In this episode you'll learn how to create a home life where learning comes naturally and be able to identify some of the common issues that might be causing your children to feel overwhelmed and unhappy with homeschooling.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Raising Children Who Love Learning Free Starter Kit
Simplyfreeing.com/learn

If you enjoyed today's episode, please:

Everything discussed in this episode & more can be found in the raising children who love learning free starter guide which has journal questions you can go through to help you reflect on what your life looks like at home and make changes based on some of the things that are discussed here. Grab your free guide HERE!

This Episode Discusses:

Why the love of learning feels so magical.

The common demands that are placed on children during school days.

The role of technology in learning.

Why our mindset might be preventing us from cultivating a love of learning in the home.

What to do when children don’t have an interest in learning.

Why the love of learning might be missing from your home and what you can do to change that.

don’t have time to listen? Here’s the episode all typed out

Simply Freeing? Motherhood doesn’t feel simply freeing when you’re on autopilot in a home filled with chaos, stress and a ton of pressure. In order to survive the chaos we NEED the right strategies and mindset to embrace the simple and enjoy the few short years we have with our kids. I believe that we are called to see that we CAN rise up, get out of our head, shut out the expectations of the world and what mom life is supposed to be like and change what’s not working so that motherhood is fulfilling. Join me as we discuss all things motherhood, homeschooling, minimalism, faith and health. My mission is to help you embrace simplicity and find freedom in your motherhood. I’m Jackie from Whole9Family and this is the “Simply Freeing” Podcast.

Hello there moms! When you witness a child who is experiencing a love of learning, you'll feel as if magic is happening! Why is it so magical when children love to learn? It’s just not common. We've been so conditioned in our culture to accept that school time and our time just being at home, whatever that looks like for you, are separate. Once schoolwork/homework is done, the learning is also done. Can you really blame us for thinking this way though?

When children are enrolled in school after they've had a long day, it's natural for them to want to just veg out afterwards. Those kids are under a lot of pressure and they have to juggle a ton of responsibilities. They need to be given a chance to mentally unload after a long day.

I was having this discussion with a friend the other day...Just think about some of the common demands that are placed on a child after coming home from school. (Clean your room, do your homework, dentist appt., doctors appt., extracurricular activities that they might not love to do) Put yourselves in their position. What happens after we have a long days as an adults? Doesn't matter if it's a hard day of parenting or working an outside job. Wouldn't you love some time to decompress before doing anything else? Now the things I just discussed were certainly before the pandemic but I'm hopeful that we'll get back to some normalcy in the near future so I'm keeping that optimistic perspective!

Think about the demands we put on our kids verses what they would actually like to be doing once school is over...Playing inside or outside, watching tv, going on an iPad, video games, sports, extracurricular activities they enjoy...this is important...whatever they enjoy. Turning the world off and tuning into what your kids enjoy once school is over for the day makes sense if you view school life and home as separate entities. In order to raise children who love learning you'll have to transform your family's mindset and create a home life where learning and life comes together! How does this work?

I'm going to be sharing 6 principles that will have an impact on your children's desire to learn. The idea is that we want to create a culture of learning in the home and not look at it as a bunch of busywork worksheets thrown at them to satisfy our need to feel that they are learning. Let's dive in!

#1 YOU ARE YOUR CHILD’S BEST TEACHER.

It sounds cliché but it’s true! If you desire for your children to love learning, you should be setting an example of what it looks like to love to learn. Do you speak about your hobbies or interests to your children and invite them to explore those hobbies and interests with you or do you push them away because you want time to yourself? Now I’m not say that you can’t have time to yourself. What I am saying is that if it’s a pattern that you push your children away consistently when school is over and you are always waiting for the end of the day to come, that’s a problem. Do you even know what your hobbies and interests are? This is all too common. We get so caught up in busyness and the needs of our family that we don't even know what we enjoy. I know it's harder to take care of yourself and explore your interests when your kids are young but I promise that it will feel freeing to dive into something new that you enjoy.

