Homeschooling 101

Lesson 7: Everything in Its Place: Getting Your House in Order

Teaching Non-cooperative Children

A friend of mine has the perfect homeschooling life. Her daughters do all of their schoolwork and beg for more. I on the other hand, have a child that is in the running for an Academy Award for his acting. Pencils fly, bodies are flung on the floor, tears stream. If he isn’t an actor when he is older, it will be a shame!

When your child disobeys and refuses to do schoolwork, it can make you question your sanity. “Why am I doing this?” has crossed my mind more than once. One day, as I was reaching for the phone to call the public school to see if I could enroll my future award winner, it came to me. He needs to be held accountable. He (and his brothers) is held accountable for everything else… why not hold him accountable for not cooperating?

When it came time to “manage” my children and their school work, I thought back to my days as a manager. When someone was hired, they were given a copy of the “rules” and the consequences foe not following the rules. They were asked to sign it, making it a contract of sorts. “Blink!” The light flicked on!

I came up with a list of the behaviors I thought were inappropriate. Each of my child has different “opportunities for improvement” so I made a different list for each. I then came up with a list of consequences. I wrote a contract that simply says “We, ___________________ (parents) and ________________________ (child), agree that if one of the rules of behavior are broken, they will do the following: Go to bed ½ hour early and complete a job from the consequence job list. “

Once my children knew there was going to be a consequence for their non-cooperation during school, it only took a few days before they realized it wasn’t worth it!

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