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How to Handle Tears and Frustration in Your Homeschool

Teen frustrated with lessons

Do spelling lessons make your child want to throw her pencil across the room? Do tears seem to go hand-in-hand with learning to read? Are you walking on eggshells, wondering how the “dreaded” subject will go today?

When kids struggle, moms tend to blame themselves …

“I must not know how to teach this subject…maybe I shouldn’t be teaching!”

… or they blame their child …

” ‘She’s just lazy.’ ‘He doesn’t pay attention.’ ‘My children don’t apply themselves.’ “

It’s truly difficult to work with a child who just shuts down. Merry Marinello is a veteran homeschool mom and is part of our customer service team here at All About Learning Press. In this post, Merry offers 9 tips for dealing with tears and frustrations in your homeschool.

Here’s Merry …

  1. Don’t be afraid to take a break when your child has reached a critical point.

    Stop and have a snack or eat some lunch, then sit down later and have a casual conversation. “So, I’ve noticed spelling really upsets you sometimes. Why is that?” Dig around until you find some of the frustration points, and don’t necessarily try to solve the problem right then—mainly listen and sympathize. “You’re right, that part of spelling is really hard.” During the course of your conversation, you might find out something that will help you address issues with your child in the future. He might make a comment about a particular curriculum that pushes him over the edge, or you may be able to get an understanding of what he thinks your expectations are. You might even learn something about how he views himself.

  2. After listening to your child’s frustrations, open up dialogue with your child.

    Ask him what would help when he gets frustrated. Sometimes my children weren’t sure what would help, so I would talk with them about a “self-control toolbox.” We all have frustrations, but how do we deal with them? How does Daddy deal with them? How does Mommy? I remember one day I was late for something and couldn’t find my car keys, and suddenly it clicked—I was modeling how to have a full-blown temper tantrum!

    Mom looking frustrated

    Yup, that’s me, having a full-blown temper tantrum.

    Normally, I’m pretty calm and pleasant, but overwhelm me in a few ways, and there I was ranting and crying over lost car keys. (I laugh about it now!) So the self-control toolbox was a good reminder to me, too! Am I perfect? Nope. Are you perfect? Nope. Let’s not expect perfection from our children, either. Can we grow and learn to be more self-controlled? Absolutely—I started working on it and continue to do so.

  3. Fill your “self-control toolbox.”

    Here are some of the toolbox items that worked for me: get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, go for a short walk, shoot some hoops for five minutes, lay down for five to ten minutes, ask for help, pray, and so on, and then we would come back to try again. A mini-tramp or regular trampoline would be good in this situation, too.

    These activities let children burn off some adrenaline so that they can relax. My son would say he felt like punching something, so I suggested his pillow. But mostly I try to encourage my children toward exercise or appropriate chores—something they can use their muscles to do or something to accomplish. We tried jumping jacks and marching, too. I found marching to be particularly helpful, and any exercise that encourages right-left brain connection might also be useful.

  4. Discuss the idea that we all have things we’re good at and things we have to work at.

    Good examples could include swimming or music lessons, learning to ride a bike, learning to tie shoelaces, and so on. Try to find something that your child can relate to. Then give examples of things that you have to work hard at yourself. For example, I was recently trying to figure out how to change some things with my website, and I had to read some articles multiple times to even understand whether the “solution” applied to my situation! This type of example can be helpful for a child.

  5. Keep the funnel concept in mind.

    Some subjects can require multiple steps, and when a subject brings in new concepts, you might need to spend the first day or two reviewing previous concepts. Then, on the third day, you might be able to work through the new teaching. In the case of All About Spelling, some students may need explicit demonstrations of all ten new words after doing some review. Take time to help your student as much as needed. If you need to walk through every math problem with your child before he or she tries out a new algorithm, that’s okay. If reading is a struggle, find out why more than 60% of children in the United States struggle with learning to read1 2, and then see what you can do to help. Remember, children with learning disabilities are working ten times harder to accomplish less than those without disabilities. Sometimes it doesn’t look like work on the outside, so it’s good for us to try to remember that it is work for them.

