How To Overcome Online Learning Obstacles

Transitions are exciting, but always come with their own set of challenges. When opting to start your child’s education with online-learning, or making a change from traditional learning to online learning, there are a set of things that parents and their online students need to address and adapt to.

From new independence to setting schedules to distractions, with e-learning comes a lot of new changes for you and your child.

Online learning is exciting and flexible, and we want to make sure you’re equipped for all the things that come with it:

Transitioning from Traditional Schooling

If your child has made the transition from traditional schooling to e-learning, that’s an incredibly exciting change —  but there are a lot of new things that come with it. Remember, you don’t have to change everything drastically all at once when you and your child make this transition.

Maintain familiar aspects like recess, lunch breaks, extracurriculars and play dates! Talk to your child to learn what they think they liked most about traditional schooling that they want to maintain, and the biggest changes they hope to see i.e. a later start to the day, more independence etc.

Micromanagement

When you are home at the time your student is learning and going about their day. It’s important  to learn how to co-exist with your child when they are learning.

Occupy yourself with other hobbies and tasks during the day because a major hurdle will be allowing your child to learn independently. Remember, online learning is an amazing opportunity for your child to learn independence.

Distractions

As we’ve mentioned before, distractions can be a struggle when your student is learning from home. It’s key to make sure distractions are eliminated from your child’s workplace, and that you yourself (sorry) aren’t a distraction to your online learner.

Homework

When your child is learning at home, it’s important to differentiate learning time from homework time. You can do this by encouraging them to do homework away from the space they are doing all of their learning. Have them do any after-school tasks at the kitchen, and make sure they have a break between their school day and their after-school tasks.

Routine

It takes a little bit of time for parents and online students to adjust to a new home routine. E-learning’s flexible nature is a huge advantage and it’s only obstacle is simply orienting the most effective routine for you and your student.

Try a few different routines; more frequent smaller breaks, one longer break, the options are endless. You and your student just need to see what works best for you! Does your child want to start the day earlier or later? It’s totally based on what’s most effective for them.

Motivation

When your child isn’t interacting with other students and teachers, it can be hard to stay motivated. Instead of being motivated by surrounding people, help your child find ways to motivate themselves independently.

Encourage your child to get motivated by setting goals like completing a big task before the next break, or set to do lists that can encourage your student to complete a task. There so many way that you can keep your child motivated in their learning journey other than feeding off the energy of others.