Some people are asking, "Should I homeschool my child with anxiety?" I'm Nicholeen Peck and
I'm a homeschooler. I also teach parenting communications all over the world and I'm
going to talk today about anxiety and homeschool and what is the best approach for those children.
Anxiety is an interesting thing. In fact, there's a lot of things that are leading to anxiety
right now. It's definitely something that's on the rise and I know there are many people who
are experiencing social anxiety. So, contrary to popular opinion, having more social experiences
doesn't necessarily decrease social anxiety. I'll tell you what does: getting off the phones and the
digital devices is a massive help and having more connections and good conversations with people. And
as a homeschooler, you're not necessarily getting rid of all social interactions either, that is a
total myth. Especially nowadays when so many people are homeschooling. I mean, the pandemic just brought
on a new homeschool movement. There are people all over the world that have decided homeschooling is
best for their families. For years I did treatment foster care for troubled teens and many of those
teens had anxiety. In fact, many of them begged me if I would homeschool them because they knew that
they would feel like they could focus so much more on their education and on their own growth and
development if they didn't have to carry those anxious feelings all of the time. Can a person
overcome anxiety? The answer is yes. Do some people have more of a tendency to anxiety? The answer is
yes. Can homeschool help anxiety? The answer is yes. Homeschool can absolutely help anxiety because
it focuses the person back in on the family unit and on their education and their goals
and accomplishments. This creates a foundation of confidence for the child so that then they can
start to branch out and do other things socially that might decrease some of those anxieties.
In my community, we have well over 300 families who homeschool. We get together for various things.
There are little homeschool academies and debate leagues and choirs and drama clubs and all kinds
of stuff that happen. There's sign language courses, there's family book discussion groups. There are
so many different things that happen that it's not like a child is going to be away from people.
So, here's the thing. When you homeschool, it decreases that anxiety that I have to perform
and I have to compete and I have to show that I'm better than everybody else. It decreases
that. Nobody in the homeschool community expects it. Nobody rates people or compares people. They just
accept people, it's absolutely beautiful but also when you go to say a family book discussion group
or a family valentine's day party, you've got family members nearby who will help you reach
out possibly socially if you happen to be experiencing social anxiety. So, it's almost
the best possible way to overcome some of those anxieties because you've got somebody with you
who cares about you, who you trust that's gonna help push you forward, help you step out of that
comfort zone and teach you it's okay. Now, this does mean that a parent has to decide
that it is okay for them to help nudge their child outside of the comfort zone. They have to want the
child to learn and grow new things even if the child acts like they are experiencing discomfort.
A school teacher can't push a child like a parent can. So, a parent can actually instruct
a child to step out of the comfort zone and to drop the subject on the anxiety, they can help
motivate them through that where a school teacher cannot give them that same type of coaching in a
similar situation. In fact, oftentimes what they do is they just push that person aside and say, "Well,
if you don't want to do it, fine. I won't judge you for it," but they don't help them through it
either. So, if you want your child to truly make some strides in overcoming their anxiety,
they need to be with you a good chunk of the time and then as they get older, that anxiety will start
to dissipate and become much more manageable. Is this interesting to you? Do you know other parents
who are struggling because they have children with anxiety that they don't know how to help?
Share this video with your friends. Share it on your social media. This could be something
that other parents could be truly grateful for. The foundation for a good learning environment is good
relationships. So, if you have a good relationship with your child and if you know how to communicate
well with your child, then your child is going to have success in their educational pursuits, even
if they're not perfect or the best child at that particular sport or skill, they are going to feel
successful. In fact, that's probably one of the most beautiful things about homeschooling, at least the
way that I homeschool, there's no grades. I don't attach labels to every single thing a child does.
I don't rate them, I don't beat them down. I say, "Was that your best effort?" You know, and if I can tell
it was their best effort, then that's an A and if it was not their best effort, then we do it again,
that's how we do it in homeschool. They will get to the point where they see their best effort is
all that is required and in fact, it's all that they need to focus on. That helps a person with
anxiety. People with anxiety are processing all the time. In fact, many times they're over processing
which is why they're experiencing these feelings of anxiety. So, what do you have to do to help them?
You have to remove some of the things that they're comparing to so that instead they see, "Wait, what
did I do? I did good." So, make sure that you remove any feelings of competition and encourage those
feelings of putting your best foot forward. So, some people might be wondering, "Well, yeah. My child
has so much anxiety that if I homeschool, they'll really literally never leave the house," and they're
concerned about that. As a parent, we can't allow our child to control everything. Do you realize
that sometimes acting on our anxieties is actually just us being controlling of our
environment because we have fears, because we're afraid of change or we're afraid of effort that we
have to put forward or whatever it is? So, it would be very negligent for a parent to allow a child
to isolate just because they're homeschooling or any other time. When your child comes home
from school, I hope you wouldn't be allowing them to isolate either. A good homeschool goes out and
sees the world. And so, that means you might need a skill. There are some skills that I teach children
in my self-government training and those skills, those 4 basic skills, are following instructions,
accepting "no" answers, accepting consequences and disagreeing appropriately. So, what types of
instructions might they need to follow? Well, here's an instruction. You need to do this school work or
here's another instruction, you need to come with us to this museum or here's another instruction,
I need you to pack the bags because we're going to be going to the park or whatever it is and you
take them with you and if they won't do it, then you have to correct them. The thing is is at school,
nobody's really correcting them. You may think they're getting something at school,
but they're not necessarily and maybe you invite a friend over, well now the instruction is, "Hey,
let's have some interaction with this friend and see if we can develop a good time," or "Hey, we're
going to go to this other person's house now," that's an instruction to go there. To follow an
instruction, you do 5 things: you look at the person keep a calm, face voice and body,
say okay or ask to disagree appropriately, do the task immediately and then check
back. Your child needs to be able to do that every single time that you give them an instruction. Also,
accepting "no" answers is going to be vital because when they want to just sit and isolate or get on
their computer or get on their- I forget what the little devices are called because we don't do a
lot of devices at our house, but some of the things that they do in their hands when they want to just
isolate into those things or they want to just sit and just write and write and never talk to
anybody, then you might have to give a no answer about it. So, then they need the 4 steps for
accepting a "no" answer so that they can do that too and if they want to talk to you about it,
if they feel like they need more time to work on their writing or their music or whatever it is
that they isolate doing, then they need another skill called disagreeing appropriately. But if
they won't accept the no answers and won't follow your instructions, won't disagree appropriately,
you're going to need to correct them so you need that skill. You need to be able to do it without
shaming them or putting on increased pressure, but being consistent and firm at the same time
while using calmness and good structure and then they will need the 4th of those 4 basic
skills which is accepting consequences. So, they need some training to help them no matter which
situation they're in, but as a parent, homeschooling a child, you're going to have the best opportunity
to help that child conquer that anxiety and learn to step out of their comfort
zone than a person normally would invest into your child if they were at the public school.
So, are you interested in home school? Is that an option for you? Well, whether it is or it isn't,
I have a class that can make a big difference in your days and the days of your child with anxiety.
So, there is a class on this channel called The Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle for Success.
This is a class that I often give at home school conferences to help parents with some of their
anxiety, but the principles that I present in that class are also beneficial for children to know
so that they can conquer some of their own anxieties and create better days for themselves as
well. So, click on the link to The Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle For Success. I'll see you there.