If you’re like many American parents, you probably did some homeschool activities with your child this spring. Maybe you sat down with your preschooler to trace letters or point out shapes. Or maybe you encouraged your first-grader to do math sheets. When you did this school/life balance, did your child seem eager to learn?
If not, you’re not alone. Even children who were eager to learn at school may have resisted learning at home. Why did that happen? Well, there are a few reasons for difficulties with school/life balance.
A Shift in the Environment
It’s a simple fact: your child’s school is not the same environment as your house. It turns out that the environment shift may have boosted your child’s learning.
Have you ever gone to the Roswell Public Library or a coffee shop to get work done? If so, did you notice an increase in productivity? That’s because changing environments can help the brain “reset.” The act of moving from one place to another helps people focus on their tasks. In fact, some people find that they need this reset to be productive at all. It’s why many people struggled to work from home.
The concept is just as true for children as it is for adults. Some children simply need to shift their environment to focus on academics.
Psychological Association
There’s another environmental factor at play here in the school/life balance, and that’s the psychological association. Your child associates school with learning, and they associate home with other activities. When they sit down at their desk at school, their brain says, “Okay, now it’s time to learn.” When they sit down at the kitchen table, their brain says, “Okay, now it’s time for breakfast.”
You might tell them that it’s time to learn. They may even tell themselves that it’s time to learn. But those mental associations are powerful, and it’s nearly impossible to override them without a lot of work.
Furthermore, when you teach your child at home, it’s harder to pull them away from their home-based distractions. All of your child’s favorite toys and games are at home. On top of helping your child learn, you had to pull their focus away from these distractions on a constant basis.
Your School/Life Balance
As your family adjusted to “the new normal,” your child’s routine isn’t the only one that changed. Your routine also took a big hit. Even so, the demands of being a parent, taking care of the house, and keeping your life afloat were all still there.
The laundry still needed to be done. Dinner still needed to reach the table. You may have also been working from home while educating your child.
Life’s demands didn’t take a break. They all just moved into your home at the same time. If you had a hard time staying focused and motivated, then your child probably noticed. All of the hustle and bustle of this home and work life may have made it tougher for them to concentrate.
Learning at Legacy Academy
For school-aged children, our summer program is open for enrollment. It’s a fun, engaging way to discover, explore, and learn.
For young children, we have preschool programs for children up to four years old.
If you have questions about either option, get in touch with us now. We’d love to answer your questions.
