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Maintaining
Discipline in Homeschooling
When the child stays at home all day, and mommy is the teacher,
there are certain issues of discipline at stake. It is easy for he
child to misconstrue the freedom he has at home and feel that
homeschooling is just a long summer holiday. This is a potential
landmine and children need to be disciplined right at the start.
Homeschooling gives you and your child a truly immense amount of
flexibility. You and your child decide where to learn, how much to
learn and when to learn. But,these should be decisions made at the
beginning stages. If your child is too little to take an active part
in the decision, chart out a few hours of the day for the various
activities, and stick to it. When there is no outside agency to
supervise and no exams to answer, it is easy to get sidetracked. If
your child is old enough, consult him and find out when he wants to
learn. Apply your parental discretion and come up with a timetable.
Homework is also a part of homeschooling. What this means is that
once lessons have been taught, the child should be asked to do some
part of the course work by himself without your guidance. You will
need to make sure that your child sits willingly and finishes his
work.
Courtesy, manners and punctuality are some of the various facets of
discipline that a child has to imbibe in the early years of his
life. The school where he interacts with his peers, his seniors and
juniors and his teachers mould these values quite automatically. At
homeschool, the child should be taught the importance of speaking
and behaving in a proper manner and appropriate corrections need to
be meted out if behavior is unsatisfactory.
It is advisable to keep aside a particular room or a part of the
room for your homeschool. The child should be expected to reach his
desk at the appointed time, in proper attire with all the necessary
material. It is easy to allow the school to become an extension of
play if these ground rules are not laid out and followed. As the
teacher, supervisor, principal and janitor rolled into one, you
should also approach the study area with a cool professionalism.
Homeschooling is doomed to fail without patience. In spite of all
the precautions and steps one takes, it is easy for a child to get
familiar' at homeschool. At such times, it may be difficult to
discipline the child and get him to listen to you attentively. When
this happens, switch to something new. Allow the child to take a
breather and enjoy a break yourself.
Homeschooling is not easy. It requires a lot of hard work and
patience. The very informality of the whole procedure sometimes
works against it by making it too easy. If you take steps to
establish rules at the very beginning and adhere to these rules,
your homeschooling experience will be a huge success.
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