#2YOUR HOME SHOULD BE SET UP IN SUCH A WAY THAT IT ENCOURAGES NATURAL LEARNING

If you’re constantly cleaning and catching up with house stuff, how can you truly invest in your child’s learning? Take a step back and look at your home as if you were a visitor coming into your home for the first time...How does your home make you feel? Do you feel stressed and overwhelmed OR peaceful and clutter free? Are you able to relax and enjoy your home often? Do you know where things are located when your children ask you for them? Are you frequently occupied with “all the things” unable to stay focused and get stuff done? There is a difference between a home that looks well-loved and lived in verses one that is cluttered with unnecessary stuff. Trust me, with 4 kids, my home is far from tidy. But the difference between my old life and my current one is that our messes are easily cleaned up now that we’ve minimized what we own. When we have less stuff to take care of we'll experience a lot more freedom in life. If you are feeling a certain way about your home, chances are your kids have similar feelings. A stressful home environment is going to cause stress on your kids and impact the learning that happens. This is one of the reasons why I'm pretty passionate about living a more minimalistic lifestyle. The freedom I've experienced by majorly decluttering has really been life changing.

#3 REPAIR TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS

Your closest relationships in your life should be healthy. If they are not, this should be discussed with your children. This will greatly vary depending on the age of your children and the nature of your problems, but you can pretty much guarantee that if there is a lot of tension in your family, your kids will sense it! Problematic relationships and issues that are kept behind closed doors will negatively impact a child and create an environment where quality learning in general, with or without the love of it, will be much harder to achieve. Do whatever you can to make and keep peace, even if that means getting some outside counseling.

#4 BE INTENTIONAL WITH YOUR FREE TIME & Your children’s free time

What type of boundaries have you set for your children? Do they follow them? How much screen time do they have? Do you know what they are doing when they are on those screens? I’ll be the first person to say that I am not anti-technology but, a big problem can and will sneak up on you if you aren’t strategic about screen time. There is a big difference between sitting with your child and discussing a movie together and letting them go off and hang out with their screens without you. They can't always be entertained. Boredom is a good thing. It's when kids become the most creative. If you are desirous to raise up children who love learning, you’ll have to set limits on their screen time to be sure that they do not get consumed.

#5 talk, talk, talk!

This one shouldn’t have to Be said because we assume this is happening but sadly with all the technology that surrounds us, we’re just not doing this...TALKING! When your children ask questions, take this as a learning opportunity as often as you can even if that means setting something aside for the moment. Show them that you value having conversations with them. It means the world to them. When I think back at how overwhelmed I was when I first began homeschooling, I couldn’t focus on what Haley was saying because I always had dishes in the sink, laundry to do and the dog to walk.

#6 CONSIDER YOUR CHILD’S INTERESTS & GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPLORE!

If your children are interested in something, they will be motivated to learn and they will LOVE IT! Some children have been so conditioned to have the requirements of schoolwork forced upon them that they’ll be caught off guard if you actually ask them what they are interested in. Learning is so much more enjoyable when we learn topics that are the most interesting to us.

For children who don’t seem very interested in anything, give them opportunities to explore and experience new things. Family adventures are key to creating a love of learning! We just back from the beach and my kids learned so much while we were there. We had a lot of conversations about the tides, the fish in the ocean, the jellyfish...just because we were on vacation, doesn’t mean that we weren’t learning.

Everything discussed in this episode & more can be found in the raising children who love learning starter guide which has journal questions you can go through to help you reflect on what your life looks like at home and make changes based on some of the things that are discussed here. You can get this free guide at simplyfreeing.com/learn. I don't want this podcast to be something you listen to and do nothing about. I hope this inspires you to create a home life where learning is enjoyable and fulfilling!

I hope this episode was helpful for you! I look forward to talking with you soon! Everything discussed in this episode & more can be found in the raising children who love learning starter guide which has journal questions you can go through to help you reflect on what your life looks like at home and make changes based on some of the things that are discussed here. Grab your free guide HERE!