11 Ways to Keep Kids Engaged in Homeschool and Reduce Resistance During Coronavirus Social Distancing

So you’ve finally gathered all the materials, resources and the supplies you’ll ever need to keep kids engaged in homeschool during Coronavirus. You’ve reviewed the recommendations, searched Pinterest, and developed an amazing home curriculum to keep your children from falling behind academically. But when you sit down to start virtual school with your child they are not impressed! They even push back and seemingly refuse to work. Now what?

After weeks of virtual school, the novelty has worn off! Who are we kidding? The honeymoon has been over for a while now for parents and children. Furthermore, we have at least four more weeks to keep kids engaged for this 2019-2020 school year. Many student’s eagerness to be home, and curiosity about the novelty of schooling from home, has worn thin. They miss their school, they miss their friends and they miss their real teacher. They are starting to test limits with the new “substitute” teacher, namely their parents. What can we do about this? How can we reduce resistance and keep kids engaged in homeschool during coronavirus social distancing?

What is Resistance Anyway?

Let’s be clear that this is not a psycho-educational diagnosis of your child’s learning style or learning status. I would not describe any child who was eagerly engaged in school work three weeks ago, but is slightly uncooperative today, a “resistant learner”. The is a situational response to a big social challenge we are facing as a society.

Because none of us asked to be in this situation, we are ALL exhibiting subtly resistant behaviors. But you are not crazy, your child is behaving differently during homeschool time. They are not trying to bug you, get on your nerves, or drive you crazy. They are trying to cope with their own emotional responses.

Resistance is the refusal to comply with a request, or the presentation of an impeding slowing force or stopping action. I mean be honest with yourself, haven’t you shown some resistance too?

Examples of resistance for adults may look like not getting up on time, skipping meetings, or passing on washing hair. Additionally, behaviors such as not cleaning house, skipping showers, not exercising, binge eating, overlooking the bills, staying up all not are behaviors of protest. Lastly, choosing not to wear face masks, not to keep social distance or not to keep gatherings at a minimum are clearly non-compliant with medical, state and government recommendations.

For children resistant behaviors may include lack of attention, general non-compliance with requests, fidgeting, purposeful mistakes, intentionally delayed response time, inappropriate playfulness, hiding (self, tools, supplies), requesting bathroom, engaging others, requesting food, complaining, changing subject, or using toys/manipulative.

Why is my child giving me the cold shoulder when it’s time to do homeschool?

When people (all people) feel powerless, they feel unsafe. To recover a feeling of security, one reaction people have is to exert power where they still can. For children this means power over their own body, including their hygiene, nutrition, and attention. This often feels like a power struggle with parents.

Another response to feelings of powerlessness is regression to a younger level of functioning. For children this may mean relenting control of bodily functions such as bedwetting or emotional control such as tantrums, baby language, playing younger toys, watching younger media, etc.

Children are the most perceptive creatures on earth, especially when it comes to their parents. It’s a survival thing. So they know when you’re upset, anxious, sarcastic, annoyed, dismissive, or simply distracted. If you don’t want to be there, they won’t want to be there. The question is do you want to engage in homeschooling? If you really don’t want to, no judgement here, consider an alternative.

Additional reasons your child may not be thrilled with virtual distance learning:

• Were they have challenges at school prior to the quarantine? If they were struggling with the subject matter before, those feeling of self doubt, inadequacy will still be there.
• Lack of structure or routine or too much structure/routine.
• Lack of social pressure accountability Does you’re child thrive on accountability and social praise? Having peers around oftentimes makes work more fun, more manageable, more competitive, and more time relevant. Consider how much more often kids will try (or not) new food if other kids around them are eating. The same goes for work.
• Location location location! Where are you attempting to engage our child in school work? Is it a previously sacred space for fun and frolic? I have noticed that my child struggles with doing school work on the same couch where he plays and lounges.
• Mountain or mole hill: how much are you trying to get done vs how much do you need to get done.
• Lack of social pressure.
• Trying to do this the way they do it in a school setting.
• Exhaution due to emotional distress, changes in sleep patterns, changes in eating patterns, amount of work trying to complete, stress or anxiety.

What can we do to reduce resistance and keep kids engaged in homeschooling during Coronavirus?

First and foremost we must help our children feel safe, even if we do not.

Instilling and reinforcing a sense of safety protects them against these anxiety-provoking unusual circumstances and the uncertainty of the future.