  6. Try to be intuitive and “predict” problems before they occur.

    If you can make the exercise seem “game-like” and not “test-like” for your child, it will really help. Some kids are such perfectionists that they hate for anyone to see them mess up—and when you combine that kind of trait with learning struggles or a disability, it’s a tough combination to work through. Sometimes you can head this off by clearly defining your expectations ahead of time.

  7. Think through what you do when you’re frustrated.

    See if those things could help your child–or maybe you’ll find things to work on yourself, as I did! Think of it as trying to find your child’s “reset button.” What will help your child reset when he or she feels out of control like this?

  8. Let your children know you’re on their side and that you’re working together.

    Spelling, math, and other tough subjects aren’t optional, but you can work together to find solutions. I told my kids that this meant that I would listen and make accommodations—and it also meant that they would try to learn self-control, be willing to try hard things, and try to communicate with me when things were too difficult.

  9. You may find additional help in our online Resource Center.

    We also provide free lifetime support for all our programs. If you hit a trouble spot, please don’t hesitate to email us, and we’ll help you come up with a solution. Some days are really rough. Hang in there!

  10. Happy mother and daughter

    If your kids (or you!) are experiencing tears and frustration over reading or spelling, be sure to check out the free e-book, “20 Best Tips for Teaching Reading and Spelling.”

    Free report - '20 Best Tips for Teaching Reading and Spelling'

    ___________________________________
    1. nationsreportcard.gov. Accessed 12/4/2019

    2. McFarland J., et al (2019). The Condition of Education 2019 (NCES 2019-144). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, page 91. Available: nces.ed.gov.

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Mandy

says:

Great tips, thank you! We are new to homeschooling and finding we are having moments like these. We will definitely be giving these tips a shot.

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Mandy. Frustrations come to all of us at times, so I’m glad these tips will be helpful for you.

Stephanie

says:

Great ideas! Reading, spelling, and math have all ended with moments where we could use these tips. We’ve done a few in the past, but will definitely try the others in the future. Thanks for helpful articles like this!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re so welcome, Stephanie. We’ve all had moments where having a self-control toolbox comes in handy!

Joy

says:

Love this post and the pic of Merry’s tantrum! ! My oldest is a perfectionist, so it has really helped us to work through new material together for a bit before she tries new things on her own. I need to try the toolbox!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Joy,
I love the photo of Merry too! It makes me smile every time.

I’m glad you found a way to approach new material together that works well for your child. Great work!

Michele

says:

Great post! I find, especially with my younger ones, incorporating physical activity really helps. My oldest (ADHD) would have trouble concentrating for more than a couple minutes even though she’s incredibly bright (2E). So I created an obstacle course of sorts (crawl under the table to the other side, do 3 jumping jacks, run around the table to the stairs, run down to the playroom, spin 4 times, climb up the stairs only touching every other stair, come back to the table, do a push up, then hop on the chair). We would do one small bit of schoolwork then the obstacle course (which I would time for her and she’d try to get a better time or I would change up the activities in each place). Slowly I would have her do just a bit more before the activity. Eventually she built up those sitting and concentrating skills and now as a 6th grader does beautifully (but still occasionally takes a physical activity break when she needs it.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Michele,
I LOVE your obstacle course idea! What a great way to meet your child’s needs! Thanks for sharing this.

Jenny Pearson

says:

This is such a good article. My daughter has difficulty with expecting perfection (#6 above). It can shut her down when she gets a lot wrong even when she is just beginning to learn a new concept. I appreciate the advice to help her understand expectations because it is important for her to be comfortable learning and understand that it is natural to make mistakes as we are pushing ourselves to learn new things.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Jenny,
Oh, yes, I completely understand. I had a couple of perfectionist learners, and we had LOTS of discussions about how they needed to get some things wrong. I explained if they got everything right every time, they would be not learning at all. And they needed to learn so they would keep getting better and better at things.

Katherine

says:

I love these tips and will use them.

Bethany Morrison

says:

So helpful! Thank you!

