During the quarantine, schools were transferred to distance learning, and all the weaknesses of the educational system came to light immediately.
Neither teachers nor students were ready for the challenges that online lessons pose. That is why many of them now fall on parents’ shoulders.
In this article, I’ll tell you how parents can overcome the stress of homeschooling due to pandemic restrictions.
Why is Home Schooling so Hard?
Recalling their high school years with a shudder, many young mothers have endorsed learning from home, saying something like “I don’t want to put my son through the same stress so that he would think of school as torture as an adult.”
When social distancing became a thing, however, the parents realized that they now face a whole host of problems that they weren’t prepared for. To begin with, parents now have to establish the school curriculum themselves.
Although the child doesn’t need to go to school anymore, the school has come to your house instead. And you as a parent have no choice but to be completely immersed in its atmosphere.
Helping your child with homeschooling is no small feat. It requires studying a huge amount of literature and articles on the web, which makes your head buzz in the evening.
All this is happening during the working day to boot, which has moved from a cozy office, into a not-so-cozy-anymore home. At the same time, no one canceled home duties.
How Should You Organize the Learning Process?
Each family chooses a strategy based on their own educational needs and expectations. You can do it on your own, or you can hire tutors, buy a child a course or pay for an online school.
Researchers of Urban Circle have identified several effective strategies that homeschoolers follow:
- Choosing the school curriculum, use textbooks, methods, and sometimes even the schedule adopted by a particular class or school;
- Using free educational online programs like Khan academy or iTunesU or buying online courses on Udemy and Coursera to master specific topics;
- Picking up material themselves from different sources (modern and classic textbooks, apps like Quizlet or Memrise, etc.);
- Hiring online tutors, which has proven to be the most effective method.
Challenges and Risks of Homeschooling
Experts identify two groups of homeschooling barriers: formal and psychological. The former includes 3 organizational difficulties:
- How to formalize the transition to homeschooling?
- How to structure the process?
- How to find appropriate resources?
Homeschooling takes up much more parents’ time compared to the traditional education format. Often one adult either completely devotes himself or herself to the children, or works from home and helps them with their assignments.
It is difficult for a child to get used to the fact that it is not just mom or dad in front of them, but also a teacher who assesses their efforts and shares knowledge. Parents also experience internal dissonance and often don’t think much of their teaching abilities.
On the other side, it is difficult for parents to be objective and demanding, and for the child to understand why the mother turns into a strict teacher whose tasks must be performed. This transition is perhaps the biggest problem with homeschooling.
Therefore, having the child continue working with teachers even from home, is more appropriate than having the parent take over these functions.
Teaching approaches and techniques are essential; teachers have been learning them for many years for a reason.
What is the Solution for Stressed Parents?
One solution to such a stressful situation is to make a clear daily schedule. This way you can better maintain your life-work balance.
It is advisable to draw up a daily routine together with your child and agree on how you will start monitoring it.
For example, when the parent is away from home, he or she calls the child at the beginning of each new schedule milestone. They check how the previous activity went and encourage the child to move to the next one.
If necessary, you and your child can come up with an incentive system and design your schedule in a game-like fashion.
There is a risk that children will spend long hours at home on the Internet, playing video games, and watching movies.
That’s why making home time more meaningful is crucial. Help your child choose fun and healthy activities and keep them company, building a strong foundation for your relationship.