What do you do when you find yourself two weeks behind?

My wife and I tag team the homeschooling of our children, and my primary role as homeschool dad is to teach the English grammar, writing, and math portions of the curriculum for our daughter, Jaicey.  Over the last few weeks I have allowed us to get behind schedule, to the tune of 2 weeks.  One of the best parts of homeschool is we are not bound by a schedule like traditional schooling.  We have great flexibility with homeschooling so I’m not overly concerned, but definitely do not want to continue this pattern.  We had to break the pattern and counterproductive habits that led to this.

Jaicey is at the age where she wants to understand why we do certain things, and wants to feel like she had something to do with whatever we are doing.  So I thought I’d involve her, and we made an agreement.  There were three simple points to the agreement we made, 3 steps to get better homeschool results.  All three are able to be done by a 37-year old, an 11-year old, as well as any individual or family who wants to get back on track in their homeschooling, work, or life.

1) Have a Good Attitude

When I explained to her that we were behind schedule and we needed to get caught up I noticed all the excitement she had while she was running around playing with her friends had almost immediately left.  I knew we would not get very far at all with the attitude that she now had.  An attitude adjustment was needed, for both of us, as I was mad that she was mad! 🙂  So I ask her to agree to have a good attitude.  One of the first steps in making big or small changes is to go into it with a good attitude.  Good attitude…CHECK!

2) Work Hard

We had a lot of work in front of us.  I noticed that we both were a little rusty on the grammar and writing skills she developed.  There was no other way around it, we were going to have to work very hard to refresh those skills as well as learn and develop new skills.  As I thought back, this was one of the reasons we found ourselves behind.  We found ourselves taking the easy route when things became challenging.  I began to allow her to copy/memorize half a chart and sometimes to review her own work.  No more of that!  We are going to do the more challenging work first, and we were going to do what was necessary to get it done.  Work hard…CHECK!

3) Have Fun

When I initially noticed the “not so good” attitude I asked what was wrong.  Jaicey’s response was “it’s not fun.”  I began to realize that the past few weeks were not fun.  It was more of a grind, while the week’s prior to that were fun (yes, you can have fun learning!).  I immediately knew that if it wasn’t fun for either of us, then the good attitudes were soon going to be lost, and the hard work would suffer as well.  We both agreed to have fun.  We will work hard, but have fun by being creative, inserting something funny into the lessons, and being unconventional.  For me that means not taking things so seriously, and for her it means not taking me so seriously! 🙂  Have fun…CHECK!

Now…Your Turn

So when you find yourself not getting the results you want as a homeschool family, or behind schedule on a work task or project, behind on achieving your goals, or just off track I suggest you do what we are doing.  Take these 3 steps to get better results: adjust your attitude, work harder than you ever have, and have fun while doing so.

Let me know some steps you have tried to get better results. Please post in the comment section below.