What is it like to homeschool boys?  asketh the hopeful but hesitant.

To put it in terms boy moms can identify with…homeschooling boys is like training a sled dog team.

They’re cuddly, though often stinky. They understand directions and the goals set by the leader (mom), but they often growl and chew on the reins anyway. Each wants to be alpha. They crave adventure. They’re always leaving messes here and there. Always moving. Always hungry.

But you’re probably not here for dog analogies.

New homeschool moms (and the worn out) usually want to know if it is possible to homeschool boys without losing what’s left of their youth and sanity. They wonder if they can get their boys to listen, to work hard, to learn, to set goals…  to stop leaving everything they’ve eaten, worn, lost or destroyed like a trail of mom’s tears across the house.

Yes, it is possible to homeschool boys and absolutely love it. If you toss the rigid classroom model of learning via instruction and regurgitation at full attention, quietly in a chair. With shoes.

To homeschool boys is to free them from a dispassionate classroom that treats their natural tendencies as defaults and largely ignores the way boys thrive educationally.

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There is No Mold to Homeschool Boys

I wish I had a patented mold to sell you with which to homeschool boys to success. If I did it would be sold on an infomercial at 2am just after the thigh cream that evaporates cellulite and bad tattoos. Too good to be true.

We do have ever-changing schedules and routines I could outline and tie up in a pretty bow. Yet doing that leaves out the rowdy, dirty, game code-covered, constant snacking, I-love-them-so-hard, why-won’t-they-sit-still, truth other homeschool moms need to hear.

It is more accurate to tie-up homeschooling boys with a stretched-out deformed slinky.

Often boy moms assume they are homeschooling wrong, or failing completely because their sons growl at every assignment that must be written in complete sentences. Or they aren’t homeschool material because their boys loathe crafts, and turn nature walks into rock throwing, war whooping, tactical adventures (might be just mine).

But that’s just not true.

I know I’m rocking this homeschooling task through the parts my boys secretly enjoy and the outrage they blast me with regularly. I tailor learning to their needs and preferences where I can. Then I enforce and push them through what must be learned, like it or not.

While I could share my schedules and curriculum choices, that wouldn’t bring to life the experience of days filled with laughs, arguments, stink, sweet hugs, string cheese wrappers, random facts, and dirty socks. And how it somehow all works out.

I could not possibly organize my successes intertwined with the rip-my-hair-out moments into a five-paragraph essay of truth and helpful insights. Doing so would be like cramming my boys’ larger-than-life personalities, interests, and thirst for adventure into a tiny desk in a cement-walled classroom.

So much would be lost.

 

To Homeschool Boys… a Random Monday Morning

I figured a glimpse into our day might give a better picture of the rollicking and thriving environment that sustains the fiery styles of learning when homeschooling boys.

To homeschool boys is to reveal an unwritten and often ignored theme: A beautiful mess is more effective than dull organized rigidity.

Nuclear Breakfast

Monday began with a discussion of nuclear fusion over a bowl of fruit loops with my oldest (one minute older than his twin, who I refer to as D1). The other two were barely getting started. I had just completed my morning rounds singing “Rise and Shine” to roust them from their beds.

D1, my most favorite student, had finished his final paper for his economics class. A how-to essay on the creation of and cost/benefit analysis of nuclear fusion as a source of renewable energy.

Yes, he is smarter than me. Thanks for asking. (read my ideas for next level homeschooling)

Milk splattered the table around his bowl with each slurping bite. I quietly passed a napkin, sighed. There are more important battles to pick with your teens.

He handed me the paper to edit with strict instructions only to edit for grammar and spelling.

Well, thank God! I was only on my first cup of coffee.  I mean, I have two degrees and am pretty good at Sudoku, but I was lost from paragraph two.

However, I found the misuse of the word there and some missing commas, so I felt like I had contributed to his education sufficiently for the day.

Bug-A-Salt Brunch

Suddenly “BAM! BAM! DIE! DIE!… M-O-M! Look at this. It won’t die!” bellowed from the back of the house.

My favorite man-on-a-mission (the younger twin, a.k.a. D2) jogged in wielding his bug-a-salt gun and laid the corpse of a fly at my feet. The fly’s back leg twitched. He aimed and shot it again and the fly launched ten feet across the kitchen floor, only to twitch again. (hilarious memoir about other things we’ve lit and launched in our kitchen here!)

“Just step on it, and go do your math, please!” I plead.

I was still caffeinating for the day, having just edited that paper for NASA on only one cup.

And then my third and youngest son, Lil D, launched himself into the room. He’s my favorite always ready-to-do-physical-work (but not schoolwork) guy. (See also: Homeschooling a Hardhead)

“Awesome!” He was happy to be distracted from 3 minutes of laboring with a pencil in a seated position and came running to check out the zombie fly.

Not that he needed the excuse of a twitching corpse to abandon his math. He had already had 3 breakfasts, checked the garden, the mail and the dog for hitchhikers, then called Dad at work to let him know the new bike tire-tube had arrived for their mechanic plans later.

But now he and commando were discussing the reflexes and conscious souls of insects. Since that was basically science, psychology, theology, who was I to interfere with their studies?

Look at me hands-free homeschooling! I mused.

I sipped my coffee. Tried to recall what I wrote on their planners for the day and wondered if we’d get any of it done before they needed to eat again.

Lunch Language and Laughs

Finally, I pulled rank as commander-in-chief of this outfit. “Work!” I grabbed the weapon and motioned them back to their textbooks.

For about 7 minutes we had the closest thing to quiet that happens around here. Then D1, the once favorite oldest student began loudly yelling “Yo Yo Yo! It’s your boy!” from his bedroom. It certainly didn’t sound like a Spanish lab recitation.

