Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory
Introduction to
Home Education

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories National and State
Support Groups

 

Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Yearly Planner, Diary & Report

Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations

Homeschool Course for Parents

this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Homeschool Learning Plans
go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

Does Unschooling Suit Self-Motivated or Reluctant Learners?

© Beverley Paine

This question recently came my way... "Do you think a more structured programme suits reluctant or self motivated learners?"

I think this goes to the heart of the issue concerning unschooling or homeschooling methods - we all need to find resources and approaches that suit our individual learners, regardless of whatever style or approach of teaching/learning suits us as home educating parents.

I'd start by looking at the multiple intelligences and learning style theories. A google search will bring up hours of reading, mostly from the guys that developed these theories in the first place. Pigeon-holing a child into a 'style' or 'intelligence type' will help you understand that child's learning needs right now - I say that because a child grows and develops and if we're addressing the child's immediate needs then the learning style should change and the tendency to lean in one direction will gradually become more balanced.

I believe that all children are initially motivated to learn - it's natural to want to learn. Forcing children to learn things out of context to their lives - when there is no meaning that they can grasp or make for themselves, such as teaching algebra for the sake of it because it's a step on the way to calculus which isn't needed to solve a task now, but may be in five years or ten years time... Much better to introduce algebra as a tool for working out mental arithmetic problems while shopping. That's natural learning, or unschooling. But it requires that the parent learns as much, if not more, or already has the knowledge, to 'lead' the child when such excellent learning opportunities present themselves.

Children who aren't motivated to learn are usually children who aren't capitalising on their learning style - they are using an approach that doesn't gel with them. This may have been happening for so long they appear to be totally turned off from learning. Left alone they will eventually find the confidence to become motivated learners again, but it's frustrating and heartbreaking for us parents to watch our children waffle through endless days of boredom, and for teenagers the risk of depression settling in is very real. We intervene because we lack the confidence or knowledge of the best way to support our youngsters. Working out how they learn best is a constructive step. From there it is simply a matter of presenting information and skill building activities in a way that helps learning occur spontaneously, as it did when they were little.

This never precludes the use of school or text books or curricula written by others - not in a natural learning or unschooling setting or any other. These are valid learning tools. It would be impossible to learn the word of God without reading the Bible, for example. Books, television, film, radio, tapes, mentors, tutors, classes... excellent learning tools. What we need to do, as home educators, is set aside our personal preferences and find the tools that best suit our individual child. If we personally can't work with those particular tools with our child then perhaps we need to find someone that can - the other parent, a relative, close friend, homeschooling tutor, learning club...

I found, especially in the early years when my confidence in my children's ability to learn without intervention was practically non-existent, that working with school books in grammar, spelling and maths suited both me and my children. My youngest struggled the most with this approach and by and large we abandoned books until he had developed the skills to use them through other means. His ability to work with texts was not damaged by his limited experience with them during these formative years: at the age of 14 he worked his way through a maths text book and then began a correspondence course in electronic engineering. I didn't need to remind him to study - he set his own schedule and worked diligently through the texts, often with difficulty as he soon surpassed his father's understanding the subject. The motivation to learn, to keep at it every week, came from within. He's abandoned his course, but not because it was too difficult but because, having tried it, he discovered that isn't a direction he'd like to pursue. His interest in computers led him that far, but, as I already knew, electronics is only a minor interest in his life.

The trust I place in my children to work out, on their own, what they need to learn and which direction to put effort into, is very hard to maintain - my confidence still wavers daily. They are in control of their own learning processes though and they understand a great deal about what motivates them, and when they want something they go after it with passion and enthusiasm and they do a great job and feel satisfied. It's not an easy path - learning is full of conflict and painful moments and my kids experience a lot of stress as they work things out for themselves. I always want to step in and guide them... As I've slowly learned, my way isn't always the best way. And if it's motivation I'm looking for, then that has to come from the child, from his or her love of learning, from his interest, from his need to make meaning and sense from whatever he is doing, right now.

I am not convinced that motivation, or the lack of it, is the result of structure in learning programs. When children's learning needs are matched to the activity motivation is usually high. Reluctance to participate can be caused by many factors - these need to be addressed first. I've included a discussion on these factors in Chapter 4 of my book Getting Started with Homeschooling .

Browse our comprehensive library of articles!

keep up to date with new posts to this website daily by clicking here to subscribe

Support Groups: National SA VICWANSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information? Join Beverley's
The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of ours!

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of our Always Learning Books homeschool year level learning plans, packed with links to FREE lesson plans, unit studies and activities for each curriculum subject area, hundreds of suggestions, use what you want, only $18

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

itap into Beverley's four decades of home educating experience and learn how to write your own homeschool curriculum and learning plans to suit your child's and your family's individual needs, a complete how to homeschool course for parents in 3 self paced workbooks each focusing on a different aspect of home educating, planning, recording, evaluating and creating lesson plans image shows 3 workbooks, plus samples of pages, and 3 children walking in bushland

The Educating Parent acknowledges Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.

Without revenue from advertising by educational suppliers and Google Ads we could not continue to provide information to home educators. Please support us by letting our advertisers know that you found them on The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site. Beverley Paine The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links. Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up.

Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2025