Getting a Child Who Hates School to Love School

Or at least do their schoolwork with out a struggle. Recently I wrote a post about when a child hates school and some advice from my friends. This is my follow up post.

School is conducted in peacefulness now thanks to some changes. Here is what worked for us:

• Writing a list of each assignment. This alleviates the anxiety of endless amounts of schoolwork and provides a sense of accomplishment when your child crosses it off. My friend gave me the idea of color coding assignments green for independent work and red for work with mom. This way, if you are caught up with another child, they can still move ahead.
• Adding a fun hands on, educational activity to start our school day. It may be spelling word with our Lego letter blocks or a puzzle, but it is done quietly, seated at the table with the rest of us. I pick something my son will enjoy because I want to show him learning can be fun. It sets a good tone for our school time. Also, I give my younger son a parallel activity as a form of peer pressure.
• Academic Probation. This was my husband's idea, every night he would work with my son on his school work. My husband's reasoning was that my son looked forward to that time to play with his Dad, and missing that special time would motivate him to get his act together. During our normal school time, my son would be given educational tasks and complete some non-battle producing school tasks. Eventually, we were able to do all of his schoolwork during normal school hours.

Three simple changes, but it fixed our school problems.