11 Tips to Keep Your Homeschooled Kids Motivated and Engaged

One of the unchangeable laws of teaching is that you can’t force a mind to learn. If your kids are going to learn – whether it’s math, grammar, or how to tie their shoes – they need to be interested enough to pay attention, think, and practice.

Of course, as parents we can’t just leave it all up to them to decide whether they’re interested or not! We can’t simply let our kids skip learning multiplication because they think it’s boring. We know that they need a certain set of knowledge and skills to be effective adults, and we have taken on the responsibility of making sure that they learn those things.

So, as homeschool teachers, we need to learn the skill of motivating our students to do their schoolwork. Fortunately, we have human nature on our side! Learning and thinking is what we do as human beings. It’s how we live.

Think back to the last time your child learned something new. Maybe they learned to do a cartwheel, or set a new record in a video game, or a friend told them something they didn’t know before. They were probably excited to tell you about it! And, because that learning was rewarding to them, they were motivated to continue to learn more.

Our kids might never feel the same level of excitement about math that they feel about Minecraft or the other things they love doing. But we can tap into the same sources of motivation to help our kids to pay enough attention to their lessons that they can continue to grow – and even enjoy the experience.

Here are 11 ways that you can increase your child’s motivation and engagement in their homeschool work.

1. Know why the learning is important

Think back to your time in school. Do you remember ever asking a parent or teacher, “WHY do I have to learn this?” Did you get a satisfying answer?

As homeschool teachers, we have the luxury of teaching our kids only the most useful and important content. We don’t have to keep them busy with “busywork” for a certain number of hours every day. If you are going to insist that your child spend a portion of their precious childhood doing a certain piece of work, you should be 100% convinced that it is worth doing.

If you aren’t sure why you are teaching something, stop and question whether you really need to teach it. You may need to take some time to learn for yourself how the lesson fits into the bigger picture of the subject. Or, you may decide that it isn’t worth doing after all.

Knowing the value of the learning doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to convince your six-year-old to see it! It means that YOU will have the conviction that it is important for them to learn, and over time they will trust you because they will see that you are teaching them valuable knowledge that helps them do things that are important to them.

2. Show them how the learning helps them now

My son was six years old and already halfway through our phonics curriculum, slowly piecing together short words, when his wonderful aunt sent him a Dog Man book for his birthday. It was as if a switch was flipped. Suddenly he had a way to use his learning that was all his and that he was so excited about! The first time he woke up in the morning to tell me he had stayed up late to read a whole book by himself, he couldn’t have been more proud of himself.

Experiences like this help motivate kids by helping them see the value of learning in general. Remember those old commercials that ended with the phrase “Knowledge is power!”? It’s true! Knowledge worth teaching truly does empower our children to do all kinds of things, and the more great experiences they have with using what they’ve learned, the more excited they will be to continue learning.

You’ll also notice that my son’s experience was not something I set up for him. It was something he chose on his own. I had to point out the connection between learning to read and being able to enjoy all the graphic novels he could get his hands on. When he got stuck on a word, we could sound it out together, and I could make a note of some tricky words to work on the next time we pulled out our phonics curriculum.

3. Connect to their current interests (but be careful!)

Dog Man books were definitely an interest of my son’s, and I was able to connect to that interest to motivate him to work hard on learning to read. However, I have to add a word of caution to this tip because I have seen well-meaning parents take all the joy out of an interest by turning it into “school”!

If your kids are obsessed with Minecraft, for example (like mine are!), it might be tempting to buy Minecraft-themed math books, sign up for Minecraft education edition and only let them play that, and have them build a model of the Pyramids in Minecraft for history class. And then we wonder why they are acting like Minecraft is a chore, when it used to be so fun! The same can happen with interests like Harry Potter, Ancient Egypt, kittens, art, or anything else.

The the secret of using children’s interests to motivate their schoolwork is to bring in just enough to make it feel personalized and relevant. But we also need to leave space for them to follow their curiosity and engage in self-directed learning on their own time.