Kristal

says:

I’m really grateful for All About Learning Press. Not only is their curriculum a fantastic fit for my family, they also have excellent service to help in times of need.
I’ll definitely be using these tips on those hard days thank you!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Kristal. We are so happy to be able to be help in time of need!

Sharon

says:

Switching to All About Spelling solved our issues for now, but I’ll definitely keep these tips for the future.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Wonderful to hear that All About Spelling is working out well for you, Sharon!

Marie

says:

I love the idea of a “self-control toolbox” … and some good ideas below for transitions (which can be a challenge for a couple of mine, too). I think I need to print this out and keep it handy!

Crystal

says:

We’ve added in 20 minutes of physical activity before we start our morning routine of learning together and it has made a huge difference in decreasing tests!

Rachael

says:

Hello! So my son has dyslexia, age 8, 3rd grade. I had a tutor for him last year. She was confident that he was making progress and felt comfortable passing me the baton to continue on my own. Her recommendation for his work every day is to do 20 minutes fluent reading, 20 minutes challenge reading, 20 minutes writing, 20 minutes word work, and 20 minutes vocabulary. Does this sound like too much to you? And can the vocab be tied into reading? I use AAR, and vocab is incorporated, but its not 20 minutes worth of just vocab. What are your thoughts?

Robin

says: Customer Service

Rachael,
I’m happy to help.

One hour and forty minutes work seems rather a lot for an 8-year-old student to complete in one day, all the more so when the student struggles. Children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties must work harder than typical, so the work is all the more tiring.

We recommend working on reading for 20 minutes a day 5 days a week, and we have found that recommendation allows for great progress. That 20 minutes would include reading words in isolation and reading both easier reading and things that are a bit more challenging. I do not recommend having a child read something that is extremely challenging, as that is a recipe for discouragement and frustration, plus when children are working so hard to read words and sentences they usually don’t have any mental room left for comprehension. Rather, a good level of challenge is reading that a student is somewhat fluent with, but some more challenging words that must be decoded. Our article on How Much Time Should You Spend On Reading? details our 20 minute recommendation.

Some vocabulary work will be naturally tied to a child’s reading time, but even more so vocabulary is developed with a daily time of listening to an adult read aloud to the child. In addition to our recommendations of 20 minutes of reading instruction, we also recommend adults read aloud to their students for at least 20 minute a day. Here we discuss How to Build Your Child’s Vocabulary in the most effective way.

In addition to working on reading instruction for 20 minutes a day, and reading aloud to your child for 20 minutes a day, we also recommend working on spelling for 20 minutes a day. With All About Spelling, this will also include the 20 minutes of writing, as All About Spelling has a gradual progression for increasing the student’s stamina and fluency in writing, from words and short phrases in Level 1, to phrases and short sentences in Level 2, to 12 dictation sentences per step in Level 3. Partway through Level 3, the Writing Station activity is introduced. In this exercise, students write sentences of their own that they make up using some of their spelling words. In this way students have begun to use words in a more real-world context through dictation and writing, to help them transition to longer writing assignments.

I hope this helps, but please reach out if you have additional questions or concerns. I’m happy to help!

Joyce

says:

So helpful. Thank you.

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Joyce. I’m glad this is helpful.

April

says:

Needed to read this today, thank you!

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, April! I’m glad this was helpful for you today.

Beth Chambas

says:

Thank you for the guidance, particularly the idea of working to find each child’s “reset button”, anticipating triggers, and working on the invaluable skills of self-regulation and working through frustrations. I have been through the tears with one child so far (11 now…ages 7-8 were a REAL struggle!), and I am in the midst of it with my second (age 8….surely it will start getting better soon!?!?!?!). The hardest part is getting him to “show up”, to pause his playing and come to the table to learn. He’s very bright and the subject matter is actually much easier for him than for my ADHD oldest child–but noise and chaos make him agitated (hard to avoid with one ADHD brother and one toddler), and being pulled away from his play (which seems endless to me) makes him extremely angry. I know we will get there. Using games to make learning more fun does help a lot! It is one of the aspects I love most about All About Reading and Spelling.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Beth,
You’re welcome. I’m glad this has some helpful ideas for you.

