What to Do When Your Child Hates School
School Suks, According to My Son…
The other day, I was sitting in my living room and glanced up at the piano to find my son’s drawing sitting on full display. It was a picture of stick figures pelting rocks (or something) at a school with the words “School Suks” written across the top. I also love that the school is our home.
My husband and I couldn’t help but laugh, not because he hates school, but the irony of the photo was just too good. While protesting school at the beginning of summer, he misspelled the word sucks!
If you’ve been homeschooling or have had school-aged kids for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard some version of that phrase from your own children. I couldn’t have staged a better homeschool photo if I tried! A child protesting education had accidentally demonstrated exactly why education matters.
What made it even funnier is that this particular child is actually a fantastic learner. He understands new concepts quickly, remembers information with very little repetition, and often makes connections that surprise me. If we are having a conversation about something that interests him, he can talk for thirty minutes straight and ask questions I haven’t even considered.
Learning isn’t the issue. The problem, at least from his perspective, is that organized learning feels boring, and that sucks! He doesn’t get to express himself through drawings while listening to his math lecture, nor does he get to crash cars into building blocks with loud noises while I’m reading to him.
And honestly, I think a lot of parents need to hear that hating school doesn’t mean their children hate learning.
Hating School Doesn’t Mean Hating Learning
One of the mistakes we make as parents is assuming that a child’s attitude toward school tells us everything we need to know about their attitude toward learning. I have rarely found this to be true.
Some children love workbooks, checklists, and structured lessons. They enjoy completing assignments and seeing their progress. Other children would rather build something, take something apart, ask questions, go on an adventure, or learn through conversation.
Neither approach is wrong.
We have to remember that children are people, and people learn differently. They connect differently. And what works for one doesn’t always work for another.
My son isn’t sitting around avoiding growth. In fact, he learns constantly. He absorbs information from experiences, conversations, books, and projects. What he dislikes right now is the structure that often comes with formal education.
That’s a very different problem from refusing to learn altogether.
Children Go Through Phases
One of the advantages of homeschooling multiple children is that eventually, you gain enough perspective to stop treating every season as permanent.
When I first started homeschooling, I worried more when a child struggled with a subject or complained about school. I would get so stressed out, like I was doing something wrong, because they didn’t enjoy every aspect of what I was doing with them. When they whined or grumbled, I would feel defeated. When they would fall out of their chairs after sitting for five minutes, I thought they were being deprived of activity time.
Now, after years of walking through multiple children, seeing them grow into teenagers, and watching some of them finish their homeschool journey, I’ve realized that yesterday’s frustrations weren’t telling the whole story.
The children who resisted reading when they were younger now pick up books for fun, without being told. The children who once groaned through lessons have developed genuine curiosity about the world around them. The one I thought would never learn anything, schools all of us in the subjects he is most interested in. And I’ve watched children grow from crazy, energizer-bunny types to calm, focused children who don’t fall out of their chairs anymore.
As adults, we understand this about ourselves. The hobbies we enjoy today aren’t necessarily the same hobbies we enjoyed ten years ago. The subjects we care about now may not have interested us at all when we were younger.
We need to remember that children are no different. Looking back, I realize that many of the things I worried about simply worked themselves out as my children matured.
Learning Is a Lifelong Adventure
One of the things I tell my kids all the time when they express frustration with school is that education is a lifelong experience. We are always learning and growing, so education doesn’t end when school ends. Some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned happened long after I finished school. In fact, most of what I know today is because I went back to school in homeschooling my children.
I’ve spent years learning about parenting, marriage, theology, fitness, nutrition, business, homemaking, and countless other topics that nobody assigned me to study. I pursue those things because growth is part of life.
The older I get, the more I realize how much I still don’t know. That realization doesn’t discourage me. If anything, it makes life more exciting because there are endless things to pursue. There is always another book to read, another skill to develop, another lesson to learn, and another opportunity to grow.
When children begin to see learning through that lens, education becomes much bigger than finishing today’s assignment. The goal isn’t simply to complete school, but to never stop learning and growing.
How to Help Younger Kids Enjoy Learning
If you have a child who currently hates school, don’t assume the answer is pushing harder. Sometimes the better approach is to help them discover that learning exists beyond a workbook. One of the biggest misconceptions about educating our children is that it has to look like a traditional school setting. It absolutely does not!
Pay attention to what naturally captures their attention. A child who loves animals can learn science through nature. A child who loves history can disappear into stories from the past. A child who enjoys building things can learn problem-solving, math, and creativity through projects.
Read aloud together, even after your children are capable readers themselves. Some of our best conversations have come from books we experienced as a family.
Look for opportunities to bring learning into everyday life. Cooking teaches math. Gardening teaches science. Travel teaches history and geography. Conversations teach critical thinking.
Most importantly, give yourself permission to be patient. Children are growing physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually all at the same time. That process rarely moves in a straight line. The goal isn’t merely to have smart children, but whole children, whose minds, souls, and bodies are nourished and growing together for the glory of God.
Don’t Be Discouraged
The picture is still sitting on my piano, partly because it’s funny, partly because it captures childhood so perfectly. I’ll probably frame it and hang it up somewhere. It serves as a reminder that it’s okay for children to express themselves. They are not behind; they are on a growth journey.
A little boy drew a picture declaring that school “suks” while accidentally demonstrating why education matters in the first place. Not bad for someone who claims he hates school. So if you’re in a season where your child complains about lessons, drags their feet through assignments, or insists they never want to do school again, take a deep breath.
This season will not last forever.
