Easy

I was a at a homeschooling get-together this afternoon and was chatting with another mom. There was a brief conversation about focusing on a child's mental and emotional health first before worrying about academics, and I said something I commonly say, "Focusing on emotional health is essential, after that academics are easy." The other mother then went on to explain why academics were not easy for her older child. They were very valid reasons and I can understand why this child would find public school challenging. I will admit it set me back on my heels a bit and I've been thinking about it ever since.

Is the idea that if a child is in a good place emotionally then academics will naturally follow valid?

After much thought, I still believe it is, but perhaps it needs a little more explanation. Let's see if I can think out loud a bit about what I really mean when I say that. Perhaps the best place to start is what I do not mean. I do not mean that if a child can be nurtured and brought to a place of emotional health and well-being that suddenly all schoolwork will be easy for them. That would be a ludicrous thing to say. Every child is wired differently. They each have different strengths and challenges, and no two children learn things exactly alike. So emotional health is not some magic formula that suddenly creates genius children.

And I'm afraid that when I say academics will be easy, what many people assume is... genius and ease in doing schoolwork. It's as if that only students who go through school without every having to exert themselves in learning are the truly bright ones. In my humble opinion, this highlights how very upside-down our current educational system is. Students who do not have to exert themselves, to my way of thinking, are students who have not been sufficiently challenged. They have never wrestled with something that doesn't come easily. They are left with the idea that there is something intrinsically better about them. Then when they do run into something that they cannot do or understand immediately, they are stuck. If there intelligence is something innate, then when they cannot do something it means that they have reached the end of their intelligence and they give up. It's a generalization, but there is a great deal of truth in it.

So it's not ease in figuring things out or understanding that I'm talking about. When I say that academics are easy, it is the student-teaching process, particularly in regards to homeschooling. An emotionally healthy child in an emotionally healthy relationship with the parent allows for learning to happen. It means the child has a tolerance for not understanding something and asking for help. It means that there is little of the fear-based behaviors in regards to learning that can be so often seen... frustration, unwillingness to do the work, claiming that something is boring (assuming that it isn't actually boring... would you want to spend endless hours doing worksheets?), giving nonsense answers, etc. 

Now, everyone child will exhibit some of these things some of the time. Everyone has good days and bad days... parents, too. It's when that is the only way a child is interacting with schoolwork that it becomes a problem. As a parent, I have also learned to see those moments of frustration or fear for what they are and address them accordingly. At that moment it is most definitely not about the fractions or parts of speech or whatever is being learned, it is all about a feeling of not understanding or fearing that one will never understand it. A parent doubling down on doing the work will be adding their own dose of fear to the situation, inevitably with the day ending in tears from one or both parties. 

If instead I address the underlying feeling, setting aside the schoolwork for the moment, I can help support my child without dragging us both to the proverbial edge. (I've done this plenty of times. I am more than well aware of both how easy it is and rotten it feels afterwards.) A child exhibiting these behaviors is past the point of learning something anyway. Far better to take a break, eat a snack, read a book, and then do something else. More times than not, once the feelings of not being able to do something pass, the child is absolutely capable of doing what was causing issues to begin with.

There is a very large caveat here, though. In order for this to work, you have to be sure that what you are asking your child to do is actually within their abilities, or if not you are willing to provide the scaffolding that they need. Just because it is the next thing in the book does not mean that your child is actually ready for it. You may need to do something different, change the way it is done, go back and focus on prior skills, etc. before that particular topic can be tackled. Homeschooling and teaching your child is often more detective work and experimentation than anything. 

Realistically, this means that I have children all over the board in terms of "grade level". (You know I think grade levels and what is in them are all kind of made up anyway, right?) Not a single one of them is at the same place across the board in all subjects. And how each child makes progress is also unique to each of them. Some are very linear, others jump ahead, stagnate for a while, maybe seem to move backwards, and then jump ahead again. There is no one right way to learn.

Easy means that my child has enough margin that they can do the hard work of learning. Easy also means that I have let go of my expectations about school should look like and instead meet my child where they are. School with R. is actually easy. She is making progress with what she can do, she is able to concentrate and think clearly for longer and longer periods of time, and I have decided to be good with that. For her, as she becomes more and more emotionally healthy, school with her becomes easier and easier because we are working together and not at cross purposes. Easy does not mean that I will be purchasing Algebra II books for her despite the fact that she is 17. 

If you focus on the child and what they need, everything falls into place, but it means that sometimes we have to let go of what we think should be, whether that should is coming from the outside culture or without ourselves.