I am a homeschooling mom with seven children which is challenging but at the same time very rewarding. Recently, I had a friend say something to me that made me think about why I homeschool. She said, “Your relationship with your child is the reason you can tackle the academics, especially the challenging parts.”

How does this work?

• I know my children and invest in their character
• I ensure their physical needs are being met
• I know their strengths and weaknesses
• I know what speaks to them
• I can reach their heart by providing a secure environment and offering appropriate encouragement
• I invest my time into them

Knowing My Child

I have seven children and God has made all of them unique and different. We have had the advantage to homeschool from the very beginning. I have had the privilege of watching them learn everything from the start. We have had victories and have overcome the challenges together.

As their mom, I know them because moms have superpowers no one else has. With just one look we can tell how our child is feeling. In fact, my daughter got up the other morning and I took one look at her, knew she was exhausted and needed a bit more rest.

I know by the way they act if they are legitimately stumped by a concept or if they are trying to get me to do their work for them. I know this because I have experienced it firsthand. About a year ago, one of my kiddos was learning to regroup in math. He is as sharp as a tack but I thought he was really struggling. For three weeks, I worked with this kiddo with what I thought was no success. Then I realized I was being played. He knew what he was doing, he just liked the attention and the ease of doing it with mom. Now, we have moved on to learning double-digit multiplication, he has started down the same path of “not understanding.”

Their Physical Needs

One of the things I pay close attention too is their physical needs. I make sure they are eating a healthy diet, engaging in physical activities, and getting enough rest. Have you ever tried to teach a tired child a new concept? I have and it doesn’t go well. If they are not taking care of themselves physically then we are not going to have a successful homeschool day and our relationship will suffer.

Making healthy food choices helps them focus on the day because they feel full and their mind isn’t going to their stomach. All of my kiddos are in the habit of running around a bit before we start our school day. Sam does his morning treadmill workout first thing before he does his chores and eats his breakfast. The rest of our kiddos have a list of chores they need to complete before our school day can start. These habits definitely help by getting the wiggles out so we can focus on learning.

A good night’s sleep is so important for the success of the child. We do not allow their electronic tablets to be in their rooms because we want to make sure they are getting enough sleep. Frankly, the temptation to play on it is hard for a child to say no too.

We plan to have an hour of “downtime” for them to unwind before they go to sleep. We schedule them to have plenty of time to actually sleep. The amount of sleep each child needs is custom to the child but I always try to plan a little extra buffer of time so they get plenty.

This site offers a helpful chart. I used it to help me know how much sleep my children need.

https://www.sleepaidresource.com/sleep-chart.html

My Child’s Character

Character is defined as specific moral and mental qualities a person has. Building these qualities doesn’t happen overnight but definitely impacts the child academically. In our homeschool, we spend a lot of time building the child’s character so that when the difficult math problem comes they have qualities like perseverance and the confidence to conquer it.

My character as the parent impacts our relationships as well. It is crucial for me to model kindness, gentleness, self-control, and perseverance in front of my child.

My Child’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Understanding my child’s strengths is essential to the success of our homeschool. If I know where they are strong, I know they can be a bit more independent in that area.

The same idea goes for their weaknesses. I know that I need to be available for this part of their day. I also need to teach them how to use their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses.

For example, one of our kiddos struggled with reading comprehension. He could read several years above his grade level but didn’t understand it. He is a very methodical child and loves to have the numbered steps needed to accomplish something. I applied this idea to his reading. I had him read something and then questioned him about what happened next and next and so on. I broke it down in a way that I knew he would understand.

Special needs are not so intimidating when you know the child’s strengths and weaknesses. Mixing the two helps everyone involved learn to navigate these challenging waters.

Getting Their Attention

I know what speaks to them. If I want to get Sam’s attention I would talk about superheroes but if I wanted to get Andy’s attention then I would ask him to build something with legos. Because of my relationship with my children, I know what makes them tick. I use this information in their studies and character building to help them be successful.

Safe Environment

Our home is our safe place where we expect to see kindness demonstrated. Does this always happen? No, it is always a work in progress. When my children think of their home I want them to be secure in the fact that perfection is not expected. I want them to know we do mistakes here. I think back over my life and my most valuable lessons were the ones I made mistakes and had to fix them or live with the consequences.

I want my children to know that this is a safe place to “give it a try” and I will be there to help in any way I can. I will help but I will not enable them and there is a fine line between those two. When my kiddo was struggling with the subtraction in math, I was there to help him. The minute I realized he knew what he was doing, I stopped helping and required him to do it on his own. If I had continued to help then I would have been enabling him to lean on me when he had the knowledge and skills to do it himself.

Providing a safe environment creates confidence and security in the child because they know their boundaries. They begin to realize their own capabilities and with that comes independence.

Appropriate Encouragement

The keyword in this category is appropriate. Kids know when we patronize them and give them praise when they didn’t necessarily deserve it. Honestly, I feel like this cheapens the experience for everyone.

My rule of thumb for encouragement and praise is to compliment the effort they put into it. This way I am focusing on their character and not just on the job itself.

For example, I have a kiddo who is deathly afraid of tests. He is working really hard to conquer that fear by learning to study appropriately. His test scores are good but when he takes a test I am focusing on the effort he put into preparing for the test. My encouragement sounds something like this “Buddy, I saw how hard you worked for that score on your test. I am proud of you and knew you could do it!”

My Time

Our homeschool and our relationships improve when I am putting my time and attention into it. I want the time I spend to be focused and intentional and I want to make sure it is producing the traits I find to be the most important.

This takes a bit of planning on my part to make sure the time I spend with them is free of distractions, light and carefree, intentional and focused all at the same time. That’s not complicated at all, is it?

For us, we focus on basic academics like math and language arts, but we also focus on character, history and learning the bible. I plan our days to invest my time with the kiddos in these areas.

Investing in the relationships of my children in my homeschool is imperative to their success for the rest of our lives. Much like the foundation of a house is very important, our relationships are equally important. If I put the relationships first, together, we can conquer anything!

Thanks for reading! I would love to hear your comments!