PenWay.org

Home Schooling

Home schooling - the Importance of Discipline

by Wayne Wargo (PenWay.org)

Home schooling discipline is of utmost importance in teaching the children when in the home environment.

When the child is at home all day and the teacher is a parent, there are discipline issues. It is easy for the child to think that he has more freedom than his friends who go to school. This can be a major problem and children need to be disciplined before beginning this endeavor.

Home schooling provides you and your child with a great amount of flexibility. You and your child should decide upon the best room in which to teach, how much should be taught and when to learn. 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. It is easy to get sidetracked when there is no outside agency to supervise the environment and no exams to take. If your child is old enough, ask him what he would like to learn. Use your parental discretion to come up with a timetable.

Homework is also a part of home schooling. 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 learn in the early years of his life. The school where he interacts with his peers, his seniors and juniors and his teachers mold these values quite automatically. At home school, the child should be taught the importance of speaking and behaving in a proper manner and appropriate corrections need to be determined and made if behavior is unsatisfactory.

It is advisable to keep aside a particular room or a part of a room for your home school. 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.

You must have patience and perseverance when home schooling. Otherwise you are going to run into problems. At such times, it may be difficult to discipline the child and get him to listen to you attentively.

Allow yourself and the child to take a break every so often. Try to follow the school hours, breaks and lunch hour that the schoolchildren are used to.

Home schooling will not be as easy as it seems. It requires a lot of hard work and patience. The very informality of the entire concept may sometimes work against itself by making it too easy. You will need to take the appropriate steps to establish rules at the very beginning and then adhere to these rules. Only then will the home schooling experience be a huge success.

--- Related Articles ---

Home schooling and challenges you will be facing