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Help! My Child Hates Writing
So your child says he hates to write. What’s a homeschool parent to do? Believe me, I feel your pain. Teaching writing classes for thirty years, I’m no stranger to students who dread writing. With experience, though, I found some strategies that work. I love the challenge of convincing reluctant writers that they have something worthwhile to say.
Start here: Why does your kid hate to write?
Figure out why your child hates to write–ask. If she doesn’t know, then observe when the resistance sets in. Is it during the planning stages? (I can’t think of anything to write about!) Maybe it’s the fear of making a spelling mistake (tell him spelling doesn’t matter here). Or, your student is tired from all the handwriting (many curriculums require too much of this.)
Once you have some insight into the root of the problem, become partners in removing those barriers. Tackling the challenge together will show your teen how to solve her own roadblocks to learning going forward.
In my experience, I find two big reasons students hate to write:
1. Kids dread writing because they lack self-confidence.
They don’t like the way their words sound, and they believe others will view what they’ve written negatively. They think their ideas are stupid or their grammar and spelling are unacceptable. If this is the fundamental roadblock, create a writing environment that guarantees success and affirmation. Avoid situations (like a graded class) where perceived failure might occur.
2. Kids dread writing because the physical demands of handwriting (or keyboarding) suck up precious energy.
Your child’s attention span is a limited resource. If the physical act of creating a written piece saps his energy, then move the physical act of writing on to someone else’s plate (yours). Work on developing the stamina required for handwriting or keyboarding in other subjects.
Neither of these two barriers to confident writers may fit your child. One of the joys of homeschooling is learning how our kids tick–then tailoring our program to fit each kid. What barriers do you suspect influence your child’s dread of writing?
Once I’ve figured out what underlying obstacle is in the way, I select from my arsenal of strategies that have worked in the past:
Ten Writing Hacks to End the Struggle
- Deescalate the hostilities.
If your kids have strong negative emotions about an assignment, their ability to create will be compromised. Positive emotions enhance our creativity and cognitive functioning. Change the requirements of the assignment. Change the assignment. Eliminate the threat of a grade. Never share something a student has written with others without the student’s permission. - You write too.
You will be surprised by how engaged your teen becomex when mom or dad take on the assignment too. They will be eager to see what you produce. And, more importantly, you will gain a lot of empathy and insight into the struggles of a young writer as you try to answer the prompt as well.
- Create a spark.
Do something different, take a field trip, bring in a surprise visitor, read a story, share a unique image etc. Then ask your kids to write about the experience. Do it right away, while the moment is fresh in their minds. Or, when something unexpected happens, seize the opportunity to use that as a writing prompt for everyone. Enjoy comparing perspective later on.
- Have your kids write responses to questions.
Relate the questions to one central idea and increase them in complexity. Here’s how I might help students start a short story:
- Pick a name for your character.
- Is your character a boy, girl, animal, fantastic creature?
- How old is your character?
- What does your character look like?
- Where does your character live?
- Who are your characters’ parents?
- Who is your character’s best friend?
- What are your character’s favorite hobbies?
- What is a big problem your character is facing?
- Who is preventing your character from solving this problem?
- Who is helping your character solve this problem?
- How does this big problem get worse?
- What will happen if your character can’t solve this big problem?
5. Ignore irregular spelling, please!
When we emphasize correct spelling in anything other than a final draft, we limit what kids will write to the words they can confidently spell. This produces very boring, stilted writing. Let them use their full vocabulary and commend them for reasonable guesses. Celebrate any attempt to use new words, even if not technically correct. Most confident teen writers were once wildly experimental elementary writers. Spelling is an interesting cognitive skill that has little to do with a child’s writing ability. It is more connected to the strength of a child’s visual memory skills. My twin sons were natural spellers. My two daughters were inventive spellers. I’m a not a natural speller either. I didn’t use a spelling program with any of my kids. My daughters’ spelling improved by high school, but they had to use spell checkers and me to edit their work. Because my students were typically in high school, I did circle words that were misspelled in their final drafts, but I did not deduct points.
6. Let your kids dictate their thoughts to you.
Whether it is the beginning of a short story, a personal essay, or a research paper—the first step in transforming thoughts into formal written language is to state those thoughts aloud. (I frequently talk to myself when I’m writing.) With older kids you might negotiate an arrangement where you record one paragraph, and then they record the next. Or, you might agree to record the first page and then they take over from there.
7. Encourage your kids to just start writing anything on the page.
The key is to get the composing process underway. Coherent ideas often begin to emerge about half way down the first page. The act of writing has a reciprocal effect on our thinking. As we write, our brains become more capable of organizing our thoughts into a logical progression of ideas.
