Homeschooling Siblings Is the Perfect Setup for Teaching Conflict Resolution
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Two is company; three’s a crowd. Not so with homeschooling! Even one extra child in your home can make things feel overwhelming and uncertain when you are taking on the responsibility of providing an education at home.
They grab each other’s toys. They vie for your attention. They refuse to share and hit each other and say mean things.
How can you possibly help them get any work done?!
In this episode, I share some tips and tricks for helping your children learn and grow together with a little more peace, love, admiration, and respect. I talk about my own experiences and tell you what I’ve learned from some other fantastic homeschooling parents.
Our Montessori magic is grace and courtesy - a few lessons you’re going to want to give your homeschooled children: walking around a rug and not interrupting!
Realistic Expectations For Homeschooling Multiple Children
As with any relationship, things will be difficult and contentious sometimes.
Sometimes you CAN’T make it work in the moment, and you have to shift gears.
Don’t let the snapshots of the *best* of other people’s homeschool experiences dictate how you feel when yours goes poorly.
Remember you cannot manage interactions at home the same way you would in the classroom.
Know that conflict is VALUABLE! And the way children navigate it can build deeper and stronger bonds.
Change Up Your Routine As Needed
Not every child needs to be having lessons and structured time on the same day! Perhaps each child has their own day, or period of time, when they know to expect one-on-one.
You can involve the children in one another’s lessons. Embrace togetherness when it can happen peacefully. Don’t require presence and observation, but do allow it!
You can designate workspaces and define the area where the child is working.
You can go outside EARLY and work afterward!
Trade children with another homeschooling family for the day, so each child is spending time with like-aged peers!
How are you picking your lesson time? Are you following the clock, or the child? If you are have highly regimented lesson times, you might want to lean more towards trying to offer lessons when the opportunity strikes!
Montessori Magic for Siblings
This week, we focused on Grace and Courtesy - specifically, a lesson on “walking around a rug”.
Grace and Courtesy is an opportunity to role play techniques to enable social success.
These lessons should be fun and playful; they happen in preparation for experiences or inspired by things that happened in the past, rather than happening directly in the moment.
When giving this lesson, you can use two small mats/rugs or bath towels. Leave a small amount of space between them--just enough for one person to walk carefully.
Explain to them what you are going to show them--and then let your movements take the lead!
Model moving between the mats VERY THEATRICALLY! Exaggerate your care and movements. Make it clear what they need to do with their bodies to be successful.
You can also model “How to observe,” or “How to be careful near someone else’s work”
