Release the idea that in order to create a successful pupil, one must stick to rigid schedules and adhere 100% to a certain curriculum or book work. When we, as the home educator, place unrealistic expectations on ourselves and our children to meet certain timeframes for milestones - it creates an environment of stress that is not conducive to a love of learning.
My end goal of educating my children is to create life long learners, to ignite a spark of love for learning. Children have their own agendas and unique timetables. That's the beauty of homeschooling! We can cater to those individual needs, interests, and talents! What a blessing!
I allow my children sit on the table or stand for a lesson if that's comfortable for them. We cuddle on the couch for read aloud time, or some days they have a snack while listening to the story. If we're learning a new (or not so new) concept and my child is becoming disheartened, we find a different way to learn it or leave it until the next day.
We spend about 1 hour total doing sit down lessons and the remainder of our days are spent adventuring outside in nature, learning real life skills like folding clothes or cooking, meeting friends for play time at the park, and soon they will be mommy's helpers with a new sibling arriving. Let them simply live life with you. That's where joy is found. They are capable of so much if we just allow them in.
“Let children alone... the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions - a running fire of Do and Don’t ; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose.”
-Charlotte Mason
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