8. Write every day.
Clear the schedule of all other distractions and ask your kids to write for 15 minutes. Set the timer. Don’t give up. Stick to it. By the end of the first week, you should start to see less effort and more enthusiasm for the act of composing.
9. Have your kids read what they write to the dog.
Truly, a pet is an indispensable life hack for every homeschool program. If you don’t have a pet, then a stuffed animal will do in a pinch. But pets make the ideal listener—no judgement, just love and affirmation. Lots of kids became confident readers and writers because the family dog/cat/fish/rabbit always had time to listen.
Professional writers do this all the time and it’s a smart way to produce more writing. Work on some pieces together—they will love this together time. Collaborate with your child wherever a barrier to writing exists. Some of my own kids were in middle school, and I was still collaborating with them in authoring or typing a paper. (If you child is in a co-op class, just clue the teacher in so there are no misunderstandings.)
If none of these work, let me know, please. I’m happy to brainstorm with you. No matter what, don’t eliminate writing from your homeschool program. Our kids need to leave home confident, capable writers—it’s an essential skill that will open the doors to their futures.
Need more inspiration? Read this next:
Three Powerful Reasons Kids Need to Write.
We can help you raise a writer: Check out Aim Academy English classes. For all ages and all skill levels. Read our reviews.
Join My Mission — Raise a Writer in Residence
I’m passionate about helping parents raise writers in residence in their homeschools. I’d love to hear from you—what writing successes and struggles have you experienced in your homeschool? Anything I’ve missed in this post that you’d like to share? Connect with me on Facebook and at DebraBell.com.
Aim Academy offers writing-intensive English classes. See our selection here. We’d love to help you experience success in your homeschool journey.
- Deescalate the hostilities.
3 Easy Ways to Help Your Child Learn Anything
1. Retrieve It
Every time your child recalls what she is learning, she thickens the neural pathways to that information in her long term memory. Research shows that recall practice is more powerful than almost any other learning strategy. You can help your child accelerate this process by routinely asking questions about what she is studying.
- What did you study today in math?
- Explain to me how to solve this kind of problem.
- What are the reasons this historical event happened?
- Tell me about the process of photosynthesis again.
Every time your child recalls specific details or re-solves a problem, such is 3×5, that information becomes slightly more fixed in his long term memory. And he becomes just a bit faster at retrieving it.
Once your child can retrieve this information effortlessly, move on to retrieving newer learning.
2. Question It
This is what a healthy brain does: It craves new information because learning fuels cognitive growth. Without effort, your child’s brain calls questions to mind to pique his curiosity and to motivate him to engage in learning. Raising questions. Asking questions. Pondering questions. These are the indicators of a healthy, growing brain.
Your child participates in this process by purposefully raising questions about what she is learning—Don’t require her to immediately find answers. It is merely enough for her to ponder questions about the subjects she is studying.
You can maximize this strategy by asking your child to write his questions from the school day in a special journal. He doesn’t have to write the answers down—just the questions. You don’t want to make this task laborious. It should be fun and rewarding.
At the end of each week, sit down and discuss these questions with her—talk about any answers she may have found or theories she has formulated. Ask what new questions have emerged. The act of raising questions about what she is learning fires active learning—a brain on high alert for answers—a brain primed to make connections to prior learning—a brain attentive to the subjects she is studying.
If your child asks you to answer a question he has—please do! But otherwise, just let the answers present themselves naturally over time.
3. Draw It
Finally, ask your child to use that special journal to draw pictures about what she is learning. We think in pictures. We remember more details about information and events attached to images (not words). As we read text, we convert what we are reading into a movie in our mind—the words themselves do not scroll across the screen—the pictures we associate with them do.
Again, just as with the previous two strategies, we can contribute to these automatic brain activities by intentionally engaging in them—drawing a picture about the word problems from a math lesson or the processes in a science book or the events in your history studies will help him remember more details about those lessons.
Want to know the 20 Power Tools of Learning? Download a free printable here.
Why Homeschooling Works–From the Research
Homeschool Works Podcast, Season 1, Episode 1
My daughter, Kayte, a second-generation homeschool mom, and I have long talked about doing a podcast together (we are podcast junkies ourselves). With her persistence and technical knowhow, we finally found the time to pull it off. Our first two seasons are in the can and available on your favorite podcast app.
