When Learning Feels Off: 3 Little Reminders

A few months ago, I noticed some of my old worries rearing their head again around my kids' learning. Part of this is down to the fact that my son is now ten and would be entering Year 6 this year, and we'd be thinking about secondary schools, end of year exams and everything that big transition entails.

In moments like this, it can be very easy for me to start feeling like we need to get more 'academic,' perhaps starting a different routine or spending more time on core skills.

But whenever I experiment with pushing things in that direction, I come up against the same issue, which is that when something doesn’t feel meaningful or interesting to them, the energy and learning just isn't that great, compared to when they're fully engaged and have a sense of ownership over what they're doing. This is totally obvious, I feel exactly the same when I'm learning something - I'm sure many of us do - but it's easy to forget sometimes.

So I've written this post for anyone who struggles to know how to respond when learning isn’t going well, when energy feels flat or you and your kids end up frustrated. It’s also for those times when you wonder if you should be pushing more, adding more structure or have them learn things just so you can tick a box.

Below are three reminders I keep coming back to whenever I'm having a wobble. These are the things that have made the biggest difference to how our learning flows and the things I need to be especially mindful of when I’m introducing activities or ideas.

It's never really the activity itself that matters most anyway, it's way more foundational than that. It's our connection and relationship, our mood and energy and whether we're in this together or whether I'm letting my own 'stuff' get in the way.

1. Pay attention to the relationship

More than anything else, the connection between my kids and I determines how well the learning goes. Even the simplest activity will lose its impact if the atmosphere feels pressured or if my kids sense I’m evaluating or judging them, instead of learning alongside them.

Kids can be incredibly sensitive to subtleties like tone of voice, facial expressions or expectations - sometimes my kids pick up on these without me even realising I’m doing it! When that happens, things just feel strained and the activity loses momentum, no matter how enjoyable or meaningful it might have been. This happens most when they’re not in the mood, or when I haven’t tuned in properly and have prioritised learning over our connection.

My kids haven’t been to school, so it isn’t old school memories causing resistance. It seems to be a natural response to feeling like someone's controlling or judging the outcome of what you're doing, and to me, that seems fair enough. When they have ownership over what they're doing (it's their stuff after all), then the learning just feels so much better.

2. They need to be in the mood

While a strong relationship's important, mood and energy can definitely influence how well things go on any given day.  Sometimes, the learning you expected just won’t happen because the energy isn’t right and no one seems to be in the mood. This is ok! And yet I still get those doubts coming in now and again whenever we put something aside because no one's feeling it:

'They just need to learn to get on with it."

'What if they never learn to push through hard things?"

"Will they ever do anything if I don't make them?"

At school, most kids probably wouldn't dare to say "I’m just not in the mood today," even if that’s how they felt. That makes teaching much easier (though uncomfortable, given the clear power hierarchy), but it doesn’t translate well to home education.

At home, sometimes my kids really aren’t in the mood. It might be that they're actually in a bad mood or it could just be that they're deeply immersed in something else. If I wait until they're ready, they're way more engaged, up for a challenge and seem to be more creative too.

I sometimes worry that waiting might leave them unprepared for tasks they don’t want to do. But I’ve found there’s a difference between meaningful challenge - tackling something you’re genuinely interested in - and being forced to do something just for the sake of it.

And let's be honest, kids encounter little things every day they don’t always want to do like tidying up, maybe going out somewhere or other small routines. Adding learning to this list when we want it to be a positive, motivating experience usually doesn’t work. Everyone faces tasks they’d rather avoid, and children get better at managing them as they grow. When they’re young, and we want them to enjoy learning for its own sake rather than as a means to an end, pushing them before they’re ready will probably backfire.

Being aware of moods and energy is something we get to do as home educators, which is a freedom you don’t really have at school, where the day is already planned. I’ve found that staying tuned in to how my kids are feeling helps learning happen more naturally, and it makes it far easier for them to enjoy the process (which is the whole point, right?).

3. Collaboration & Conversation

Collaboration is the third thing that can really help home ed run smoothly. Deciding everything my kids should learn hasn’t ever worked for us, but neither has letting them lead everything themselves.

What’s worked best is having genuine, honest conversations with our kids. This definitely changes as they get older: my 7-year-old’s learning looks very different from her brother's, and conversations are more about exploration and encouragement than long-term planning.

For my 10-year-old, there’s a different kind of understanding. He’s becoming clearer about what he wants to explore and setting his own challenges and goals, although he often needs guidance on how to go about this. By talking things through, the learning becomes a joint effort.

For example, after years of playing chess (a game he's always really enjoyed), he seemed to plateau last year and was losing a bit of interest in learning Mandarin via Duolingo too. Sometimes things do fizzle out and it feels right to drop them, but this felt more like he wanted to take things further but didn’t know how.

My husband had a conversation with him about what he wanted to do and what he needed to work on, and this completely re-energised him.

It meant a lot more effort on his part: trying new approaches such as trying a different chess group and getting a Mandarin tutor and having to push himself as things became more challenging. But he seemed to thrive on this extra challenge because he could see where he was heading and knew he had support.

If we’d just accepted that he'd lost interest, or told him to keep at it, but without any guidance, we’d have missed out on this opportunity entirely.

Even after seven years, home ed still shifts and refines for us as my kids get older and things change. I expect that's how it will always be.

But these three things stay at the heart of it all and help me to trust my kids and trust the process, knowing when to step in and went to step back.

Home education isn’t easy, and there'll always be days (weeks even!) when the energy feels off or things don’t go as expected. But over time, I’ve seen how powerful it is when kids have a strong connection, feel ownership of their learning and benefit from a strong, honest, collaborative approach.