Why are we burnt out?

Because our personal history in conventional schooling has taught us that the focus of learning is the mistakes we make! It is by our mistakes, grades, and scores that an individual’s success is determined. This is why we search our child’s assignments for everything they did wrong, and overlook everything they did well. Why do we constantly focus on flaws instead of progress?

What if you changed your perspective on “grading” a child’s work?

Imagine this:

Instead of circling every mistake on the page, circle EVERYTHING the child did well! You will give them back their writing assignment covered in circles and you will say “I circled everything you did right this time!”

The first time I did this I realized my struggling writer got about 950 things right!!! Can’t we celebrate that? Perhaps she had 15 or 30 mistakes in her story.

This single act of recognizing the positives instead of the negatives fueled a confidence that motivated this child to become a passionate and confident writer. Of course after the excitement of getting so many things right, she ASKED what she needed to fix as well. I have even applied this method to grading a child’s math worksheet.

Can you imagine the shift of vibes?

Why do we feel like motivation has to be such a negative experience for a child? I’ve come to believe that children don’t fail. They are just children! They don’t fall behind. They are learning, growing, exploring and maturing day by day!

It’s time to stop comparing children with an imaginary set of milestones. Some of the most brilliant and creative problem-solvers don’t learn to read until after age eight!

Some who grow up to be successful artists, designers and entrepreneurs struggling with memorizing anything ever! So why judge children by their weaknesses? Why make they child’s struggle the main focus of their education and childhood? The child who is an artist is called dyslexic because they struggle with reading- and we label them by their weakness, why not call out their talents instead.

We’ve talked enough about seeing the positive in our children, and making their abilities and victories the focus of homeschooling. Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about me. Let’s talk about homeschooling moms.

Just like we constantly zero in on the imperfections of our children we tend to obsess over our own weaknesses. Just like we grade our children by their mistakes, we carry guilt of our own because we never measure up to our own imaginary standards.

Are you ready to give your child an education that revolves around their strengths and their growth instead of their mistakes? Flip to Fun-Schooling!

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