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Five Truths I Learned from Homeschooling

Not sure what to do about the school year yet? Are you spinning in confusion about what to do – home learning or send them?

 

We’re in the same boat over here … on the one hand it’s my son’s senior year in high school and he loves his friends, he’s really missed them, he loves his extra-curricular activities – swim team, debate team, and chamber orchestra; all of those are up in the air.

 

My 14 year old, he loves getting out of the house and seeing his friends too, school has always been about the friends and change of scene for him, so we’re figuring things out.

 

But I wanted to tell you our story of how we homeschooled for seven years, why we chose to public school when we did, and some of the lessons we’ve learned from our experience in hopes of helping you decide.

 

I cannot tell you that homeschool was ever ‘easy’ and that it’s for everyone, mainly because there is a heightened sense of responsibility we take on for our children in wanting them to do well and be prepared for their futures.  There's also a pressure that moms take on for their children to keep up.  But all of that pressure is a choice, meaning you don't have to let it weigh you down.

 

Which brings me to my first point: Truth Number One: Don't compare yourself or your children to other moms and other families.

 

  • You will enjoy it so much more if you can drop the idea that you have to keep up with what you hear other moms or families are doing and instead focus on finding your own groove. It’s important to do this as soon as possible – don’t be anxious about how other people might be more on top of it than you or are doing more things. You really have to discover what works best for you and drop the comparing.

Always ask yourself how you can make it fun. I can tell you that homeschooling opened the door to me and my kids having a lot of fun together. We lived in Seattle at the time, which has so many fun libraries, museums, farmer’s markets, berry farms, different beaches, different places to hike in enchanted forests, different places to drive and make day trips to, etc.  Looking back, I have no regrets with all of our adventures. Weave fun activities into your week. Ask your kids what interests they have and run with it. We spent a lot of time in the Lego store – always our fallback go-to for adventure day, my kids loved that place.

 

This leads to my second point, or truth: Think in terms of a gentle routine versus a daily schedule.

 

 

  • We found that a gentle routine was best. I had my kids design their own routine which helped them take ownership of it and gave them some buy-in. I gave them graph paper and colored pencils and taught them how to time-box tasks. The days of the week went horizontal across the top of the graph and the times of the day went vertical down the left hand side of the graph. They would spend the first day of each season making a new time box because it was important to be flexible with how they chose to structure their time. This took me out of the equation as task master and made them masters of their own day. If I noticed a kiddo was directionless, I would just say, “what does your time box say to be doing right now?” and they would get back on task. I made copies of their graphs and hung them on the fridge and one in their bedrooms. We weren’t rigid about the routine, which is something I learned by mistake, if you’re too rigid and make it a strict schedule, then it’s not fun and has backlash. So make it a gentle routine and be flexible.

You aren't trying to recreate the classroom in your homeschool environment. You have so much more flexibility. We built in a lot of breaks. We had frozen yogurt breaks one day a week, a neighborhood walk break another day, and a whole day dedicated to Adventure Day – which brings me to my next truth.

 

Truth Number Three: You don't have to be all things to your children. Gather a rich support network of other mentors.

 

  • My role was more of a resource gatherer and manager versus their actual teacher on a lot of the subjects. This is why they could manage their own time and take ownership of their learning. I researched curriculum, would gather resources, then try things. If my kids liked the curriculum, we’d commit. I told them they could choose things but had to have good reasons for not wanting to do a certain curriculum. An example was math. We started out with Singapore math which was all the rage back then, but there were a lot of math meltdowns and so I tried other curriculums – Saxon math back then, and my kids liked the Saxon format a lot better. One of them did two year’s worth of math in one because of the format. Now before you think that my children are math unicorns, I have to say, that I have high expectations for my kids but they managed themselves. So doing two years of math in one year meant they had more time to do the things they loved, like musical theater, violin lessons or soccer.

 

 I found that my children were eager to learn things they were interested in. And that is part of the magic of homeschool to be expanded upon.

