When families first start homeschool or a home-based charter school, parents typically run into two main roadblocks:
- Parents get overwhelmed by the tidal wave of curriculum options
- Parents don’t know how to motivate their children to get their schoolwork done in the home environment
However, there doesn’t seem to be any out-of-the box solution for problem #2. In fact, a lot of parents end up giving up and sending their kids back to school simply because they can’t figure out a way of motivating their children to get their work done that isn’t stressful.
Think about it. When most stay-at-home moms send their kids off to school, that’s when they would usually clean the house and get shopping done and run personal errands. But once they take their kids out of public school and bring them back home for homeschool/charter school, they don’t have time to clean the house as well as teach the curriculum.
Without the structure and social pressure of brick and mortar schools, kids immediately lose motivation to work and learn, and parents spend an excess of energy and time trying to get their kids to apply themselves. What should have been completed by 3:00 ends up dragging on late into the night. Mom ends up fighting with the kids about schoolwork. Dinner is late. The house is a mess, the kids and mom are angry at each other, and very little if any learning took place. It is the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be.
If parents stick to it, they will eventually develop a system that works. However, if you want to sneak years ahead and just borrow another homeschooler’s system for motivating students, just dive in and use the Moneypants app.
The Moneypants app is the easiest way to overcome the stress of homeschooling and help your kids learn to work independently. Here’s how:
Moneypants and Homeschool
The Moneypants app regularly rewards children for completely daily tasks. Only here’s the twist, the rewards are NOT an extra expense for the family budget. Instead, Moneypants reallocates money the family was already planning on spending and transforms it into rewards your kids are motivated to earn.
Let’s say as part of your homeschooling experience, you want to incorporate field trips like visiting the zoo and museums. Or, let’s say you want to give your child the opportunity to take voice lessons. With Moneypants, your child would get to earn these fun activities.
Homeschool children usually crave social outlets and really look forward to playing on sports team or participating on dance teams. Instead of you (the parent) automatically forking out the money for registration, your child can earn these awesome opportunities. After all, you were planning on paying for it anyhow! And they earn it by getting their chores done, by completing their math, science, history, and writing assignments daily before 3:00, and by getting along with their siblings.
Moneypants tracks their progress and budgets out the rewards, so you the parent do not have to juggle that.
Homeschool Soccer?
Here’s a real-world example of how this works: Sally loves soccer, and Mom used to pay $150 for Sally to play soccer, but not anymore. With Moneypants, Sally is now going to earn that money and pay for soccer herself. And how does she earn it? Here’s how:
- By doing her job (dishes) consistently
- By cleaning her bedroom
- By being a peacemaker
- By practicing piano 20 min daily without being asked
- By brushing her teeth and getting ready for the day
- By completing her math assignment
- By completing her science lesson
- By completing two grammar worksheets daily
- By watching a history lecture on Great Courses
- By getting to bed on time
- By exercising
- By getting to bed by 8:30pm
The app calculates how much money each of these tasks are worth and makes sure the money Sally earns is set aside for soccer.
And since Sally is the one who pays for the cleats and the team shirt and the soccer ball, Mom doesn’t have to remind Sally to put her stuff away or to take care of it. Sally will be motivated to take care of her own soccer ball and cleats. She knows how much things cost and how much she had to work for it. She appreciates the value of hard work.
She has Moneypants.
Mom has less stress; Sally has more responsibility and a sense of freedom and accomplishment. In the meantime, Sally is excelling in school and getting her work done without her mother even asking. And it was all for the $150 mom was going to spend anyway. No fighting. No stress. The homeschooling experience is a success.
Not only does Sally learn to work and to develop good habits and not only is Sally getting her schoolwork done independently, but she also then learns to shop and spend wisely. She’s going to be careful when she buys cleats and soccer gear because it’s HER money. She’s also the one who pays for the soccer registration, so she’ll be much more motivated to do her best at practice because she had to work hard to earn enough money to pay for it.
The Benefits
All family members benefit from using Moneypants with their homeschool routine.
Parents' Benefits
- Parents experience a higher level of satisfaction with their homeschool/charter school experience.
- They are reassured that their children are getting an excellent education and are progressing rapidly.There is less stress and conflict at home.
- And the home is cleaner and more organized despite the fact that the children are home throughout the day.
Kids' Benefits
- Kids gain a stronger work ethic
- better studying skills
- better health
- more confidence in their ability to learn
- more well-rounded
- development of financial skills
- life skills
- and an abundance of personal talents.
Parents win and their children win. Nice!
Affordable
For less than the cost of going out to dinner, an entire year of your homeschooling experience can be a roaring success, no matter the size of your family or the age of your children.
Summary
The number one reason parents throw in the towel when it comes to homeschooling is because they can’t figure out how to get their children to stay on task. In order to overcome this hurdle, parents have to figure out how to consistently motivate their children using the resources they have. Moneypants is designed to do exactly that! It is the easiest and most affordable way to help your child take advantage of the opportunities that they have and succeed in a homeschool environment.
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What about you? Have you tried homeschooling? How did it work out? What barriers did you run into? What were your solutions? Leave a comment below.
