Homeschooling

Does anyone have any ideas on how to motivate a 14 year old homeschooler? She does some reading and lots of writing. She has a writing tutor. She wont do any math or anything else. All really she wants to do is write and play video games or talk on the phone all day long.

Laurie

My 12 yo isn't terribly motivated. I push language arts and math, but otherwise I let him *unschool* somewhat. One thing that I do is to limit screen-time to educational uses only. So between 9am and 4 pm, when it comes to screen-time, he can only watch documentaries, do academic research on the internet, type on the computer, and play educational games (I would also ban use of the phone during this time if it were a problem).

This has helped a lot in getting him interested in more than the PS3. I do allow my DS, who also has been bitten by the writing bug, to write as much as he wants (after the math and language arts are done).

Good luck!

Ooh. Thanks. I like the idea of limiting screen time. I was going to just remove the games from her computer. But thats a little drastic.

laurie

I had another issue with my DS. When we first started homeschooling, I purchased a couple of educational games (Reading Blaster 9-12 and Math Blaster 9-12, to be specific) with the intention of offering them occasionally instead of our usual math and language arts worksheets.

What happened initially was that the games were met with contempt and deemed "boring" by DS. I thought to myself, "Ok, buddy. You think the games are boring? Let's see what you make of a steady diet of worksheets.", and I didn't even mention the games for two to three months. Just the other day, for the first time since starting to homeschool, I offered DS the opportunity to play Math Blaster instead of a worksheet. He was actually excited to play the game, and played happily for about 40 minutes.

It just goes to show that everything is relative. School-type work/activities aren't boring if the alternative is doing nothing at all for the duration of the school day, and educational games aren't boring if the alternative is yet another worksheet.