homeschooling

Motivation In High School Home Education

Homeschooling young children is often much easier than homeschooling teenagers. Part of the reason is that it can be difficult to keep motivation up during high school home education. Teenagers seem to want to do anything except learn.

It's important that you keep high school home education focused as these are the most important years for a teen's future, especially academically. Keeping your child focused and eager to learn may be difficult but not only is it necessary, it is also highly possible. Here are some ways for you to help your teen feel motivated and stay that way.

Customized Learning

A great part of high school home education is that you can customize the learning to your teenager's needs. This is also where home school special education comes in. One child may like to learn through visual aids, while another might need more audio cues. Exploring the way your teenager learns best is part of making high school home education a great experience for everyone.

Grades can often be misleading; they may not reflect how much a student has mastered a subject. Because of this the emphasis in high school home education needs to be on mastery and how much is learnt. While traditional grades can give an indication of how well your child is doing don't forget that they don't always tell the whole story.

A great advantage homeschoolers have over children in regular schools is that they can get constant personalized feedback. If your child is doing well let them know, this should also be done if a child is doing badly. Early feedback allows a teenager to understand just where they stand and to make adjustments in their learning.

Part of what makes high school home education so rewarding is that the subjects that are taught are ones that are truly necessary and engaging. Help your teenager find the value of the subjects he or she is learning. The personal importance of the subjects should also be explored so that teenagers are happy to learn and motivated to do well.

While rewarding teenagers all the time for progress is not a great strategy an incentive program of some kind is usually a good idea. It doesn't have to be a big deal but small rewards for work well done can go a long way towards motivating a teenager to stay focused. It is especially helpful in a classroom situation where there are no other students to compete with.