Tips for Parents: Creative Homeschooling Solutions

We can easily fall into the trap of thinking that our children's intelligence means they should be prodigies, that they should be ahead in everything, and if they're not, we are failing them.

They will be ahead many times, but we don't want them to feel that their early development defines their intelligence. In some areas, they may seem on track with their peers, but what is going on inside is much different: deeper, broader, more complex and creative, more emotional and difficult to process.

To help us get out of the usual way of thinking about a problem, we can use the mnemonic SCAMPER to find new solutions.

• What can you Substitute?
• What can you Combine, such as drama and film with science and space travel?
• What can you Adapt to a higher level?
• What can you Modify? Instead of just learning the metric system, add its history, its use worldwide, its failure.
• What can you Put to another use?
• What can you Eliminate? Children may have learned it already or will learn it later along with something else.
• What can you Reverse? E.g., taxation before algebra.

As homeschoolers, we can get stuck in the day-to-day details of schedules, curriculum, sports and activities, causing us to get into the habit of thinking that this is all homeschooling is about.

Once in a while, it's good to take a step back, think about our homeschooling vision statements and educational philosophies.

• What do we want for our children?
• What do they want for themselves?
• What are your biggest social-emotional issues?
• How can you tweak homeschooling to get where you want to be?

If you wish your children were more motivated, consider some possible questions:

• Functional fixedness - being stuck using a tool in a single or habitual way. Are there examples of "functional fixedness" in education that homeschooling allows us to overcome? (e.g. grades)
• A "FedEx Day" - once a quarter, the software developers are instructed to work on anything they want for 24 hrs, provided it is not part of their regular job. Do you institute days like this?
• Dan Pink says that a cognitive challenge requires intrinsic motivation. How does this fit with extrinsic motivation?

For gifted people, unhealthy perfectionism can be a very serious and painful issue.

Perfectionists can be listed in five categories:

1. Academic Achievers: Must achieve 110%
2. Risk Evaders: All or nothing.
3. Aggravated Accuracy: Exactness and fixation on redos.
4. Controlling Image Managers: "I could have won if I wanted to."
5. Procrastinating Perfectionists: "I can't fail if it stays in my mind."

Consider how you can encourage the pursuit of excellence rather than unhealthy perfectionism.

Some specific techniques have rules that can make us more creative (not less).

Useful creative thinking approaches are:

• Brainstorming. Focus on quantity rather than quality, withhold criticism and judgment, welcome strange ideas, and combine and build upon ideas as you go.
• SCAMPER technique. When we have a problem to solve, a product to improve, or just something we want to do differently, we can go step-by-step through the SCAMPER acronym.
• Wishful thinking. Consider an ideal solution with no limits.

... to add life to your Homeschooling big-picture.

Answer the following questions on paper.

• What would my perfect homeschooling be?
• What effect would this have on me, my kids, my family, and friends?
• How would I homeschool if I had unlimited power and resources?
• What would ideal homeschooling look like in detail?

Ask your children the same questions. The point is to realise that unreachable ideals often have very doable aspects of new solutions.