Are you wondering how to set up your homeschool discipline to have a joyful and peaceful school year? Here’s 5 actionable steps to set the stage for good behavior in your homeschool – in a way that brings joy and peace.
When we first start homeschooling, I think we all have visions of peaceful, restful days snuggling on the couch and reading stories…and then we meet the homeschooling reality. Kids who don’t want to do work, act like a clown, annoy their siblings, waste time, and more!
It is idealistic to expect that our kids will always behave. Believe me, they will push every button you have and completely try your patience! Some days, students will act out, other days they simply will not want to complete their schoolwork. There will be good days and challenging days, too.
The wise homeschool mama knows this and prepares homeschool discipline ahead of time just as she does prepping the coursework and daily routine.
Can homeschool discipline be peaceful and joyful?
If you set the stage with these five basic premises, you’ll set your kids up for success!
You know your kids best. So, before school begins, spend some time thinking about your homeschool discipline. What are your kids likely to do? What buttons will they push? Plan ahead for how you will address it. If you anticipate the difficulty, you will be more likely to handle it calmly.
In another post, we’ll tackle how to handle truly difficult and defiant behavior, but first, let’s look at five peaceful premises for homeschool discipline that will set the stage for good behavior.
5 Simple Steps To joyful homeschool discipline
1. Try to make learning joyful and delightful
Learning can be magical! Little children are naturally curious and hard-wired to learn. Tap into that wonder of the world around us. Make learning fun and let them marvel at God’s creation. Take delight in knowledge, wonder, and growing in God’s grace. This world and all that is in it is a fascinating place to explore!
You’re homeschooling for a reason! Remember that young children can learn as much from a nature walk or a visit to the grocery store as they can from a textbook – maybe more. So, build play and discovery into your homeschool day. Make learning an adventure!
2. Show compassion
Okay, so learning isn’t always fun. There are times that are not delightful. Some kids just hate memorizing ABCs or multiplication facts, but it has to be done, right? When you hit those moments, show compassion but stand firm.
Life often requires us to do hard things and do things we don’t want to do. Gently requiring out kids to meet challenges head-on is just as important as tackling math facts. This is one of the ways we help our kids build character, strength, and integrity. However, doing the undesirable things is just a tad easier with a kind, compassionate teacher.
3. Gratitude – We are living the good life
We live in a beautiful world, and we are SO blessed to have the opportunity to go to school, to learn how to read, and to have access to books and materials. How awesome is it that we have the freedom to homeschool and be together in a comfortable home! Many people in history never knew how to read and write. We are the lucky ones.
So a big part of homeschool discipline is teaching your kids to be grateful everyday. Help them by moderating your own attitude as mom. Make little comments and share prayers that give thanks for education and the freedom to educate at home. Tell them how blessed they are to have paper, books, and a smart mind.
Cultivate an attitude of gratitude about education and watch their appreciation grow.
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4. Encourage more than you criticize
Okay, so even making learning joyful and showing gratitude and compassion aren’t going to magically make all behavior problems go away. Kids are still going to act ornery and disobedient sometimes. As the teacher, you can choose to encourage, praise, and lift up your children or beat them down through a constant stream of negativity and criticism.
How will you respond?
Think back to your favorite childhood teachers. You probably remember best the ones who made you feel good, safe, and loved. You may not remember anything you learned, but you remember how they made you feel.
So try to create a warm, risk-free environment where your kids can fail (yes, fail!), thrive, and grow. Think of encouragement like a bank deposit and criticism like a bank withdrawal. You need to deposit more than you withdraw, right? So let your homeschool discipline be as positive and encouraging as possible, without tolerating misbehavior.
5. Praise the behaviors you want
Liberally praise your child’s behavior when he is on-task, focused, and completing schoolwork. Also praise for being kind, dutiful, obedient, or any other behaviors you are hoping to nurture.
Kids don’t necessarily need stuff to be motivated. Just verbal praise makes a big difference to a child! Your praise and attention are the absolute greatest reward.
But tangible rewards can be fun, too! Here are a few other ways you can motivate:
- Pennies: Give your child 1 penny to put in a jar every time they are staying focused or at the end of each school day or subject. This works great with young kids like kindergarten and 1st grade when they are first learning about coins.
- Cotton balls: give your child a cotton ball to put in a jar as a positive reward. When the jar is full of cotton balls, maybe they can get a bigger reward like lunch out at Chick-fil-a or something fun!
- Candy: Let’s face it – kids work for candy. I’ve used M&Ms quite successfully as a positive motivation to memorize multiplication facts and also to help a highly distracted child stay focused. There’s just something about chocolate that is very motivating.
- Tally-marks: Have a place on a whiteboard where you make a tally to verbally notice anything and everything positive that your kids are doing that contribute to a great school day. See how many they can rack up in one day! Or set a goal and get a prize when they reach 50 tally marks.
- Popcorn: A homeschooling friend of mine kept a popcorn machine in the corner of their homeschool room. They used tiny cups of popcorn as positive reinforcement.
- Gum: Another family I know had kids who loved to chew gum so they bought an old-fashioned bubble gum machine for the homeschool room and used it as a daily motivator.
- Tiny toys: One year, I bought a huge lot of LEGOS on Ebay and kept them in a jar where the kids could see them. They got to choose a random LEGO at the end of each day as a positive reward for work well done.
For older kids, their currency changes. Pennies and cotton balls probably won’t motivate a 6th grader. But candy might! And you can use other things like screen time minutes, riding their bike outside, texting a friend, or even video chatting with grandma.
Just think about what it is that your kid really wants or enjoys and use that as your currency to get the results you need. Get creative!
Always remember…
…you are shaping a child’s heart not just cramming a brain full of information.
These 5 basic premises to joyful homeschool discipline will set the stage for a peaceful learning environment through gratitude, compassion, joy, and encouragement. These small things may not seem like homeschool discipline at all, but they are the foundation for a beautiful home learning environment.
Teach to the heart of your children and do everything you can to mold them into wonderful, godly human beings.
Coming soon, we’ll tackle what to do with strong-willed, defiant kids and other challenging behavior problems in homeschooling.