Boredom, dopamine-seeking, and homeschool

Flexibility and novelty are critical to our experience

Many mornings lately, my son has greeted me by telling me that he’s bored.

I have a feeling his brain is frequently dopamine-seeking and novelty-driven, and I’ve learned that sometimes our regular breakfast routine or doing schoolwork will not do the trick. I’m trying to get better about planning ahead, and specifically building in multiple backup plans.

But this is a skill I personally struggle with, too. I need novelty and I struggle to make plans. I feel like I’m constantly reacting to life happening to me, despite my best efforts and all of the planners, tools, and tricks I’ve thrown my money and time at for decades. It’s honestly exhausting.

Many well-meaning people have tried to talk to me about overcoming laziness or addressing a lack of discipline, but the “discipline” and will is there. It’s often a matter of executive function, demand avoidance, and/or fluctuating capacity. I’m also pretty sleep-deprived in this season of parenting. In these moments, my anxiety often takes over and proclaims, “It is going to ruin your life if you do this incorrectly, so get it right or don’t do it at all,” and then I just can’t do it. 

I’ve had some of the people closest to me in the world look at me with tenderness and concern as they say, “I don’t know why you’re like this.” Or “I don’t understand why you can’t do this like everyone else/the rest of us.” I’ve consulted professionals and been dismissed with something like, “but you’re so successful and so high achieving.” I’ve said, “Yes, AND most of my accomplishments are fueled by adrenaline and fear of disappointing others and not being loved.”

After becoming a mom, my dreams about the future quickly transformed. I went from wanting to be in the C-Suite someday to insisting we had to homeschool. I wasn’t sure we’d get to start as early in our son’s academic journey as we did, but that was the goal we had in mind. As he got older and his specific support needs became clearer, we realized taking this approach to education would be exactly what our family needed to thrive.

But when we first started homeschooling, I expected us to have a more conventional, primarily analog experience. Even though it didn’t align with my own needs, I expected each day to look similar in form and structure. I resisted using “too much” technology because I legitimately liked doing worksheets as a kid, and perhaps a little because I wanted to apply an almost corporate mentality to our efficiency with work. I fought using apps and computer programs or otherwise outsourcing aspects of teaching. I don’t know why this was what I believed I should do, but that was the expectation I’d set for myself.

Many tears have been shed throughout this process, sometimes by all parties involved. There have been seasons where the kids and I kept finding our way to exasperatedly watching TV while I tried to regroup and pivot. I put so much pressure on myself.

But once I embraced and leaned into the fact that novelty is what drives this fantastic little human’s brain and body forward, peace and joy became a regular part of our learning experience. Silly, slapstick, occasionally scatological humor holds his interest better than my standard worksheets or corny ideas ever could.

I suspect that when my son says he’s bored, he just doesn’t yet have the tools to articulate, “Mommy, my brain cannot do this right now. I need something else.” I am trying to do a little self-reflection and think of what I would have needed to feel safe enough to say out loud, “Hey, grownup. I desperately want to do the things that I have signed up to do today, but there’s a disconnect, and it’s making me viscerally uncomfortable.”

As I contemplate what meeting this need can look like for our family, we continue to change things up, including where we sit, how we sit, if we sit, and even the avenues for learning. No two days look the same. But every day I’m reminded that by surrendering my expectations and leaning into novelty and wonder, I can better enjoy the time we spend together. I’m noticing our tolerance for the “boring” work continues to expand, too.

Practically, this often means that we leverage the help of YouTube deep dives, in-person activities with our homeschool community, lots of nature walks, digital learning apps, reading lots of books, the (very) occasional worksheet, and more. It isn’t perfect, but I believe we’re on the path to truly embracing and enjoying learning in all its forms.

And I think that’s the point, isn’t it?

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Bits & Bobs:

• Article in Christianity Today | This week, Christianity Today published a piece I’d written about my family’s experience with gentle parenting in the context of our faith and neurodiversity. I felt so seen throughout the editing process, and I’m beyond grateful for this opportunity. You can read the full piece here.

• Journeys with PDA Podcast | Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to be guest on the Journeys with PDA Coffee Chat Podcast. It was a fun and vulnerable conversation about making a professional downshift to care for your kids, navigating my own diagnosis, and more. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can also watch it here. I’ll be speaking at their conference in October, and I’ll share more on that later this year.

• PDA Day! | I had hoped to get this out before PDA Day on May 8, but if you’d like more resources about PDA, just reply to this email or send me a message here or on Instagram. PDA North America just launched a new Insights blog on PDA Day, and I will be contributing occasional articles alongside an amazing group of PDAers, parents, and other experts.

• The Fever Effect | We’ve been sick so much lately. It’s part of why there has been such a delay in getting something out since my last post. Something we frequently notice is that our kids present much more “typically” when they’re sick/have fevers. I’ve found some interesting literature on it, and my mom said this was often true of me as a child, too! Here’s a 2019 article from Harvard on this phenomenon. Another clear and approachable one from Embrace Autism. And this recent article in Autism Research that used machine learning to analyze some of the clinical data.

Thanks for reading, friends. Until next time. 👋