose what they will be responsible for - starting with the littler ones. I suppose there is a carrot/stick aspect to it because chores must be done for me to consider allowing things like spending the night at a friend's house or video game time, but even that is not consistent because video games are rarely played by the kids even when chores are done daily (now my husband is a whole other story!). If the kids sign up for a class or agree to help someone, then they will be there - no matter how much they don't want to go the day of, and they will have a good attitude about it. If they complain or give me too much trouble before getting there, then the next time a class comes up we don't do it. I tell them that if they are going to whine or complain then I don't want to take time to drive them and others don't want them around. I suppose you could call it "logical consequences" too.

The idea of positive solutions instead of consequences feels off to me. If the issue is something that only affects the child, then that is one thing, but when the whole family must suffer because a child doesn't want to help, then that is different. I suppose allowing the kids to choose their chores and re-evaluating everyone's responsibilities if there are problems may be "solutions", at least I hope that is where they were going.

Some of the people seemed to be saying that forcing your kids to do chores through coercion or rewards was as damaging as using those tricks to get them to do schoolwork. The ethic taught is if you do what others want, then you get what you want. The child doesn't learn to work because it is important or necessary or can be fun, they do it for rewards and it means nothing to them. If that is what they were saying, then I can sorta see where they are coming from, but again it is the difference between something that only affects the child (doing schoolwork or not) and something that affects the whole family. When my kids are old enough to see that writing is valuable and they initiate practicing it they are learning it to better themselves and will work hard at it, however, if someone else picks up the slack and does the dishes, laundry, etc while they do nothing then they are not really impacted. I suppose small families may be different that larger ones in that regard. If you have a small family there is less to do, so maybe it is easier?

Just to clarify the way I "do school" that circumvents laziness is while I am always willing to help the kids with learning to do things themselves, I do not do their writing, math conversions, etc for them. If they want to be able to do something then they have to work for it within reason. For example, I will spell words once or twice and add it to our dictionary posted in the dining room and they have to find it on their own after that. I may help with a tricky conversion with cooking, but mostly I let them figure it out. I help with reading a few words in an assignment or book or game, but they must do most of the reading on their own once they have the basics down. I do read stories to all the kids regardless of their ability, but that is a family bonding thing more than for lessons. If the kids come to me with questions about why something is the way it is I usually ask them what they think and talk about theories (mostly science) or opinions (mostly history). I make them work for the knowledge they have, which they are mostly used to though sometimes complain about.

The mantra I tend to suggest to parents struggling with homeschooling (or motivation or chores) is "Why?" Why are you or your child struggling? Why does it matter so much to you? Why are you homeschooling in the first place? Why are you using the curriculum or chores you are? Why do your kids do schoolwork or chores the way they do? Is there another way to do it? OK, so that last question is not a Why, but it still fits. I have found that whatever your reason for homeschooling, whatever your style of homeschooling, going back to the basics and asking yourself a few Why questions gets you back on track. Even if that track is a structured by-the-book kind of schooling, just reminding yourself why you are doing this helps.