One of the best things you can do to help your child with transitioning from one thing to another is give him a heads up that the transition is going to happen in X number of minutes. A 5-minute warning is usually fine for most, but adjust for what works best for him. Just let him know, “Hey, Sweetie. Five more minutes of playing, and then it will be time for reading lesson.”

Another very helpful thing is to keep a set routine. Not necessary a strict schedule where everything is done by the clock, but a routine of this always follows that in order. For example, if school always follows play time which always follows breakfast, then your child will always know when school is coming. Knowing what is coming is very reassuring to many children. Also, if school always comes at about the same time and after the same order of events each day, it seems far less arbitrary that you are interrupting his play for what you want.

I hope this helps some!

Lisa Jenkins

says:

Thank you for such a positive way to deal with tears that come during lessons.

Robin

says: Customer Service

You’re welcome, Lisa. I’m glad this was helpful.

Anna

says:

Great tips! Thanks for these suggestions!

Amanda

says:

These are all great, especially number 8. It reminds them that you love them and cheering for them.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Amanda,
Yes! It can become so easy to fall into teacher versus student mentality (both from the student’s and from the teacher’s perspectives!). It’s so important to keep remembering you’re in this together.

Elizabeth Horton

says:

Great ideas!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Thank you, Elizabeth!

Chaelene Ratzlaff

says:

Breathers for sure. What has also helped is me learning my own triggers and how to grow personally, so I’m better equipped to handle it when my student is at the end of his rope too. <3

Robin

says: Customer Service

Chaelene,
Thank you for sharing this. Such great approach to learn yourself.

Jennifer

says:

Taking a break and walking around our neighborhood helps us

Robin

says: Customer Service

That’s a great way to handle frustration, Jennifer! Getting some fresh air can make a big difference.

Ashlynne Manning

says:

If we walk away for a minute before the tears start and come back later it always helps us before it escalates.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Yes, such a great point, Ashlynne! Being aware of the build up and dissipating it before it fully develops is so important.

Julie

says:

A break can solve so many problems!

Beverly W

says:

Taking a break always helps us!

Jessica

says:

Good advice here for times when school might be hard. Lessons for all to learn: students and teacher, too!

Robin

says: Customer Service

So true, Jessica!

Janelle Belka

says:

Homeschooling is wonderful and can be difficult. I love it though

Robin

says: Customer Service

Such a great perspective, Janelle!

Kelly

says:

Looking forward to helping my kids be excited about reading!

Robin

says: Customer Service

Wonderful, Kelly! Let me know if you have questions about placement or anything else. I’m happy to help!

Natalia Rogers

says:

We do a lot of mini breaks, or refocus on a different aspect of spelling he’s doing good on. Things like that. I also try to talk about time’s I’ve messed up work stuff, home stuff, etc, so he sees mistakes are something everyone deals with. Not during the lesson, but just as a matter of course other days. He loves animals, so I have him snuggle the dog for a few minutes to calm down.

Robin

says: Customer Service

Natalia,
Thank you for sharing this! Such great ideas!

I especially love how you make making mistakes even as an adult a normal part of life. As adults, we know we all make mistakes, but too often kids only see that we have everything under control. It’s great to be authentic with our children!

Natalie

says:

It is really important to keep the lessons short and fun. Their school time should be limited also when they are in K-2. We are done with All About Reading, but we broke up one lesson into 2-4 days. We break up the spelling lessons too. It gets easier the older they get because they have a longer attention span.

Robin E.

says: Customer Service

Such a great reminder, Natalie, thank you! Yes, short consistent lessons are so paramount for minimizing frustrations and maximizing progress.

Mary

says:

I am so thankful I brought the reading program to teach my grandson. He is saying thank you grandma for helping him learn to spell while reading. He is proud of himself!❤️He takes frequent breaks running back-and-forth through the house and then returns to do more work. It was a big decision to spend the money, but I’m glad I did. Just seeing him proud of himself is well worth it! Level 2 reading program.