 

This brings up the question of discipline and subjects kids aren't enthused about, like maybe math. Here's another story: When my daughter was in sixth grade, she and I had a two hour fight one day over why the decimal can’t move – she knew intuitively how the decimal is a fixed place holder, but as I was showing her to ‘move the decimal’ when you get to the end of the multiplication, she would freak out and ask why. My math brain learned all the tricks to get to the answer fast when I was in school, I never cared about learning the ‘why’. But my daughter loves the why, and so I learned that either I had to level up with my understanding, or find a math mentor who could give her what she wanted. I chose the latter, and we love that math mentor to this day – my daughter is twenty years old now and is awesome at math. The lesson from that is – delegate or find other resources to supplement things that you don’t want or have time to become the expert on. I did this in all kinds of areas for my kids and it saved my sanity.

Which leads to Truth Number Four - discipline: Establish a tone of respect in the home and stick to a consistent reward system. For us, it was play after quality work was done.

 

  • Here’s how I managed the ‘discipline’ of the kids being in charge of their studies: I figured out what each kiddos currency was: back then, it was Minecraft. By 'currency,' I mean, what is important to them. These days, my teenagers currency is their cell phones. If they are disrespectful or something, they lose their cell phones. But back then, their currency was Minecraft. I personally didn’t love video games or even the idea of my kids playing them back then, but Minecraft was all the rage, so I softened my ideas around it and it was amazing for them to get to play it. I told my kids they could totally play video games each evening as long as their daily tasks were finished and done well. I would correct their work, and have them do corrections for that day – it only took about ten minutes on my part per kiddo – and then they could play Minecraft if the instruments were practiced, the math was correct, the narrations were written, the books were read and they could tell me the story they were reading, all of that stuff. Honestly, the biggest take away from that approach was that my kids learned to trust themselves with managing their time, they learned that only quality work was acceptable and so to do their best the first try, and then how to prioritize work and play with their whole day before them. Now that they are teens, they still use those skills, and so this approach worked for us and has really paid off.

 

Truth Number Five: Expect some bad days, but don't make them mean you are a bad mom.

  • I have to say, there were some difficult days. We had some whoppers every so often. But for every bad day, there were more good days. We all learned pretty quick that it was more fun to make our days good intentionally than to let the days happen to us and not feel like we learned anything or accomplished anything.  I believe humans are naturally inclined to feel good when they are productive and learning. Children do not feel good inside when there is no spark, no creativity in their days. You don't have to be the creator of the creativity - you just have to help facilitate it and be encouraging.

 

It’s important to believe in yourself as a mom, even as you are reading this, if you are thinking things like, “well she’s a unicorn,” or “yeah, I’m not like that at all. . . “ No. Try to get really clear on your own strengths as a mom and ground yourself in that energy. I saw a lot of moms around me who were amazing at other things – like, their kids all could sew and were in training to be professional ballerinas, or were on the comp soccer teams, and none of that aligned with my kiddos interests, or mine, so I had to manage my mind and head space and drop all the self-doubt.  When I did, that’s when our little homeschool really took off. Some of you know my kids are big into music like I’ve always been, well that’s no accident, right? I mean, because of homeschool, I was able to dedicate time to mentoring them in their interests – none of them are pianists or singers like me, but they had the time and the freedom to try other instruments, those things that called to them, then commit to what resonated with them.

 

So that’s just the tip of the iceberg of some things I learned from homeschooling my children. It was the best decision for us at the time. And so is public school right now, honestly – we’ve learned to be flexible, then stick to the general plan of what we decide.

 

One of my coaching clients, Kindle Garner of The Intuitive Homeschool (click on the link and check out her offerings) is an amazing supportive mom to other home based learning moms. If you are seriously considering keeping your children at home for now, connect with her!

 

There’s no right or wrong answer with what you decide. Whatever you choose is the best decision for the time, and when you think that way, then you can have your own back with making decisions and stop any second-guessing.

 

I wish someone would have told me these truths when I first started, so I wanted to share them with you. If you have questions, let's talk over Zoom, don’t hesitate at all, I love to answer questions. I know tons of mamas who do homeschool, and I have tons of tips on resources – so maybe that’s another blog for another day. But in the meantime, I hope you know how lucky your kids are to have YOU as their mom.

 

Love you all,

Danielle xo

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