So often I hear of moms & their children hitting heads over schoolwork. The child seemed to understand the subject the day before, but today, seems to have never seen it before in their entire life. (Often math is the subject, but it can happen with any topic or class.)

Personal experience has proven to me that when my son and I have both been reduced to tears over a subject (and yes, it was math), taking a complete break from that subject of two to three weeks helped immeasurably. I’ve done an extensive web search for substantiation in favor of taking a break of several weeks from a particular subject, with just a little success.

From Psychological Science.org, the following quote pertained to taking breaks ranging from five minutes to two weeks in a institutional educational setting.

University of South Florida psychologist Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler of the University of California, San Diego, wanted to see if the scheduling of study breaks might make a difference in learning. It did. When the students took breaks ranging from five minutes to two weeks, those who had taken a one-day break performed best when they were tested ten days later. But if they were tested six months later (the laboratory equivalent of long-term learning), the optimal break time was a full month. In other words, as reported in the August 2006 issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, “massing” all the study on a single topic together diminishes learning. It’s better to leave it alone for a while and then return to it, and indeed the longer you want new learning to endure, the longer the optimal break between study sessions.

The following is primarily interested in giving children small breaks in their daily academics, for example not withholding recess from children as a punishment (in the institutional educational environment).

Children’s brains are presented with immense amounts of information to process and commit to memory. To deal with this information, the brain must engage in cognitive remapping. Jensen (2000) found that when presented with new information, the brain must alter existing and form new pathways and connections in the brain. This remapping requires time; a break from learning or processing information must occur to give the brain time to adequately reform connections. Brain researchers Toppino, Kasserman, and Mracek found that if no break is provided, some information may not make it to the brain’s memory storage (Jarrett, 2002). Recess provides just such a break. During recess, students’ brains have the chance to perform the cognitive remapping that is necessary to commit new information learned that day to memory. Once recess has ended, students brains have had the time needed to complete remapping and are prepared to take on more information.

At least the little I was able to find does indeed indicate that giving children time for their brains to process new information and to get that information into long term memory storage is a good thing. So if you are finding you & your student hitting a wall when it comes to any subject, remember that it may mean that it's time for a break. The Irish poet, William Butler Yeats wrote, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." If we are determined to cram that information into the pail of our child's minds, the result is not always what we expect. If we can remember that we are trying to light a fire, ignite a spark that will burst into the flame of the love of learning, giving our child the time to rest and play, the time we give is like the oxygen that the flame needs to catch.

There are definitely times to forge ahead even when the road is hard, but there are benefits in taking a break before going forward. It's a useful thing to remember.

Blessings on your homeschooling journey!

*Jensen, E. (2000). Moving with the brain in mind. Educational Leadership, 58(3), 34-37.

**Jarrett, O.S. (2002). Recess in elementary school: What does the research say? Champaign:

ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. (ERIC Document Representation Service No. ED466331).