• Start with verbal and physical reassurance and validation: lots of hugs, positive reinforcing, and encouragement.
• Provide a schedule (predictive) and/or routine (predictable and adaptable).
• Give choices and involve in decisions when possible.
• Answer all questions as honestly as possible. Do not promise anything that may change.
• Provide age appropriate information.
• Use video chats to allow interaction with friends (providing proof of safety and validation of experience).
• Consider sending snail mail to friends for a more tactile form of interaction.
• Verbalize your own feeling and what you do to feel better.
• Focus on things do have power over and that are predictable such as family events and traditions.
• They may regress to watching programs, or playing toys and games from younger days. These activities provide your child predictability and a sense of control. Provide reassurance of safety and temporary status of social distancing.

Other ways to cope with resistance and keep kids motivated in homeschool during social distancing:

1. You can replicate the motivating aspect of social pressure/comparison interaction by having siblings work together or with a short video chat meeting with a favorite classmate/best friend to work on a task together.
2. Consider moving school work to one consistent, low distraction location that can be reserved for school work and later homework. This will also prevent confusion of converting a place that is usually a fun, playful retreat into a work space. Have a couple of additional work spaces in mind in case they need to switch up on hard days.
3. Can you keep home a sanctuary? So one of the most difficult realities is that work and home are merged. It is easier for adults to define each for themselves but it can be a difficult blurring of lines for children. If home has been where they are able to relax and recover they may be confused by current expectations of focused productive behavior.
4. Monitor your child’s response to the work. Observe and make note of how long they work before resistant behavior, is resistant behaviors more likely before or after a specific subject, is there a number of assignments before resistant behavior increases? This may be an indication of exhaustion or trouble with a specific subject.
5. Find out from the school district and/or teachers benchmarks your child should achieve to be ready for the next year. You have the next four months, at least, to introduce and practice these skills before next year. Take your time, and even better, let your child take their time.
6. Use your support systems. Don’t be afraid to contact your child’s teacher, ask the for strategies, suggestions, and past successes. Especially regarding how to introduce a topic, alternative methods of breaking information down, practical hands on activities for topics, and to talk to your child directly as that may help reinforce the point.
7. Consider the time of day when your child is most cooperative, enthusiastic, and open to experiences. That is the time to take on new information, tedious detail-oriented work or boring tasks. If this is not the best time of day for you, you may need to take one for the team to reduce resistant behaviors.
8. Some children work best in spurts throughout the day. Other children prefer to complete their work all at once. This is true for daily work as well as the curriculum overall. Meet them where they are and try to schedule in breaks.
9. Brain breaks, bathroom breaks, snack breaks, lunch breaks and fun breaks! Don’t forget that kids have lots of formal and informal breaks throughout their day in a school setting: room changes, subject shifts, snack and lunch breaks, down time before next topic, non-academic classes, etc. These breaks give the brain time to encode, store and organize information.
10. Reinforcements (consider the whole of the situation before you balk at bribes). Don’t forget to catch them doing well and reinforce the behavior. Consider pairing the type of reward your child is most motivated to earn (stickers, treats, toys, money) with verbal and physical praise (compliments and hugs). The goal is to increase cooperative behavior and school engagement.
11. Get Real! Worksheets are not the only form of repetition. (Games, chores, exploring, life skills, media, etc also provide ample opportunity for repetition of skills.)

Do it your way. You were your child’s first teacher!

You taught your child to eat, drink, sleep, dress, toilet, have manners, spirituality, values, sports, etc. Use these same strategies to get their attentions, hold their attention, and finally get them motivated to learn. You have your own approach to teaching. Stop trying to be like their teacher, be their parent who is continuing to teach them new things as you always have done and always will do. You have permission to stop trying to make your house into a school setting, unless that is one of the personal goals you have. Your home is already a learning environment. During this unusual period in history, try to extend the learning to more formal subjects as well as the hundreds of other lessons you have taught.

One of the main benefits of homeschooling is being able to customize the curriculum to your child’s strengths, interest, and needs. Go ahead and teach outside the box. So if you can take the lessons outside the box consider doing so.

Please follow the links below for additional information about homeschooling during the Coronavirus, COVID-19:

**Please note: This blog is provided for information purposes and is not meant to replace the recommendations of personal educational, psychological or medical assessment, diagnosis or treatments.**