By Randy Rolfe

The Author of The 7 Secrets of Successful Parents

As the pandemic rages on, parents are having to rethink their lives to make room for homeschooling their children. Some schools are closed, and others are staggering the in-class days so some days the kids are working at home, and other days they are not.

How do you re-purpose your spaces and schedules at home to accommodate this new homeschool function?

First, think about where the child already carries out school-related activities, like homework or preparing for a test. Has it been in their bedroom or at the kitchen table, or at the family dining table, or at a low table in front of the TV while they sit on the floor?

Then consult the child, with appropriate discussions depending on their age, about where they would like to spend their school time now that it will be a big part of the day, not just in the evening or on weekends.

Years ago, my husband and I decided to homeschool our kids. We wanted more time with them and wanted them to have more time to explore and learn on their own. Our plan took them through to graduation and we have been happy with the experience and the results.

When we started our homeschooling, our son had finished third grade and our daughter first grade. So they knew how a classroom worked and wanted to set up a dedicated school area, with desks, chairs and blackboard. They wanted to feel like it was school but while we were contemplating starting to homeschool, I had done a lot of research, and I began to wish we had never even introduced them to the classroom model. It’s a model designed for one teacher trying to keep the attention from a whole group of kids all at once. It’s not a natural model for learning at all. Independent research and apprenticeship (formal or informal) have always been the principal model for human learning until very recently, with the industrial age. Only then were kids drawn off the farm and out of their parents’ workshops, where they had learned the traditional way. Children were then required to be assembled in classrooms, to all learn the same basic lessons to prepare to be employed in the new assembly-line industries.

But that’s hardly what we need or want now for our children. I quickly recognized that it was actually completely unnecessary for a child today, with easy access for most families to books and experts of all kinds. The main hurdle today is that most parents are employed out of the home, so school has become necessary as a means of child care.

For us, we were willing and able to rearrange our careers so that one of us could be home, and I was hoping that the children would gradually revert to a more natural way of learning as they did over time.

Our extra bedroom became our schoolroom and remained the place where they could store their materials, have quiet to study, use their desks if they wanted to, and follow more formal lesson plans when needed, like for language and math, with our help.

It turned out that the children enjoyed showing off their schoolroom to their friends who were going to school every weekday. They were pleased that their friends were impressed and often envious. Especially when they told them that academics only took a few hours and the rest of the day was discretionary.

So go ahead and decide with your children and any others in the household where the main center for academics will be. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but a chair and work surface and storage space for books, papers, writing and art tools is necessary.

Let the children decide on decorations and other furniture. At one point our kids built a stage for puppet shows in their schoolroom using scrap wood and leftover fabric, where they produced shows and performed for us proudly.

Of course today there are certain essentials we didn’t need in those days, namely a laptop or tablet for online lessons, research, writing, and emails, and a mobile phone to get texts and calls from teachers, classmates, and friends.

For kids who are used to attending a school, I recommend that even if they have done homework and study in their bedrooms while attending school, explore moving their main place for schooling at home to a public area. Perhaps one end of a common living room or family room, or a side of a kitchen, or an extra bedroom if you have one. Even a basement if it is dry, a comfortable temperature and well lit.

When their academic work is mainly kept out of the bedroom, then they can keep their room for themselves and not feel that their school lessons dominate their private spaces.

The biggest benefit of choosing to school in a public area is that as a parent, you can supervise and instruct without invading their personal space. With homework, the parent is not directly involved and can just stop by to encourage or answer questions.

However, if the parent is the primary guide for academic studies, it is best to share this function in a common room rather than in the child’s private space. That being said, if working in their room is what they prefer after thinking more about it, go along with their preferences while you keep an eye out for stress so that you can propose other plans if need be.

In their bedroom, be sure to help them designate an area for schooling that is separate from their area for play and rest. And establish for yourself one area of the bedroom where you do most of your instruction to avoid taking over their room.

Once you have settled as a family on a physical space for schooling, you need to designate together other spaces for other functions throughout the day. These are eating, sleeping, playing, quiet time, time outdoors, and chores.

With the many families in my seminars and counseling practice, I’ve found that endless irritation and annoyance can be avoided simply by working these things out deliberately rather than waiting until it’s an issue. Patience, flexibility, and forgiveness are key, but if everyone settles on some basic expectations, a lot of friction, resentment and misunderstanding can be entirely avoided.

Decide when meals will be prepared and eaten. Discuss it as a family, but don’t hesitate to make the final decision as the parent. After all, that’s why they are still children. Let’s just review that, because I find that busy parents often forget. They are still children not because they haven’t grown up yet, and we just have to support them until they have or because they need us to make them good, responsible, caring people. They come that way from the beginning, so we just need to encourage them, protect them and guide them so they can continue to be so.