In our very first episode or our new Homeschool Works podcast, Kayte and I look at the research behind why homeschooling works. Everything we cover will help you focus on what’s most important in the design of your own home school. Spoiler alert, it is all about tailoring to the unique needs of each child. And we have suggestions on how to actually make that happen. We’re also going to be talking about interest, and why it’s so important to spark our kids interest. Before we start teaching them. We close out with ideas on how to pique the interest of your most reluctant learner, I learned so much while recording this episode with my mom, and I’m really excited to share it with all of you. So why well, the school works? What’s the purpose of this podcast? Like? What were we thinking when we decided to start this?
8 Reasons Homeschooling Works . . . And Tips for When It Doesn’t
After I finished homeschooling our kids, I headed back to school to complete a Ph.D. in educational psychology. I wanted to know how kids learn best. Wouldn’t that be helpful information for homeschooling moms and dads?
Researchers have studied how children learn for more than a hundred years. We have a substantial body of knowledge and consensus among scientists on many aspects of learning. One day in class I had an ah-ha! moment. I realized all our research points to one obvious conclusion:
If we built a school based on how kids learn best . . . we’d build a home.
How’s that for some liberating good news? And, doesn’t it make complete sense? A child’s optimal learning environment is the one God designed: a family.
Now, here’s the caveat—we can miss the opportunities our homes afford our kids to learn. We’ve got to nurture the advantages and eschew practices that undermine their learning.
Let me unpack this with eight major findings. (These results should correlate with your own learning experience. How kids learn best and how adults learn best is not that different.)
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Kids learn best when they believe their teacher and fellow students care about them.
Have you ever taken a class where the teacher didn’t even know your name? Worse, how about a situation where you suspected that the teacher or another student didn’t like you? What did that do for your confidence and motivation? Think about the effect circumstances like these would have on each of your kids. Conversely, think of a learning situation you really enjoyed or you put forth your best effort. Was the teacher or mentor personally invested in your success and well-being? Did you feel included? Didn’t that help you to push yourself?
No one cares more about your kids than you do. There’s a lot of power in this truth—even the best teachers can’t be invested in them like you are. When conflict arises, hit pause. Wrap your arms around your brood and talk it through. Learning will be a slow slough until relationships are restored. (And, celebrate the freedom you have to hug your kids. Sadly, classroom teachers can’t do that anymore.)
Motivation skyrockets when we fill our homes with affirmation. I posted notes in strategic places to remind myself to be nice and praise my kids (but I’m sure you don’t have this problem). Get your kids in on the game plan too. They need to know that they have a lot of power to undermine or propel your success and the success of their siblings. You will be the best homeschool teacher possible when you feel loved and affirmed. And, your children’s learning will soar in an atmosphere that exudes warmth and affection.
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Kids learn best when they have opportunities to pursue their interests.
As a classroom teacher, I knew this. But, I just couldn’t allow ninety students that freedom–I was paid to keep them in their seats and away from the windows. No, you can’t look outside! Eyes front while I teach you about what is out there. What a shame because interest indicates readiness. Is your child interested in what the letters on the page mean? Then your child is ready to learn how to read. Is your child curious about dinosaurs? Then dive in now before his or her interest wanes.
Our son, Gabe, got fascinated with the physics of flight when he was seven. What a joy to have the ability to drop what we were doing and head to the library to check out all the books on the topic. Many were way above his reading level, but his interest accelerated his comprehension. Dad bought Estes rockets and taught Gabe how to launch them from our backyard. (Neighborhood kids were asking to be homeschooled when they saw all the action at our house!) We all went to an airshow. Even Gabe’s siblings and moi got caught up in his enthusiasm for flight. By the end of his exploration, Gabe could explain how planes fly better than most high school students–even I remember what we learned to this day.
Think of the lost opportunity if I had said, hang in there, buddy, we’ll get to that in fifth grade. Right now the second grade science standards require us to study plants. It’s a good thing we took advantage of Gabe’s interest when it appeared. By fifth grade he was no longer interested in flight. His attention had turned to rocks.
Interest is powerful stuff–go with it. It awakens the brain and facilitates deeper learning. Homeschooling works when kids have a lot of freedom and leisure to follow their own pursuits. It empowers them, and they’ll take more responsibility for their education. Fill your home with fascinating, worthwhile things to explore. Banish the media and twaddle to a dark corner or grandma’s (guilty). Then sit back and watch the magic–or better yet, dive in with them.
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Kids learn best when they can make choices and participate in decisions about their learning.
Test this against your own experience. How much motivation would you have if someone made you homeschool your kids? How about if someone else assigned the curriculum and determined the schedule you follow? Doesn’t this finding make complete sense? When we have no voice or control, our motivation wanes. We invest the greatest time and effort in areas of our lives where we have freedom to choose and the opportunity to be heard. Kids are wired just like we are.
