Help for the Distracted Homeschooler

Today, my fellow Crew mate, Patience is guest posting on the blog. If you have an easily distracted child, here are some common sense tips to help. 

Welcome Patience! 

Does your child dawdle during school time? Is your child wasting time daydreaming when they should be doing their assignment?

I have a child whose mind runs a million times a minute. He is always thinking of something other than his schoolwork. I'll be in the middle of a math lesson and he'll tell me some random fact about Star Wars. How can you keep your child on task without nagging and complaining the whole day? 

Have a schedule. Make sure that your child knows ahead of time what is expected of him. Sometimes the never ending lists of subjects he must complete seems overwhelming. This way he knows it will come to an end. Let him check off his list when he is done, so that he will get a sense of satisfaction for completing his work. 

Use a timer. Allocate a specific amount of time to each subject. Make sure that the amount of time for the assignment is easily doable for your child. Once the timer is up offer a reward. It can be candy or 5 minutes of computer time, whatever idea that will get your child motivated. If he is not finished, don't punish, but make sure that he knows you will sit there until he gets it done and that he missed out on the reward. I also suggest you get a digital timer, not one that constantly beeps, since this may become distracting to the child. 

Get organized, make sure all of their school work is easy to find. Make them responsible for their books. I don't know how many times my son has gotten lost with Legos while he was looking for his math book in his room. If you need to implement workboxes or stuff all his books into one box, just make sure he knows where they are, and that they need to be returned to the same place.

You need to find what works for you and your family. No one likes a grumpy mommy. Make sure you save yourself a headache and preempt the things that drive you crazy.

Patience loves green tea, chocolate, baking but not cooking, and science. She is a mother to 2 boys and a baby girl. She accidentally stumbled into homeschooling and hasn't looked back since. She loves lapbooking and notebooking with her children. She can be found blogging at Savvy Homeschool.

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