College Planning: The Upside of Procrastination in the Homeschool EnvironmentBy Mimi Rothschild The upside of procrastination? In homeschool? Yes! There is one. In fact, there are a few good points when it comes to procrastination.
Benefits of Procrastination
When your homeschool student is exhibiting procrastination, it could be your one, great, big, flashing, warning sign that there are problems with the workload or the subject matter. Is it the homeschool environment in particular that is bothering him? Does he need more attention in a certain subject? Procrastination can benefit your homeschool situation by becoming a tool of communication for you and your child. Asking why his homeschool work is falling behind in some or all areas will give you both a chance to acknowledge the situation, recognize the potential problems, and devise a plan of attack together.
Causes of Procrastination
The first question to ask your child is why he is procrastinating with his homeschool assignments. You may say, 'I know why. It's called Playstation, friends, television…' But those are not the causes. They are what your child is using to avoid his responsibilities in completing his assignments. You may be surprised at what he has to say. Some possibilities include:
- Difficulty understanding a certain subject
- A misunderstanding between himself and someone else
- Separation anxiety
- Need for attention
- Depression
- Enjoyment of the pressure build-up that is created by waiting until the last minute
- The hope that you will just complete the task for him (or throw it out completely) so that he doesn't have to do it
- A good reason for failure rather than 'I'm not smart enough' or 'I'm not good enough'
Cure for Procrastination
As it is with every problem, the first step to curing procrastination in the homeschool environment is to recognize that it is an issue. Once you recognize what's happening, bringing it to the attention of your child in non-judgmental terms is the best way for both of you to get him back on his assignments quickly.
In homeschool, it's easy to procrastinate. There are a thousand activities and educational experiences to involve oneself in to avoid work or feelings that are hard to handle. And without the structure of bells ringing, that clock just seems to tick faster during homeschool. It may be that procrastination is the result of having way to many things to do. With all of the field trips, assignments, projects, classes, and group meetings that go along with homeschool, it is necessary to procrastinate on some tasks in order to complete others. Sometimes all it takes to end the procrastination is a little re-arranging in your homeschool schedule. If you really feel that you are expecting a reasonable amount of work from your child, then emphasize that dreading the assignment is worse than completing it; treat those activities he tends to procrastinate with as a treat to be enjoyed when he's completed his homeschool tasks for the day.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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