We’ve all had bad days. You know the days when your kids are just not cooperating and complaining about everything. Your frustration levels are escalating. Everyone is on the brink of a major meltdown. As a parent, the last thing you want to do is quit your homeschool day. You don’t want to send the message that the kids can act out and you’ll eventually give in. That being said, it is important to find ways to reset your day.
From my experience, when Grasshopper is having a meltdown (often brought on by frustrations due to his inability to focus and dyslexia) the worst thing I can do is demand we push through. Depending on the situation I might allow an immediate break. However, more often then not, we will finish the current subject and then do something to reset our school day.
I’ve found that resetting the day can be beneficial to everyone. The kids will become distracted and forget about whatever was putting them in a bad mood in the first place. This will allow them to reset their minds and be ready to come back to school with positive attitudes.
It’s also great for me for the same reason. It’s a chance to set your focus on something other than school for a bit. Allowing me to be re-energized when we come back to school. I mean lets be honest, if I feel beaten down and discouraged because Grasshopper is in a mood, I’m not going to give it my all. I’ll push through the course material for the sake of getting it done. Allowing us to reset our day means when we get back to school I’ll give it my all.
How to Reset Your Day
When I talk about resetting your day, I don’t mean start over. I mean reset your state of mind. I’ve found this to actually be quite easy. I simply allow a break or another activity to do for a bit. I am careful to make sure that the other activity doesn’t become a reward for bad behavior. I’ve come to realize when behaviors are a result of Grasshopper’s ADHD or dyslexia and when he is just plain being naughty.
If you’re day needs resetting because your child is being naughty, you will need activities that won’t encourage bad behavior in the future. You’ll probably need to discipline your child and give them the consequences for their behavior by giving time outs or taking away privileges. Whatever consequences you have in your home. After handling the parenting side of bad behaviors however, you may still find that you need to reset attitudes.
Activities to reset the day:
- Run errands – They need to be done anyway, take the opportunity to step away from schoolwork and still be productive.
- Take a walk – Sometimes fresh air can do wonders.
- Play a game – Use a short game, the idea here is to reset your day, not take it over.
- Chores – If your child has daily chores take a school break to complete them.
- Go to the library – You probably can’t do this everyday, but chances are you go there once a week anyway. Go when you need a reset.
- Extra Read aloud time
- Bake a cake – Have some fun in the kitchen and add some anticipation of having cake later (after school is finished).
- Go to the park – Run off some of that energy!
- Art projects
- Quiet time – This can be a variety of activities your kids enjoy like reading, play legos, coloring, favorite toys.
The beauty of many of these activities is that they don’t have to be long. Some can be as quick as 10-15 minutes. In that time their minds will focus on something else and away from the bad attitudes. While they might not be ecstatic about getting back to their school day, at least they are no longer in a negative mindset. Reset their attitudes through redirection and you will reset your homeschool day!
What do you do to reset your day? Comment below!
Although I am retired from home educating, I do remember those days, and one thing I learned was to be able to sniff them out before they totally manifested in behavior that needed correction. All my kids had no learning troubles, but we all have “those days” as you said.
One thing I learned was that when I was feeling stale, it was a sign they were, too. One thing we did was eat lunch outdoors. If they saw me preparing sandwiches and wrapping them, they perked up at the THOUGHT, and I felt I was not rewarding them for choosing not to handle their day better.
Because it hadn’t come to that, yet.
If it was raining, sometimes I instituted a march around the house with percussion instruments, singing praise songs to Jesus. That always had the double effect of resetting their bodies with exercise, and their personalities with higher thoughts. But sometimes we took a break just to study the rain, as a science topic. There is something about boots and umbrellas that just make a rainy day more fun. If there’s no lightning!
My last ditch secret weapon was a rubber band war. Started by the teacher. (Imagine having to keep a stash of rubber bands at the ready, just in case…!) I never timed these, but we did not stop until we were tired. The chase was amazing and the only time Mom allowed running in the house, so was a special delight.
And it worked. 😉
great ideas Katherine! Love the rainy days ideas 🙂
Great points! I think sometimes homeschool moms feel the need to push through, but distraction is a great tool, and can still be something they learn through. Kids’ behavior can be affected by so many different things that are beyond their control, such as being tired, hormones, or even what they ate for breakfast (too much sugar?). So it makes sense for everyone to just switch gears and see what works best for that day.
So true, there can be many reasons causing a bad day.