Homeschooling Through the Tears, Frustrations, and Temper Tantrums

March 8, 2023

Homeschooling Through the Tears, Frustrations, and Temper Tantrums

Let me start by saying that I know I don’t have all of the answers, but I do have a lot of experience with tears, frustrations, and temper tantrums both at home and in the classroom. Many times, these come with good reasons. I will start with some of these.


1. Not enough sleep. How many times does our day start off difficult because we didn’t get a good night’s sleep, just to have it go downhill from there. I think our children experience the same thing. They get up tired and just can’t focus, so everything they’re asked to do is difficult. Then they become whiny, and NO ONE wants to deal with whining. Those days not much is really accomplished, and I believe that what is actually taught does not stick and needs to be retaught the next day.

 

2. Unhealthy breakfast. In our house, we have learned that if we do not eat an adequate amount of protein, we cannot function well. Our brains need protein to have a successful day. A bowl of cereal, although it may be a healthy kind, doesn’t work for us. If we only have time for a bowl of cereal, we try to at least grab a string cheese to help us get to the next opportunity to eat. Think about what your child eats for breakfast. If it’s a sugary type of cereal or a donut, find a food to pair it with to reduce the effect of the sugar and provide some much needed protein. I think this is one of the reasons that eggs for breakfast is popular. But what if your child doesn’t like eggs? A bean and cheese burrito for breakfast works just fine. My daughter lived on those while she was young.

 

3. Being overwhelmed with the amount of work for one day. Because my daughter went to a hybrid school for grades 6-12, I got to experience first-hand how frustrated she would become with the amount of work she had to accomplish from Thursday night to Tuesday morning. This can be overwhelming for any student when all of those assignments are in one place; however, if you happen to have a dyslexic child, it is brutal. It took some time to figure out the best way to make it work without a melt-down. The good news it that we figured out what worked well for us and what didn’t.

 

We did not look at the stack of work by individual days/nights such as, Thursday night homework, Friday, Friday night homework, Monday, and Monday night Homework. My daughter came up with the idea of dividing it up by subject matter. She would start by listing her work, by subject, on her large whiteboard. Next, she would look it over and start with whatever subject she thought she could complete on Thursday night. One down. Yeh! When she was in high school, she checked over her math assignments on Thursday nights to make sure she knew how to do the work because free tutoring was available from her math teacher on Fridays if she needed help. (I was working at the school as the academic counselor Tuesdays through Fridays, so math determined if she went with me or stayed home on Fridays). My daughter could usually complete one or two more subjects Friday, one Saturday morning, a little on Sunday afternoon if there was a lot, and then finish up on Monday with anything she needed me to help her with. What a difference this method made for her state of mind.

 

This method could be adapted to home schooling by grouping work together by subject for 2 to 3 days at a time depending on your child and their age. Other than beginning reading or beginning math, other subjects taught in larger chunks could be much more meaningful and productive. It’s worth a try, if a little bit of this and a little bit of that everyday leads to frustration and exhaustion.

 

There are some things that I would suggest to always do for homeschooling and also for classroom teaching.


1. Have a thought-out plan for the day. Classroom teachers do weekly and sometimes monthly lesson plans so they can stay on track and complete the requirements for the year. Home school parents need to have a plan also. If your children are young, I would suggest starting with reading or math first thing in the morning. Both of those subjects are more successful in the morning when they are fresh. When those are completed, take a break before starting other work. This is where I would choose one or two of the following: social studies, science, art, technology, etc., for possibly the rest of the day. Rotate these subjects so each day of the week has a set path. This allows time for cool art projects, science experiments, history films, and so forth.

 

2. If you see your child getting frustrated with one subject, ask them if they need a short break or a snack. When their time is up, sit with them to help them one-on-one “over the hump.” This can help avoid the tears and tantrums

due to frustration.

 

There is no perfect way to teach for everyone. Your child’s personality will help you find the best way to teach them most effectively. If one method doesn’t work after a couple of weeks, try another. Happy Teaching!

