I posted this on your other thread as well, but I'll paste it here since it is relevant here too.
Since our focus on this board is to help you use HOD in your own home, with two threads currently running on our board that are both discussing the tough attitudes you're facing with school with your children, I guess I'm just wanting to clarify which of your children are currently using HOD? One way to make school more joyful from the perspective of the HOD Board is to use HOD!
I know this will not fix all problems, but since the purpose of our board is to help you use HOD in your own home, it is definitely a partial solution to consider! I know my kiddos do love their summers and their recesses, but they do enjoy their school days too.
It looks like you are using HOD with your little ones and hopefully that should help bring some joy to their school days. While every day may not be joy-filled every moment, we do find much in our days to enjoy with HOD!
I do think that proper placement in HOD is very key, so if you are going the HOD route, you'll want to make sure to use the placement chart to be sure that your kiddos are accurately placed. This makes a big difference in how joyful kiddos are about their school, as we want to be sure they have the right amount of challenge without it being too much. If your older child is setting the tone for your days, as the oldest often does here too, I'd encourage you to consider HOD for him/her as well for the upcoming year. Honestly, at my house, we've found that our first days have their share of bumps and hiccups, as I am a jump in and swim through it type person. But, by the end of the first week we've truly begun to hit our stride and after that our year in the day-to-day goes very, very well! So, this is why I tend to focus on what you'll be doing for the 35 weeks after the first day, rather than on the first day or a certain season alone.
We all get the blues sometimes and have attitude issues to work on with our children (and within ourselves), but the selection of what you use curriculum-wise and how you use that curriculum will impact you every single day. Without using HOD in the day-to-day for your children with whom you have the concerns, any recommendations we'd give for the springtime blues or for the first day would only help you for that moment. We desire to impact the rest of your year as well.
So, if there is any way that we can help you use HOD in your home with all your kiddos, which will hopefully help make school more joyful, we are here to help you do that! We would love to have it bring you joy too.
Blessings,
Carrie