Let me put it this way. What is the purpose of school? It’s to learn the necessary skills and knowledge that will help you live an effective and fulfilling life. We don’t live so that we can do school! Children are just starting to develop interests that will inform their values and decisions as they grow into adults. The academic things they learn during your homeschooling time should support those interests – not the other way around.

4. Connect to their future selves

Kids know that they have a lot to learn. They know that adults can do things they can’t do, and they know that there are big advantages to look forward to when they finally grow up and get to make all the decisions!

Whether or not your kids have a clear idea of what they want to do in the future, they know that they will need to gain all kinds of skills and knowledge to be ready for that time. They are counting on you to know what those things are and to make sure that they learn them.

Of course, we don’t know everything our kids will need to know. Their choice of career might totally surprise us, and the world could change in major ways in the next 30 years (just like it has in the last 30!). But if we focus on building strong foundations we can be confident that our kids will be ready for anything.

You can use this confidence to help you motivate your kids here and now. Make a practice of pointing out how something they are learning now is paving the way for something they will learn or do later, or when they are able to master something new because they had previously learned the basic concepts. Feeling pride in their own growth and efficacy over time will help them stay motivated to continue learning.

5. Model the value of learning

One of the BEST ways to influence your child’s attitude towards learning is to show them how important it is to you by making sure it has an important place in your own life. Modelling is one of the most powerful teaching tools we have.

We all know the folly of trying to get our kids to “do as I say, not as I do”. It doesn’t work very well! Children learn much more easily by copying the actions and attitudes of the adults in their lives than by being told what to do. If they see you spending time reading, taking classes, trying new things, or learning from others, your actions will become part of their souls. It will help form their idea of what life is like and how they should live it.

But there’s another huge advantage to this tip that I don’t want to overlook. The truth is that seeing you learn is good for your kids, but it’s also good for you! Learning is truly a form of self-care and is something we can continue doing for our whole lives. So, by making time in your day to do your own learning and let your kids see you do it, you get to not only do something great for yourself, but you also get to model the very positive habits of both lifelong learning and self-care for your kids.

I hope I’ve convinced you to pick up that book, enrol in that course, or try out a new skill!

6. Learn along with them

As homeschooling parents, we have the privilege of revisiting and repairing our own educational experiences. Even if you had a great primary education, you will probably find that there are some important things that you either forgot about or never learned, which you’ll have to brush up on in order to teach your children! Whether it’s the mechanics of phonetic reading, how to do long division, or the exact dates of important events in history, you are going to find yourself learning along with your children at some point in your homeschooling journey.

Embrace these times when they happen! Just as modelling your own learning is great for your children, so is learning along with them. They get to see how you think through problems, what questions you ask, and where you go to find answers. You demonstrate to them that it’s okay not to know everything and that they are capable of learning more and solving problems.

Don’t be afraid to act as a learner alongside them even when you do already know what they are learning. In a classroom setting, children often get the chance to watch their peers answer questions or solve a problem on the board in front of the class. Sometimes in homeschooling kids can suffer from being always “on the spot”. Watching you do a few math problems or working with them to write a paragraph can give them the confidence and motivation they need to keep on working.

7. Inspire them with big ideas & great achievements

Nothing is more motivating to a child than watching someone else do something fantastic that they feel they could do, too. From practicing cartwheels on the lawn because they saw a friend do one perfectly to deciding to become a doctor after seeing a great rescue on a TV show, inspiration is a powerful motivator.

Art like books, movies, and TV shows can show fictional characters with heroic qualities, and the artists and other people who collaborate to create them often have fascinating stories of their own. It’s easy to incorporate great books and other works of art, classic and modern, into your homeschool routine. These are also a great way to introduce your students to the “big ideas” that have been central to human thought for millennia, such as the nature of truth, beauty, and justice.

Learning about great people from history (and great people still alive today) can also help your child expand their idea of what could be possible for them. Accomplishments in leadership, discovery, innovation, athleticism, and countless other realms of human endeavour are amazing to learn about.