How to Help Your Child Read with Word Games While Fixing Dinner

February 4, 2025
Many parents know that finding an adequate amount of time to help their children succeed in school is difficult at best. Having been a classroom teacher for more years than I care to admit, I know that as hard as the teacher tries to meet all of the needs of the students in her class, the students that seem to do the best are the ones whose parents are actively involved with their child’s education. So the big question is, “How do I find the time?” When I started teaching, I was not married and had no children. Life was not too complicated. As time went on life changed. With a husband and a child in the picture, I found myself dealing with the role of a teacher and a parent. My child needed extra help just like most other children. I started figuring out ways to help my child while we did other things. One of my favorites was word games. One doesn’t need to be a super multitasker to do these with their child while fixing dinner. Hence: Small Bites. This doesn’t take the place of sitting with your child one-on-one if they are really struggling, but it is a very useful way to keep your child thinking and learning while you are cooking. Game #1 “Rhyming Words” The beauty of this simple game is that it helps a child with reading sounds. If they can read one word with the end sound, it actually opens up a whole chain of words that they will be able to read by just changing out the beginning sound. Maybe your child’s job is to feed the cat, so let’s start by coming up with as many words as you can that rhyme with cat. Remember, they all must have the at sound at the end of the word. (Examples: bat, brat, chat, fat, flat, gnat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, scat, slat, splat, that, vat) If your child feeds the dog, then you can rhyme words with dog. (Examples: bog, clog, fog, frog, grog, hog, jog, log, smog) Goats seem to have become popular again. See how many words you can come up with that rhyme with goat. Notice that all of the words do not end with the same letters: oat and ote . (Examples: bloat, boat, coat, dote, float, gloat, moat, note, oat, quote, smote, throat, tote, vote, wrote) Since I’m on a roll with animals, how about words that rhyme with pig. (Examples: big, brig, dig, fig, gig, jig, rig, sprig, twig, wig, zig) Game #2 “Sounds to Words” This game is intended for beginning readers who are working on putting sounds together to form words. Start by giving 3 or 4 sounds such as / d // o // g /. Have the child repeat back the 3 sounds and then put them together to make the word dog . Obviously, the words are endless, but I’m giving you a few so you can concentrate on fixing dinner. / f // u // n / fun / h // a // t / hat / r // a // t / rat / m // o // m / mom / d // i // g / dig / j // u // m // p / jump / s // w // i // m / swim / r // e // d / red This game can be played until you or the child are tired and want to stop. Sometimes when you are doing word games, it’s better to keep them short, especially at the beginning. The length of the game is totally up to you. Game #3 “Geography Chain” This game is better with children who are a little older, and was one of my family’s favorites. Acceptable answers include the names of: countries, states, provinces (Canada), cities, etc. Set the rules of what’s acceptable before you start. Start with the name of one of the above categories such as: Spain . Because Spain ends with the letter N , the next geographical place would need to start with the letter N , such as New Mexico . This ends with an O , so the next response might be Ontario . Another location that starts with O could be Oregon . We could use New York and so on. Take turns and when someone cannot think of a place to continue the chain, they can drop out if more than 2 are playing or you can start over. Another chain might look something like this: K entucky, Yemen, Nigeria, Alaska, Antarctica, Alpine (city), Escondido (city), Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. As you can see, many places end with an A or an O . It is helpful if you try to think of places that don’t end with one of these letters. Word to the Wise These untimed interactive games work well for learning math facts also. Through my many years of experience, memorizing addition facts, subtraction facts, multiplication facts, and division facts are a major key in being successful in math. Memorization of multiplication facts are the most important. Without actually memorizing these, all other math becomes tedious and frustrating in elementary school, and we want are kids to love math without the frustration that it can bring. When I have had kids in my classes who are totally frustrated with math, the main cause is not learning multiplication facts by the end of 3 rd grade. If your child is past 3 rd grade and they have not memorized these facts yet, do not despair, it’s never too late to work on this skill.
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