And just like that, mom’s little distracted worker, Lil D, was back up to assess the situation.

Turns out the nerd was logged onto his Spanish lab for attendance purposes only (because esta clase es estupida).  So, he was multitasking and testing out his new voice programming thingy for his game designing stuff. (Some scientific terms may have been altered here.)

My only concern was the noisy distraction he was creating for Lil D.

I knew D1 would do all his work, in excess of requirements, and then create more for himself out of sheer curiosity, OCD, and boredom for the lack of all his normal social activities during the 10 plagues of modern politics ‘rona shutdown.

Of course, then they all had to eat again. Around here lunch is on the luncher. They are capable. Reheated leftovers, eggs (boiled, fried, scrambled, or just broken), frozen pizzas, anything Jimmy Dean, a sleeve of chips-ahoy, they are masters of disaster.. err… survival. (See also: 10 things I hate about homeschooling.)

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A Rough Estimate of Our Day

The fast-forward edition of our days goes something like this:

My coffee always goes cold. I forget to get dressed sometimes because I’m being pulled in several directions of organized, chaotic, beautiful learning.

Everyone argues at breakfast. It’s fun. It’s what we do.

Homeschooling Little Men

My youngest likes to argue about why he must do any of his work. Every week.  It’s part of our Monday routine.

Like Groundhog Day.

I can quote the whining questions he will ask. He has the answers memorized.  I rarely get animated anymore. Flat sarcasm is all he gets for his efforts.

“But why do I have to learn this garbage?”

“Cause I’m a mean mom.”

“Ugh. It’s not fair. I hate Monday!”

“Me too.”

“Ugh.”

“Ugh.”

Silence.

“Wanna check if our petri dishes are growing anything from the dog’s mouth yet?”

“Oh, yeah!” And suddenly we’re doing science.

Math gets done in constant motion for my youngest. He’s his own hamster wheel. If I make him sit, he won’t be able to think. Then we read together outside, and he’s perfectly still getting lost in the book.

A break and a bike ride will get him through the rest of his subjects. He homeschools all over the house, inside, oustide, upside down. He’s alive with learning. I love him for that, it justifies the square footage. Plus, it gives him more responsibility on cleaning day.

Homeschooling Big Little Men

The older two need me less. Also, one prefers apocalyptic silence while studying, the other has an incessant need to shatter that silence.

You can imagine how this plays out daily.

Guitar tunes and riffs are heard between tasks. They wander in and out of the house, shooting hoops and beat-boxing to refocus.

While one overthinks and overachieves on every assignment, the other can’t get his basic subjects done fast enough to get to his favorite tasks.

He’s got bigger plans than dissecting a trout for biology. He rushes to get to his ground school class for flight training. And so, like his little bro, he still argues about the need for such homeschool torture devices as answers in complete sentences and reading any work of fiction.

Mom on Demand

I’m up and down the stairs daily to explain or grade assignments as the teens need me, or to track down Lil D actively distracting himself with whatever is available.

I toss a load of laundry in or wash a dish here and there. I never get into deep tasks (or phone calls) since that’s when I’m sure to be needed most. Or when WW3 might break out over a stolen pencil or last frozen burrito. Sigh.

No matter what I try to do during a school day I get interrupted 86.3 times by whistling, arguing, random questions, snack wrappers and spills, requests for help to find missing calculators, queries on what we’re having for dinner, and arbitrary facts such as…

“Mom, did you know that there are only a certain number of haircuts people can choose from in North Korea?”

Sigh. “Why, no, I didn’t. That is interesting. Was this part of your biology or Algebra 2 lesson today?”

Neither. But he was curious, and homeschooling allows him to go nuts over a subject that interests him. And so now we both know more about little rocket man’s insanity.

 

To Homeschool Boys is to Remain Moldable

Just when I think I’ve got a good routine figured out to homeschool boys, a path forged for success, my boys throw a few Legos under my feet, keeping me stumbling away from complacency.

This is probably why we homeschool eclectically. Change keeps them excited about learning, and moms on our toes.

Interest or Purpose Driven Learning

Boys are largely interest or purpose driven in their learning. If they don’t have an interest in or see an immediate purpose for learning something, boys often balk.

For instance, grammar is useless and an all-out war with many boys. But if there’s a point, like a required essay application to a program they really want to join, then suddenly, “Mom, help me edit this letter! I really want to be an officer at encampment this year!”

My boys hate crafts of any kind, but if power tools are involved and you call it shop, they’re ready. After all, what good is a seashell collage after the glue gun cools? But a planter box is reusable dirt-filled fun even after the hammering is done.

They bemoan the start of any novel study that doesn’t entail bloody battles or savage creatures out for revenge. Many boys detest fiction. But current events and historical adventures have jump started many a boy’s reading obsessions.

No, they don’t want to bake and decorate for history, though they’ll listen and learn all about the pioneers while devouring a pan of hush puppies that I let them deep fry under risk of a house fire. Heck ya!

Math is a challenging game show competition one day, and a torture device the next.

Piano lessons are stuffy and boring, until you get to learn “The Entertainer” and play it at warp speed, loudly, and as many times as it takes to make your brother lose his mind.

 

To Homeschool Boys is Freedom

To homeschool boys is to free them to learn the way they learn best. To let them be boys.

Not to say that girls don’t learn best this way as well. But girls generally do conform to classroom learning more readily and with better results than boys. I know because I was one of those girls, an excellent student, shy, overachieving. Quiet at a desk for hours working diligently to stay under the radar and on the Dean’s list was my specialty.

No child needs to feel caged while learning, checking the boxes only to make the teacher and the testers happy.

The trick to homeschool boys is letting them be a little wild. Be there to help them open doors, to fuel their interests, find the real-world purposes for learning, and hang on for the ride!