If your child is struggling with school, you know how frustrating it can be. Seeing them work so hard and not get anything out of it is hard. You might have tried everything from encouraging them to changing classes to even bribing them with treats, but nothing seems to work. At this point, you are wondering how to motivate a child who doesn’t want to study. You feel like you’re at a dead end, and your child’s grades aren’t getting any better. They just aren’t learning the material. If this sounds familiar, don’t worry: there are still plenty of things that can help motivate kids who don’t want to study! Here are nine tips for motivating a child who don’t want to study.
Take Homeschool Breaks
If you see your child is getting restless, it could be time to take a break. Try taking a break after just a few days, weeks, or months of studying. You can do this by having snacks and watching movies during the breaks. Let the child be in charge of what they want to watch if they don’t want to study anymore. Make sure that your home school breaks are relaxing but fun so they won’t get bored when they have nothing else to do but rest their brains for a little while. Your child could watch tv, play board games, or even read a book on breaks. Snacks are also great for break time.
Breaks are one of the best ways to motivate a child who doesn’t want to study.
Bribery Helps, Give Them A Prize
If you’re looking for ways to motivate your child, bribery may be a good way to go. Many parents and teachers have reward systems or reward boxes for school. You could have a rewarding activity after school, such as ice cream or going to the park. This can help them feel better about their performance during the day. It can also motivate your kids because they are working towards a prize.
Move the Classroom
With homeschooling, it can be easy to change things up. There are many ways you can move your homeschool classroom to make it more fun.
- Take lessons outside. If your kids are less engaged with a particular subject, move the classroom to somewhere they’ll be more comfortable. You can go for a walk, take field trips or even just play games outside in the park — whatever it takes to get them excited about learning again.
- Watch video lessons somewhere else. Suppose your child doesn’t like reading as much as other forms of learning and prefers videos over books. In that case, you can try watching educational videos online together as a family or separately at different times throughout the day. This way, you won’t have to worry about boredom while watching them! You can mix up the rooms, or even take a learning video outside like an outdoor movie.
- Take homework or schoolwork to a new desk (or table). Sometimes all it takes is changing your environment to feel fresh again!
Optimize Your Schedule
Schedule extra time for breaks, fun, learning, and physical activity. Make your schedule a visual aspect in your classroom and make it fun! If your child needs to take a few breaks during the day, or have a few extra days off a week and go more year-round, that’s ok! It is important that they know that if they need more help or extra practice on something, then it is okay to ask for it.
Don’t let them become frustrated because they are struggling with something, as this will lead to further problems down the road when it comes time for exams and tests! Feel free to work more flexibly with tests and the curriculum. Homeschooling allows you the flexibility to meet your child’s needs instead of the one size fits all standard.
Set Small Goals
If you want to motivate your child, set small goals and reward them when they are achieved. For example, one common learning goal for elementary school is reading a certain amount of time each day. 20-30 minutes, depending on the child’s age. This is a pretty small goal. Another small goal is going over spelling words each day. This may be a good goal for your child to learn how to spell, but it isn’t something that will take a lot of time. Even if you only set one small goal daily, the rewards will compensate for the extra work.
Make Your Learning Plan Fun
Preparing a learning plan is one of the most important things you can do to motivate your child and make studying more fun. Your learning plan should include many of the common elementary homeschool learning objectives. If they know what they will be learning, they will be more interested in doing it. You can create a game-like atmosphere by using different types of teaching methods and teaching styles, as well as different media and materials. Our learning schedule is set up like a Minecraft board game this year. You can get an example copy of our daily learning schedule from our free printable library. it also comes with game piece markers. When your child levels up, she can put a marker (Minecraft character) on the board. If you want to hang your schedule in the classroom, you can cut out the markers and put them on laundry clips to clip on the edge of the paper.
Get your free second-grade Minecraft-themed homeschool schedule from the printable library. It has a premade schedule and a blank schedule to fill in your own levels!
Make Your School Day A Big Game
Motivating your child to study isn’t always easy. But you can do a few things to make the process more fun and engaging for them.
One thing you can do is make your school day a big game, like with the printable Minecraft second grade schedule game above!
You’ll want to set up a reward system, whether it’s an allowance or another type of prize for good grades or behavior. Our personal reward is getting to play Minecraft after school is done or after our little player piece gets to the portal or treasure chest! In the past, we had a treasure box with sweets, prizes, or tickets.
Ask them if you’re unsure what kind of prize would motivate your child! What would they like? A new toy? Money? A trip somewhere? Give it some thought and be prepared with different incentives so they don’t get bored with one thing too quickly.
Focus on Learning Instead of Tests
When it comes to learning, it’s important to remember that the end goal is not the test. The end goal is your child’s happiness and gaining knowledge. If your child is simply learning for a test, all will be forgotten afterward. If your child is stressed about tests, think about ways you can help them feel less stressed in their studies and more excited about what they’re learning. It may be helpful for them to break down assignments into smaller pieces so that each assignment feels like its own reward—and this way, if something doesn’t go well with one part of an assignment, they’ll still have other parts of the assignment left over that they can feel good about having completed.
Make it fun! If you want your kids to enjoy reading or math or science (or whatever else), make sure there are some elements of fun associated with those subjects too! For example: maybe make up silly stories together while you read; maybe give your child a prize every time she does well on a test (but only when she has done her best); maybe play educational games together after dinner or before bedtime every night!
Make it Less Stressful
If your child is stressed, they are less likely to be motivated. Stress can lead to a lack of motivation, focus, or sleep. Stress can also cause children to avoid exercise, nutrition, and social interaction with peers and family members. Work to make your homeschool curriculum laid back and less stressful.
Kids Need to Be Shown That They Can Succeed, Even in Little Steps
The key is showing them that they can succeed, even in small steps. You can’t expect them to do it all at once, so give them little goals to achieve and reward them when they reach those goals. For example: “If you get good grades on your math homework this week, I’ll take you to see the latest movie.”
So there you have it, nine t ways to help your child get motivated to study. I hope that this article has been helpful and that you feel inspired to try some new methods on your own kids!
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