Of course, in both art and real life, not everything is rainbows and roses. People do shockingly bad things as well as good and inspiring things, and both are important to learn about. It’s a good idea take a survey of the things your child is encountering and ask whether there is a positive balance of good and bad. Are they surrounded with enough motivating and inspiring content that they are finding positive role models (real or fictional) to emulate? If not, consider adding some to help ensure that your child stays motivated to make the best they can of their life.

8. Develop their powers of attention

All learning is a result of paying attention. Students can’t learn something unless they are at least somewhat focused for a period of time. Of course, the amount of time a child will be able to focus depends on their age and temperament; some kids have a harder time than others. But the ability to direct their own attention and become absorbed in an activity is valuable and worth taking the time to build.

The development of attention starts much earlier than formal schooling. In fact, you can begin to encourage your child to develop their attention by purposely in infancy and toddlerhood!

When your toddler is watching a bug crawl across the floor, they are paying attention. When they try to put on their own socks, button a shirt, stack blocks or cut a banana, they are in a focused state. The best thing we can do at these times is to notice what they are doing and respect it by not interrupting them! This allows the child to have the rewarding experience of being absorbed in a focused activity, and they learn to enjoy and seek out such experiences.

Later, when they are old enough to start doing some school work, we ask them to turn their attention to something that we have chosen for them. We start with brief periods of work–maybe just a few minutes at a time for kindergarteners–and we slowly lengthen the lessons as they become able to pay attention for longer. Anything we can do to help them develop their powers of attention will make learning more enjoyable for them and help motivate them to continue.

9. Encourage their curiosity

Curiosity is the best kind of motivation for learning! You know a lesson is perfectly designed for a student when it sparks all kinds of questions in their mind. The information they have learned so far was at the right level of challenge for them; it connected with what they already know about the topic and now they are eager to learn more.

You can encourage your child’s curiosity by supporting them in exploring their questions. You can help them take something apart to find out how it works, or put things together to find out how they react. Maybe you can help them locate some supplies or equipment that they can experiment with, or help them do an internet search to find videos and books about the topic that has sparked their interest.

Learning becomes an adventure when it is driven by curiosity! Be sure to make time in your schedule for your child to explore their questions and dive down rabbit holes. Continue to make connections between new learning and known facts or other subjects. You can always get back to the lesson later, so stop to take advantage of natural curiosity whenever it appears.

10. Give them space to wonder

One of the best reasons for limiting your homeschooling plans to only the foundational essentials is to leave lots of time for your child to explore, tinker, wander, and wonder. It’s tempting to overschedule children these days, when playing outdoors seems to be a thing of the past in many neighborhoods and there are so many extracurricular activities to be part of.

Did you know that letting children be bored sometimes is good for their development? It helps them develop their creativity, initiative, and sense of personal identity. They will be more motivated to do schoolwork when they know it is limited to what is most valuable and that they will have lots of free time to do what they want to do when it is finished.

For children who are not used to entertaining themselves, there might be a learning curve and they may need some extra support from you as they adjust to having more free time. Screen time may need to be limited at first, but don’t discount how much valuable learning can be done on a screen. Having a good stock of art supplies, open-ended toys, interesting books, space to move their bodies and a designated area where they can make a bit of a mess are great ways to support them in exploring and figuring out what they love to do.

11. Make learning fun!

My final tip for motivating your kids to learn is to make learning fun! This tip is last because it works best when used with all of the other tips above. Fun is the “icing on the cake”. If you don’t know the value of what you’re learning, if your children don’t see how it’s connected to any of their current or future interests, if they are exhausted or overwhelmed past their power of attention, then adding more “fun” is simply going to fall flat. And school work is still work, it still requires more from them than purely “fun” activities like video games or free play, so it’s never going to compete on fun factor alone.

But, of course, who wouldn’t rather have a fun time whenever possible? It’s easy and effective to add games, humor, and physical activity to your homeschooling days. You can practice math facts with dice games, find board games to help teach any subject under the sun, recite spelling words while jumping on the couch, or bring your schoolwork outdoors on a sunny day. The options for adding fun to your learning are truly endless!

That’s it for my 11 tips to keep your homeschoolers motivated and engaged! Are any of these ideas new to you? Are there any you would add to the list? I would love for you to share them in the comments!