Maintaining Discipline in Homeschooling

 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.