How to Deal With the Emotions of Home-Schooled Children

Children may grow resentful of a solitary school life.

While home schooling your children you must be prepared to deal with a range of emotions. Some children may grow resentful of not having a typical social life while others may simply need guidance to develop normal emotional awareness. A child who is not exposed to regular social interaction with other children has to be taught how to deal with not only their emotions once they reach the outside world, but also the emotions of others.

Instructions

1. Assign reading that shows your children other people's emotions in difficult situations. This is a great platform from which to discuss empathy, kindness and maturity with young kids.

2. Incorporate art into your home school curriculum. This will promote creativity and give your kids an outlet to express the emotions they may not be able to articulate.

3. Set strict rules but don't be too harsh. Its important your kids know when it is time for school, you're the teacher and are to be treated as an authority figure. Don't infuse your role as a parent with teaching. A teacher has to discipline her students and be stern -- you don't want your kids' backlash aimed at you even after school is through.

4. Use the times when you have to discipline your kids during school time as an opportunity to discuss their emotions. Bring up any frustration you see and discuss with them what they think would alleviate it.

5. Take your kids to the local playground after school is through. This should be at around the same time that regular school gets out. Your kids will have a chance to interact and socialize with other kids on a daily basis. Monitor their interactions and become friendly with the parents of your children's friends to schedule play-dates.

6. Keep family life as normal as possible. Just because your kids don't go to regular school doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed the freedom to play with other kids in the neighborhood or have sleepovers. This socialization is crucial to their emotional development.

7. Deal with your kids' negative emotions by taking them out of their usual routine. Schedule a field trip or have class outdoors. They're likely feeling overwhelmed by the solitary nature of home schooling and getting them to see home schooling from a different perspective can be a breath of fresh air.

Tips & Warnings

• Enroll your kids in after-school activities such as sports or dance classes. This will give them a chance to make friends and not feel so isolated.

• Don't overreact if your kids go through phases of anger and resentment. This is normal even for kids that go to school outside of home. You're in a good position to help your kids through those rough patches by having them with you at home.

References

• Families.com: Parenting; Home Schooling; Exploring Emotions With Young Children; Tedgar
• Child-Central.com; Homeschool Curriculum and Child Learning; Homeschool Art Curriculum Benefits