Do you feel a little like my friend who sent me this email?
I am having problems with balancing homeschool for my 6 year old, almost 5 year old, and almost 4 year old along with keeping up with the household chores. Sometimes I really question what I am doing !
Some days, my oldest son does not want to do anything, and I am so close to giving up. I honestly did not realize the challenges that homeschooling brings and I am wondering how others handle this. I am trying so hard to keep it going!
Here are my 17 top tips on how to stay sane whilst Homeschooling:
1. My first year of homeschooling I asked for Spa certificates for my birthday and X-mas and procceeded to do spa days by myself or with girlfriends on the week-end when hubby was home.
2. I found a gym that babysits kids while you work out (I use LA fitness). The cost is $50 monthly and includes 2 hours a day of babysitting while I work out, use the sauna, aerobic classes, yoga, raquetball or the swimming pool (and sometimes socializing with other adults and friends I run into).
3. I take a nap while the kids sleep.
4. I have paid someone to clean my house for 2 weeks (twice a week) while I lay in the back yard on a blanket under a tree napping with my kids. I paid for this by the family not eating and decreasing my hair salon visits for that month.
5. I dish the books and go walking in the park with the kids (I run if I am extremely stressed!!!).
6. When the hubby gets home I tell him I need a break, go to Applebee’s and get a brownie with ice-cream and read a juicy novel with the bedroom door locked. Hence, the need for the gym!!
7. I go out with the girls every so often. I even did a girlfriend vacation with my friends once.
8. I do date night or date lunch with hubby at least once a week.
9. I trade babysitting with another couple.
10. I use a 24 year babysitting center in a crunch.
11. My kids now go to a co-op once a week and I clean the house top to bottom on that day.
12. I send my clothes out to the laundromat to be washed, dried and folded when housework has piled up. It cost .75 cents a lb. (Translation: I pay $30.00 for 5 big tall kitchen garbage of clothes).
13. I have been known to take a couple of days off for sanity purposes.
14. For the summer, I have used summer camps (Zoo Atlanta for me) for two weeks at a time and a mother’s morning out program at a church for the smallest one to catch up on the chores.
15. I stay up extra late cleaning while the kids are sleeping; then the next day I put on Leap Frog tapes or public television for the boys and nap on the couch. The day before, we make alot of finger foods and put it in their lunch box in the kitchen.(My two year old gets a kick out of putting his food in a lunch box and will eat everything-hey whatever works!!!) This allows the kids to go eat by themselves while I “rest” on the couch with them.
16. Remember, the 24 babysitting service? My house is a mess (big time) and the kids are going their next week. They bring their homeschool work and I will have time to regroup and get caught up on my errands, chores and getting their homeschool materials in order.
17. I pile all the junk in two piles on the floor (I do this in the family room and the play room) and I put on the timer and let my 7 & 5 year old race to see who can put away their pile the quickest. It is amazing what they can put up in 10 minutes (they are very competitive). I do this about three times, so that the person that wins two out of three get to have his name put on the wall as the clean up King. They eat this up!!!!
7 responses so far ↓
1 Misty // Oct 24, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Sen your kids to school, HOME SCHOOL FREAK!!!!
2 delrond // Oct 25, 2007 at 8:27 am
This is the kind of response the vast majority of Homeschoolers have to deal with everyday!
Could you please elaborate on why we are “freaks.”
3 valiens // Nov 9, 2007 at 2:44 pm
One of my favorite breaks is to get a good chapter book, like _Three Tales of My Father’s Dragon_ and put PlayDoh and tools on the coffee table (we have terrazzo floors, not carpet!). They’ll play for the duration of the book. Gardening while they play, or help, is also a nice change of pace.
The main thing is to homeschool in a way that works for the family. Trying to stick to a schedule with a 6 y.o., especially with younger ones in the house, is a recipe for burn out. Make it all more hands-on. Give up on your ideas about when certain learning should take place, and take advantage of the nap time of the younger ones to actually teach something like reading. Everything else should be concrete and experiential at this age. Ignore at your peril! And read John Holt. I don’t think you need to purely unschool to appreciate there are times when it’s necessary.
