Keep your Teen Motivated to Learn
by Mimi Rothschild
Whether your teen has been home-schooled for the entirety of his or her academic career, or has just been introduced to home-schooling, you’ll want to continue to find ways to make learning interesting, fun and effective for your teenage son or daughter. This can be a bit of a challenge as your child gets older, but it’s completely possible with a few lesson plan adjustments and lots of creativity.
One of the most effective ways to keep your teen motivated to learn is to customize his or her lesson plan. One of the greatest benefits of home-schooling is the teacher’s ability to create a lesson plan that is specifically for the student, and not a general template of a lesson plan for a classroom. Pay special attention to the subject your teen excels in, and which areas he or she may be having trouble in. For instance, if your child is an avid reader, he or she may be able to understand math better if the assignments are in the form of word problems. This will help your teen to see their academic capabilities, and will motivate them to continue learning each day—even in subjects they could use additional assistance in.
Be sure to take as much time as you need to when you’re home-schooling to make sure that your teen is absorbing the academic material presented each day. When you’re home-schooling your child, you have the advantage of making sure that your child is learning effectively. If you need to spend extra time on a certain subject or come up with new ways to explain a certain concept to your child, don’t panic. When your son or daughter sees that you are just as willing to teach as you want them to be willing to learn, your teen may be much more cooperative, and will get the most out of every lesson plan.
Even though your son or daughter may be a teenager, that doesn’t mean that he or she is too old to take field trips. Getting out of the house every once in a while provides a good change of environment, and will help your teen to remember lessons for years to come. Going to the local museum to learn about art or history will make much more of an impact that reading about events in the history book. Ask your child where they would like to go for their field trip; and keep their suggestions in mind when you’re planning to teach outside of the classroom for a day. You may be surprised at the responses you get, but a field trip with your teen could make more of a difference in their academic—and personal lives—than you may think. As a parent and a teacher, you’ll want to make sure that your teen continues to be motivated to learn, but you want to make sure you’re doing your best as a teacher, in order to maintain a great parent/child relationship.
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