They are still children for just three reasons:

1) They are smaller (until they are 14 or so) and therefore may need our physical protection.

2) They are less experienced in the world, so need the benefit of our greater experience in assessing risks for example, or knowing how much sleep to get or what foods to eat.

3) They have less knowledge and awareness than we do of potential skills and opportunities in the world, which it is then our duty to provide for them, either by ourselves or by delegation to schools, church, health care practitioners, relatives or others.

You are the authority for what goes on in your house and as much as they may resist as children they do want to know that someone who cares about them will make the final decisions. It’s in the human genes to rely on parents until adulthood.

Parenting styles swing back and forth over time. Many parents were unusually strict when I started my counseling practice, but by the turn of the century the trend had swung to “no limits.”

For example, the traditional parental directive in a store was, “Don’t touch anything.” But a generation later, I remember watching a child climb into a shop window and start unwrapping the gifts that had been carefully arranged in a holiday display. The shop owner politely asked the parent to please stop the child, and the parent said, “Oh, she’s fine,” and did nothing.

The idea that children can figure out all the limits on their own is exquisitely unfair and a dereliction of a parent’s duty to help them discover that freedom ends where other’s freedom begins. It takes guided experience to learn how to find that sweet spot. So set some expectations, and lay down some rules, if necessary, around what goes on when and where.

For example,

• At what age and when during the day can the child go to the kitchen for a snack?

• How do various family members decide who gets to watch which TV show?

• How loud can the music play?

• When can you wear ear buds when eating or hanging out with the family?

• Which meals are you expected to eat with the family and which ones are okay to eat on your own?

• Where do you eat that meal, and how much clean-up is up to you afterwards?

   

If you wait until one of these issues pops up, there is likely to be a scene. It can instantly become an emotional issue about parental authority and rebellion, rather than a simple question of people getting along together at close quarters. I have often said that if your parental authority is being questioned, you are already behind the eight ball, and it is hard to recover. But if you can set up your homeschool schedule and spaces and address these issues before they happen, you are much more likely to get the kids to cooperate and to avoid a situation where two people want opposite outcomes in the moment and it becomes a battle of wills.

Use your authority to gather input, ideas and suggestions and put your stamp of approval on the plan which works the best for all. In case Plan A turns out to be a problem, get together to come up with Plan B.

A common scenario is at the dinner table. Many parents who are concerned about quality meals and nutrition take a stand and press their point during a meal, when a child is already hungry and ready to decide what he/she wants. Don’t fight at the table during mealtime to get a kid to eat properly. Instead, have a chat before or after mealtime.

You might talk about why you get certain foods when they come into the house, not when someone is resisting eating them. Or mention an article or video you saw online explaining some nutrition point you’ve been wanting to emphasize.

Set up reasonable expectations ahead of time and don’t feel bad about explaining why they are reasonable. Blind obedience to a parent is rather silly. You want them to obey you in an emergency, but if you require blind obedience all the time, an emergency may be just the time they decide they have had enough. Instead, they are more likely to obey you in an emergency if they trust you from their past experience that you respect their intelligence and their growing independence.

Here’s one example of a typical day’s expectations:

• No noise in the morning before 7.

• Breakfast preparation at 8, so dressing and grooming is completed by then. (Work out bathroom routines!)

• Eat breakfast together and talk about everybody’s plans for the day, work, play, quiet time, nature time.

• Work and study 9 to 12 with a break at 10:30. If anyone gets antsy, take a break for a walk, a stretch, a 10 minute workout, or laughing with a pet or some jokes together.

• Have lunch in the kitchen together or on your own, depending on age and preference.

• Play, art, music, friends, any kind of explorations, exercise, 1 to 5.

• Regroup at 5 to plan dinner and the evening and who does what to make everything happen including chores.

• Together at 6 to prepare and eat dinner. Keep conversation light and fun. Share your thoughts, experiences, and insights, and ask thoughtful questions that engage others to do the same. 

• Screens off and lights out by 10:30 for adults and age-appropriate for kids.

• For bedtime, develop a pleasant routine for each child, whether it’s reading aloud, silent reading, reading together aloud, a back massage, saying goodnight to the pets, having a small glass of water, arranging the pillows and blankets, etc. This is regardless of age. A teenager might think it is hokey to have to say goodnight to you, but twenty years later they will appreciate it.

Count on the sleep plan to change often and just go with it. So much happens for children during safe, comfortable, deep sleep. It’s the parent’s best tool.

Now make up your own plan like the one above, and stay patient, flexible and forgiving.

Above all, make self-care a top priority for your child and also for yourself. Tempers flare most often when basic needs are not met. No one functions well, child or adult, when they are feeling overwhelmed, misunderstood, or confused about what’s expected of them. School goes so much easier, whether in the classroom or at home, when everyone is rested, fed, and feels good.

Always remember, you can postpone anything but love.

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