The Boy Who Cried, “Too Hard!”

(Copy bottom of content from Learning is Work draft.)

So you bought a giant shiny box of homeschool curriculum. It looked amazing in the catalog. Great literature, history, science, and a schedule telling you exactly what to do when. No more weekends or evenings spent planning. It was an open and go choice.

But your days are overwhelming. It takes all day to get through the schedule. You are exhausted by lunch and your kids are complaining. They keep saying it's too hard. But you know, it isn't. What's more, you love the curriculum. The content, the projects, it's interesting, engaging, and well-organized.

The only problem is, you just can't get it done.

What do you do? Throw it out? Buy again? Tweak the carefully curated schedule?

Things to Consider

Many publishers provide more than they expect you to complete. This is done even to teachers in schools. The thought is better more than less. What if you get through it all before the end of the year? It would seem like they did not give you enough to do. They publisher wants the customer to be impressed with everything they have included. They are not thinking about how you feel when the work put before you for a year, would, in reality, take 2 or 3 years if you completed everything.

No publisher or curriculum writer can know your kid. An assignment that may take one child 5 minutes, will take another kid 30 minutes. This is another reason the tendency is to give you more than you can do rather just what needs to be done.

What needs to be done also varies by child, as some children need much more repetition before they understand and remember content and concepts. The publisher wants to make sure that every child learns the material that has been presented and often does this by including assignments which are redundant for children who learn quickly.

Curriculum is a guide. A paved, smooth path for you to follow on your journey. It should always be a help and not a hindrance to our homeschool. But the attitude we have towards that path matter immensely. The speed at which we walk along the path should be based on the needs of our child.

Time is limited. We simply cannot allow academics to take over our day to the exclusion of other needed activities. We need to eat, move, breathe, rest, and play. These things are more important for brain growth and development than getting to the end of the math book this year.

The piece your child hates, or cries about, or swears on fudge that it is just too hard.

(Why didn't we do this part first? Cause, teacher, your attitude is magic. You've got to get that piece in order first. You have to wake up every day being grateful and glad that you get to do this amazing leisurely school-play thing with your kids every day.)

Now, your kid cannot learn if they are emotionally upset. They will be upset if they are stressed. They will be stressed if they are forced to do work that is either too hard or too easy. Believe it or not, kids don't always know the difference. They can be crying 'too hard' when the problem, is really that it is too easy. Because it is too easy they are bored. And because they are bored it seems hard.

Don't make your kids slog through concepts they already know. Add juice, inspiration, or complexity to the study. Even if it takes more time. Even if it means that you can't do 7 subjects every day. Even if it means they understand things they don't need to know for another 5 years.

Sometimes it is too hard because traditional school work requires a certain set of skills. It could be that writing out the answers to the science questions is too hard because your child's composition skills are behind their scientific understanding. They can't articulate what they know. And when they try they just turn into an emotional puddle because they know it isn't right. Or they just write the least amount possible, because they know they can write, 'water is wet' correctly and they know they don't know how to spell 'hydrogen' so they leave out the more interesting things about water.

That is normal. Kids doing the minimum expected of them is normal. Kids having trouble with one piece of an assignment is normal. They are not skilled at using all their academic skills at the same time. They are still learning many academic skills.

If they have to think about how to shape a letter or spell a word, that is a cognitive load. That means their working memory, the one that solves problems and creates stuff, is already busy with these details. It means there is not as much room left over for problem solving or creative thinking.

What might look like a simple assignment to us can be very complex to a child.

Don't be afraid to disrupt which skills are used for your child to complete an assignment.

For example, written work. The curriculum usually asks a child to answer questions in writing much too soon and much too often. This is a matter of convenience for the teacher, who can then assess which children know what. But it is much better for the young child to answer questions verbally, where they can get immediate feedback and engage in conversation.

Of course they need to practice the skill of writing. But we forget just how complex that skill is and we rush the process. Guess what? Whether your child can write a paragraph at 7 or 12 doesn't affect their college essay. Writing is mostly about thinking and we are wasting our time letting our kids think without us. Because we can ask them questions that make them think deeper, harder, or in new ways. We can challenge them. And they will love it. Because conversation is bonding, and because kids love puzzles. When we push them to think in new ways it is a new puzzle for them to explore.

Occasionally you will find a curriculum that does this pushing with its carefully crafted questions. If your child is old enough that they can write out their complex thoughts to these questions, you can let them, otherwise, you should be letting them talk to you about it.

You might be surprised at how much less time it takes when you switch to verbal answers. You may also be amazed at how much more your child seems to be retaining and learning. It is because connection with the teaching matters more than almost anything else in the learning process. And it is because their working memory is no longer overloaded with the mundane tasks of remembering which way the 'p' faces and how to spell 'because'.

I'm not saying you don't need to work on those mundane tasks. But they are best concentrated on in other ways. Work on the skills, every day, in short bursts. But don't hold your child's learning back just because they lack a few skills. Let them blossom and move forward in content whether or not they can spell 'hydrogen' for the test.

Let them prove and express their learning to you with the tools they currently know how to use. That might mean you get to practice listening.

So step two to taming that box is to tweak the thing that is sending your kid running.

Of course, there is an exception to this. Every kid needs to do hard things. Doing hard things is how you develop a growth mindset. You have to hit a wall, be sure you can't get it, and persist until you do get it. That is the only way to really have a growth mindset. You have to prove it to yourself with action. And kids need us, parents, to make sure they get that chance.

Sometimes your kids tears might just be because they are challenged. They are doubting themselves. The material is hard and they don't know if they will ever understand. In their hearts, they are afraid they might be stupid. You have to prove their smartness to them by not letting them give-up. This is not a short-term quick fix. And you don't have to make every subject challenge them at this level. Just one thing is enough to teach them this lesson. But it is likely to take several years. Eventually what is hard now will seem easy