Tears are Shed - the Early Stages of Worldschooling

Have you ever asked your child to do homework in the middle of the holidays? Schooled children are used to working during school hours and doing homework straight after school, but generally, the longer away from school hours, the more proportionally resistant children are to doing what is perceived as school work.

My daughter has been schooled from PK3 until 3rd grade. We are barely a week into our trip and the beginning of Worldschooling and I feel like a monster because I'm asking her to do work that we had discussed and agreed on prior to setting off! The problem is, my daughter is having a hard time focusing on educational tasks outside the 4 walls of the classroom or our home. The open schedule, the open setting (at a cafe, or the beach...) is what is throwing her. So she drags her feet, pouts, grumbles, and gives me dirty looks.

Today it came to head. She was simply not trying to do the task (write an article for her blog), so I lost all patience and threatened to take her iPad away (the only thing she seems to want to do all day, every day!). Tears were shed. Then came the pleading. She begged for me to take it back and give her another chance. Knowing that the price would be her iPad if she didn't do her work, she was reformed. I felt horrible, but know I'm not asking all that much from her - a few blog posts on special topics here and there, some pages of math every couple of days, reading every day, and watching documentary videos that I've put on her YouTube playlist about the places we're going or other documentaries. I'm not interested in unschooling her. I have a curriculum for this year - a purpose for taking her out of school - and I want us to get the most of it!

Fortunately, after I got her to cool down and explained that the price she had to pay for being out of school was to do her work or else lose her iPad, she was very receptive and finished her work in just a few minutes. In no time she was smiling and we had moved past the ugly confrontation. But I fear that it will not be the last time. I hope that, as time goes by, she will get learn to work outside the classroom, and will do a lot of it of her own accord. It's one of my goals for her to take her learning into her own hands and be more independent. But I feel like she's still unlearning some habits of being in a classroom (cram & forget!) and learning how I expect to Worldschool. Fair enough. I'm sure my fellow Worldschool community has a fair number of participants who can relate.