This doesn’t mean we have to let our kids run the show—but they should have a seat at the table. Give your kids as much choice and involvement as their age and maturity allows. Young children can choose between two books to read; teens are ready to choose what classes to take. Young kids can participate in setting the schedule for the day; teens can manage their time. Invite younger kids to weigh in on the curricula you are considering, while teens can bring their choices to you for your thoughts. A collaborative relationship with your kids may feel time-consuming at first, but you will be so glad you went this direction as your teens take on more and more responsibility, and your time is freed up to concentrate on little ones.
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Kids learn best when they can observe older students who model what success looks like.
Kids learn more in a multi-age setting than a room filled with age-mates. (It’s why the one-room schoolhouse worked.) A multi-age setting allows younger kids to see older kids achieving success in areas they are just starting to learn about. This visual gives them confidence that, with time and effort, they too will achieve success. Peer modeling also makes the steps involved in progress apparent. Having only an adult (like a teacher at the front of the room) as a model of success is too big a gap.
If your child is the oldest of siblings or an only child, join a co-op or activity that includes kids of multiple ages. Our homeschool drama troupe has a wide range of ages in our productions—it is striking to note the acting chops our youngest members have by the time they reach high school. They’ve had the advantage of watching the kids ahead of them go from stage fright to accomplished actors. Keep this finding in mind—kids learn more from observation than instruction.
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Kids learn best when they have a teacher who is available to provide feedback and support.
I believe I was a dedicated high school English teacher. But with ninety students a day, my goal was to return essays within a week. Even that was too big a lag between submitting the assignment and receiving feedback. My students’ lives were eons beyond that assignment by the time I returned their papers—few gave my feedback more than a glance. The more immediate the feedback, the more useful it is to students.
I remember a day my youngest, Kristen, was working on some math exercises. As I took a moment to observe her progress, I saw she was forgetting to carry and borrow when needed. It was a simple matter to review those steps together and have her correct her mistakes. (No tears. No drama.) What a different story if I hadn’t looked at her work until the end of the week—she would have completed several math pages by then and repeatedly reinforced her mistakes. The more we practice a procedure incorrectly (like solving a subtraction problem) the more difficult it is to unlearn our errors.
I realize that your time is limited—so prioritize being available when kids are learning the proper procedure for completing a task. With other types of assignments, I asked my kids to schedule appointments with me if they wanted help on a project or composition. I always tried to get with them within the day. Being available to help when asked is key. (You can also involve older siblings in this responsibility—explaining something to a younger child reinforces learning in both students. Isn’t that amazing? Another finding that explains why homeschooling works!)
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Kids learn best when what we ask them to do matches what they are ready to learn.
God has created this fabulous process called development, and each kid has a unique timeline for his or her cognitive growth. We need to cooperate with God’s game plan for each of our kids. We don’t stress out when a child’s physical development is not the same as a peer’s. If our child is two inches shorter than an age-mate, we don’t bring in specialists to figure out how to help him or her catch up. We don’t start remediation exercises. We understand that physical growth is not standardized. But we are conditioned by our own school experiences to believe cognitive growth is. If our child is not reading by age seven, we believe our child is behind. We worry that we are not doing something right when the real reason may simply be that the child is not developmentally ready yet.
This is the fundamental problem with Common Core standards (yep, I’m going there). Not a single developmental psychologist was involved in developing them. These standards don’t account for the wide degree of variance kids of the same age can have in cognitive growth. Some kids mature physically early. Others mature late. We understand this is normal. But, variance in cognitive abilities among children until after adolescence is also normal development. How abusive to make kids believe they are behind because some peers develop cognitively a bit earlier than they do. That’s what the current high-stakes testing climate in our schools is doing. It is harming kids. (One reason homeschooling is growing worldwide, even where illegal, is parents in Asia and Europe have seen what high-stakes testing does to children, and they believe they are saving their kids from harm.)
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Kids learn best when they can experience what they are studying firsthand.
God gave us five senses for a reason. Each one has a limited capacity for processing information. However, our capacity multiplies when we use more than one sense to process new information. When all five senses are involved, our brain’s capacity to learn is exponential. If I read a book about elephants, I will remember some of what I learn. If I watch a documentary about elephants, I will remember even more. But if I travel to Africa to see elephants in their natural habitat, I sure won’t forget that, and my recall will be extensive and vivid forever.
Textbooks are at best a tool to help us save time. As a learning aid, they are limited. Schools have no other real option because they are mass educating. But homeschoolers do. I’m not saying throw the curriculum out the window—but our kids will remember most what they experience. So, make the most of the freedom we have. Liberally link field trips to what you study. And choose to study what your kids can experience whenever possible.