What good ideas you list! I’ll be incorporating some of them. Totally.
Oh, and here’s a link for critics and hsers alike:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html
4 Jason // Mar 12, 2008 at 6:17 am
Kind people of this website, the #1 comment on this page is what is known as a troll. They are here specifically to cause controversy. They may or may not be serious about their claims, but they are irrelevant, as said comments are simply there to be inflammatory, and not to spark intelligent discourse.
Responding to a troll comment is what is known as “feeding the troll”. It is advised to not feed the troll, lest you attract more (they are attracted to responses, you see). Kindly ignore the troll and they will eventually go away due to lack of attention.
Repeat: Please do not feed the troll.
Thank you.
5 Joy // Mar 27, 2008 at 5:14 am
Love the list, and I can totally relate to the sanity breaks. I homeschool three kids (5, 9, and 10) and my house is usually less-than presentable, but at the end of my life I’ll be glad I spent more time with the kids rather than more time with the broom!
6 TootieLizardTush // Mar 30, 2008 at 7:34 am
For me the most telling statement your friend made was, “Some days, my oldest son does not want to do anything, and I am so close to giving up.”
Children are by nature curious. If he is not curious about what he might learn that day in home school then the method of teaching she is using is not working for that young man. In fact it appears to be having the opposite effect of de-motivating him to learn.
I remember when my first child was born. All of these well meaning people would come along and never fail to point out to me how I could be the perfect mother if I followed their advice. They about sent me insane trying to keep up with their idealistic views of how I should be doing things from the perfect diaper change to the perfect way to interact with my own child. they almost ruined my relationship with my own child and I daresay just about every new mother can relate.
I think new home schooling parents feel much the same. They feel a need to be perfect at teaching, finding the right curriculum, keeping their child on track with their perceived ideas of what other children of the same age are doing. Like somehow home school educators are held to a higher standard. So they run out and buy the perfect curriculum and make the mistake of bringing their former public school teaching ideas to the educational table such as grading and testing. An anxiety builds up, then comes the frustration.
I think number 18 but top of your list should be, ignore the advice of others and listen to your child. Let him show you how he learns quicker. Throw the darn curriculum out of the window. It’s when we listen that we learn what they need. Don’t set him a task, merely introduce him to an idea and let him explore it his way.
I home school my child and I can honestly say I have never once felt the need to get away from him, take a break or go to Applebees or anywhere else for some down time from him. Our learning environment is so pleasant it hardly seems like learning to either he or I. He awakes each morning eager to see what idea I might introduce him to next and off he goes to explore it running back to me excited to share with me what he has learned so far and from there I fill in the blanks for him.
I think its the idea of structured learning and the feeling of needing to be supermom that is ruining your friends experience. Rather than give up, she needs to feel more secure in herself and rethink the entire idea of structured lesson plans which are obviously causing her little one to rebel against the idea of education. We can all make them do it merely by putting our foot down which is the idea behind authoritarian teachers and principals in mainstream education but thats only ever going to get you as far as the next lesson. The real trick is making them want to do it and that really is easy once you know how:)
Oh yes as for household chores….no one is going to care in 10 years time if the laundry or dishes were done on time. They are however going to care about the quality of time you put into raising your children when your child enters adulthood and is foistered into their world. Start thinking disposable lunch plates and cups. Put the laundry in the machine on your way out the door to the library. Find alternative ways of cooking i.e don’t stand there cooking a steak on the stove when it could just as easily have been braised slowly during the day in the oven with no human assistance. Throw the veggies in with it too. When you streamline and save time, you save stress. Applebees’ is overpriced frozen, preheated junk anyway. Why feel guilty when you can feel splendid:)
7 heather // May 24, 2008 at 4:00 am
perhaps if the first person was homeschooled, they might know how to spell send;) love the tips;)
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