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How to Homeschool the Inattentive Child

Tips for all the new homeschooling parents
Dr. Lea Lis

Dr. Lea Lis

3 Min Read

Shutterstock: FamVeld

I have been speaking with many parents that are struggling with homeschooling their inattentive children, some who have an ADHD diagnosis, and some are just more on the hyper side. Being a child psychiatrist who has lived through a week-long quarantine without my nanny (who may have been exposed to COVID-19), I am also struggling. 

I wear the hats of a psychiatrist, cook, cleaner, and teacher…and it has been complete chaos in my home. I have learned to really appreciate the Dyson HandiVac. Shout out and thank you, Dyson, for making such incredible products AND for stepping up and making ventilators. 

If you are in a similar situation and have an inattentive and energetic rugrat, here are some tips that might help.  

  • Set up a schedule for each child every morning. Write it all down on a whiteboard or print it out. Give the child a clock/watch they can read. This might help them stay organized. 
  • The schedule should include breaks for physical exercise. Exercise helps focus the mind. 
  • Don’t focus on time with the schedule, but focus on getting things accomplished. Assign content to complete before they take a break, such as finish a math worksheet or read ten pages in a book. Do this rather than obsessing about the amount of time spent. They will be more motivated to complete the task so they can spend the rest of that time scheduled to have some fun. My kids love the coding apps from the school and spend free time doing this activity.
  • Make sure they get plenty of sleep. In order to do this, focus on the wake-up time and not the bedtime. Make sure they are waking up at the same time every day. Then the bedtime will follow as they will get tired at night. No napping is allowed! That is very bad for sleep cycles. Anyone who has treated insomnia will tell you, the best trick is to focus on wake-up time. Don’t allow kids to do anything but read in bed. Screens in bed are a recipe for disaster. Keep the phone and other devices charging in a separate room. 

If they misbehave, give very quick and direct consequences which are short lived. The best consequences are those that expire quickly, such as no screen time for one hour or the rest of the day (max!). 

Make sure they are studying in the same place each day. Set up a desk with everything they need. This will create better learning patterns as we are creatures of habit. If we get used to studying in a certain place, then we will have less trouble doing that when we are in that place (same sights and sounds). This is a basic learning theory.   

These strategies have been very helpful for my 7 and 9 year old. That, along with bribery (positive reinforcement), have also been helping. They have gotten a bunch of new board games and other toys for completion of school tasks in an independent way. I also reward them with things like using breaks to bake cookies or other fun tasks. These have been great reinforcements for them.  article continues after advertisement

To all you parents out there who are now teachers, I hope these tips help you do the impossible and to become Super Mom/Dad.

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Originally published on Psychology Today

Author(s)

  • Dr. Lea Lis

    Psychiatrist

    Lea Lis, MD, is “The Shameless Psychiatrist." She is a double board certified Adult and Child psychiatrist, a clinical professor at NYU. She has a bustling practice in the Hamptons where she sees patients from all family arrangements. Her book “No Shame: Real Talk With Your Kids About Sex, Self-confidence, and Healthy Relationships" helps people pass down intergenerational wisdom, instead of trauma, by using modern psychotherapy techniques which she perfected throughout her many years of experience. She is an expert in the field of psychology, and hopes to change the way we speak about sex. Widespread social changes, along with a sex-saturated media and ongoing debates about the meaning of gender and sexuality,  generate new challenges for parents of all kinds. Lis helps parents, children, and adolescents face these challenges and develop healthy, sex-positive attitudes and practices. During her training and residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York and New York University, as well as in her private psychiatric practice, she has developed expertise in working with modern families of all types. In No Shame, Dr. Lis covers the many issues that may arise as children grow: how to help young children understand personal physical boundaries; the importance of opposite-sex role models in children’s lives, what to tell―and not tell―your kids about your own sexual history; and the role of rituals to mark a girl’s first period or a boy’s passage into manhood. Dr. Lis gives practical pointers on how to help your kids when their relationships run into trouble, how to encourage them to have good relationships with themselves, and how to teach them to flirt and to deal with rejection. No Shame shows how talking to your kids about sex and encouraging them to keep a dialogue open with you will help them to have positive, joy-filled emotional and sexual relationships as they grow up. This may not always be comfortable, but as Dr. Lis shows throughout this book, talking about sex, love and relationships in a knowledgeable way is essential. Find out more about Dr. Lea Lis and sign up for her newsletter at www.shamelesspsychiatrist.com.