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Kids learn best when they have plenty of physical activity, sunshine, and fresh air.
Not only did God intend for us to use all five senses to learn, He situated us on the third rock from the Sun intentionally too. The Earth is brimming with the data our brains are built to process. Our kids need to get outdoors and start processing! Exploring God’s creation promotes brain health. This is one reason I travel. I’m keeping my aging brain healthy. I’ve got to keep processing new information if I want to stay young—just like I’ve got to keep active. Research shows just fifteen minutes in nature increases our cognitive capacity. (What a shame that recess is being eliminated in many school schedules.) We intuitively know this to be true—We go outside to clear our heads, take deep breathes to calm down, walk to help us think straight. We gravitate naturally toward what is best for us.
When you consider these eight findings about learning, it’s obvious why homeschooling works. You’re probably already doing most of these without thinking about it. Our optimal learning environment is the one God has designed—the family and His creation—and it fits our kids (and us) like a glove.
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Homeschool for Success: High School Planning Grid
Use this planning grid to map out a high school homeschool program that ticks all the boxes.
I learned a nifty strategy from my kids’ math program one year: Work backwards. Since then, it’s become a life mantra. Want to end up in a happy career? Start at the end and figure out each of the necessary preceding steps along the way, one by one. Want to end up with a college-ready senior? Plan the senior year first, then the junior year, and so forth all the way back to 8th grade. This strategy will help you make sure you don’t skip something important and ensure you allow adequate time for the priorities.
Your high school plan will get revised many times, but keeping the current draft front and center will help you and your collegebound kid say no to opportunities not on the pathway. (A common pitfall is trying to do too many things during high school instead of a few things really well.)
I created a planning grid when I wrote the Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling Teens and a copy of it also appears in the appendix of The Ultimate Homeschool Planner I created for Apologia.
Download a blank planning grid here.
Download a sample high school plan for a competitive scholarship candidate here.
Collegebound homeschooler? Checklist of classes, tests, and experiences by graduation.
Positive Psychology Classes w Bonnie Gonzalez (and Ernie)
Ernie is a fainting goat, who does in fact faint!
Because fainting goats like to be in packs, Mrs. Gonzalez and her two dogs have to spend a lot of time hanging out with Ernie to make him feel safe and secure. (Always the good therapist!)Positive Psychology is the study of the traits and conditions that contribute to human flourishing and well-being.
Positive psychologists focus their attention on our strengths instead of our weaknesses. This focus has been shown to improve our happiness and our success in reaching our life goals.
At Aim Academy, we make the tenets of positive psychology part of our academy-wide culture. We want our faculty, students, and families to flourish by equipping them with an understanding of their innate strengths–like grit, a growth mindset, and resilience.
One of the main ways we accomplish this is through webinars and classes taught by Bonnie Gonzalez, a licensed and practicing family counselor.
Q. Bonnie, tell us a bit about your background and your goals for your students at Aim Academy?
As I troubled high school student, I wished for a teacher to guide me through some tough decisions and to help me make wise choices about my future. After spending 30+ years “doing” psychology as a counselor, I decided to become THAT teacher for high school students – someone who would use the principles of positive psychology to help students learn about their thoughts and behaviors, and to make good decisions.
I have always believed that if you love a subject you will learn it! In practice then, as a teacher, my goal is to help my students love the topics in psychology and sociology. In my classes we study everything from the areas of the brain that direct our behavior to the influence of the people and groups around us as we make decisions and gain our motivation. My job is to help my students discover the “whys” of what we do, and then look at the possible ways to channel their behavior toward something that is worthwhile and good.
Q: What do you enjoy most about teaching for Aim Academy?
There are several reasons I love teaching at Aim Academy. First is the interactions with students and parents. The size of the classes allows me to fully engage with each student and with his/her parents. Working together with open communication allows me to plan my class for the benefit of each student’s needs. I also enjoy teaching with Aim because of the interaction with faculty members and the freedom to explore new classes that might be helpful to our student population. Our faculty is open to new ideas and new courses that benefit our students.
Q. What got you through the pandemic?
Throughout the past year, I have spent lots of time reading psychology books – I guess reading would qualify as part of my pandemic relief. The pandemic also allowed me to spend quality time with family (since we were only seeing each other), without the hustle and bustle of life. Our conversations and time together were delightful. Finally, I got through the pandemic by spending lots more time in prayer and some quiet reflection.
Explore Bonnie’s Classes
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