As a fellow homeschooler, you may appreciate my transparency if I tell you about some times when we struggled, just for some encouragement and the ability to see the whole picture, good and bad, and realize that we can still persevere through the struggles and not give up.
As I have mentioned, I have 2 babies and 2 toddlers in my care, along with my 2 homeschooler kids. It has been a real challenge this year to focus on teaching them while preoccupied with the other 4 needy ones.
I love my job. And I love home schooling. I think it is awesome that I could get paid for doing what I love in my own living space, and be allowed to watch my own kids, at the same time! It's a dream job.
Except this year, my kids' attitudes have been equal to the Grinch's at Christmas time about their school work.
What is up with that? Have you ever tried teaching anything to someone who was dead set against learning? It is as easy and fun as boot camp in a blizzard at 4 a.m. with the meanest drill sergeant you can think of.
Yay. (<---sarcasm implied...) Fighting with your seven and nine year old children against the horrible attitudes they get the minute you say, "let's start on schoolwork" is the worst kind of fighting. Like pushing something really heavy up a slippery hill.
In a hurricane.
There is another issue besides the attitudes. They can't seem to focus unless I am in the room with them, but they can't focus if there are other distractions, such as each other, or small babies and toddlers, in the room with them as well. So I send them out of the room, to separate rooms to work on their independent seat-work, and 15 min. later, I go check on them and they've got virtually nothing done, because I wasn't there to 'help them'... But if they're right next to me, and I am caring for a baby,
changing a diaper,
or helping potty-train a toddler (yeah, we're in the thick of it right now),
This is actually at OMSI, not my house, if only I had this set-up.. |
or any of the other daily duties I have to do during the hours between 6:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., then I will have to redirect them about every other second, sometimes literally, back to their tasks. OY!
After 3 months of struggling, fighting, pleading, redirecting, instructing, disciplining, and all around, not feeling very productive, I felt like giving up. I thought if I enrolled them in real school for a month or two, they would get an idea of what's really expected of them and how much better it is to homeschool and be better for me. But I wasn't really sure about that, and I thought I should talk it over with my husband before I made any real decisions. I mean, I'm not really one to give up. I really wanted this homeschool year to work out. It is really challenging to focus enough on the kids while also having a full daycare. I tried to time it for after lunch, when all the babies were napping at the same time, but I still struggled with the 'tudes, and it would go on and on into dinner, and even beyond, sometimes.
My wonderful, amazing, superhero husband came up with this current solution: He would get up in the morning at 8 a.m., even thought he just went to bed from the swing shift at work around 2 a.m., and help the kids with their work pages, while I took care of the other 4. So far, day 2, he is doing great, although getting a strong taste of how hard they can be to teach. He told me today that I have a lot more patience than he does. Uh, oh...
I told him that he ought to sleep in tomorrow, so he doesn't get too sleep deprived.
Here I am, staying up late to finish this so that I can post it. When do I get to sit down during my day to blog? I am not saying I took on too much, I just have to admit when I need a little help. My kids were different last year and the year before. My daytime situation was different. And my expectations of them were different. With each grade increase, the workload and expectations increase, right? They didn't think so, apparently...
I had such great plans for this school year. As of right now, the first month took off and we had a great lesson on magnets. But as for October and November, not to hot. We just got the basics barely done every day for the past two months. No extra stuff, like the hands-on science and art projects, no themed lesson plans. Just reading, penmanship, grammar, writing, learning to read maps, and math. But, hey, at least we got that done. I can't be too upset . My kids are learning a bit. Hopefully by the end of the year, my 3rd grader will pass his placement test like a breeze, and we'll move smoothly into 4th. Whether or not that will be at home, we will see. But I am not yet giving up on the whole year, lesson-plan-wise. We may turn a corner and may yet have some good months of hands-on learning again. If they can get this morning workbook thing down to a regular routine, we can do that stuff during naptime. The idea of their workbooks on those subjects I named, was that they would have a time of independent study in the morning when I couldn't focus on them, and then we would get to the fun stuff during nap. But they just can't seem to get that done alone. I am praying that they are going to get better at keeping themselves on task and staying focused independently. I do hold out some hope.
For now, I am so grateful for my husband's sacrifice and the partnership he gives to this homeschooling parents thing.
( I sure do love that man.)
It is okay to not have it all together. It is then when we can realize how valuable it is to rely on the people that are there for us. I would suck as a single mom, I rely on my husband way too much to be able to do that. I really commend those that have the strength to keep on doing this all by yourselves. Or if your husband is in the military, and you are a single mom for a big chunk of the time. I doubt most homeschooling parents are single because you have to work so much to provide for your kids when you're single that having the kids in a school is the only way they could do it. But I have a huge amount of respect for single parents.
I guess God knew what (who) I would need. I am so grateful. I am okay with admitting I need him. And he thinks I am a great mom, so there you go.
Just remember, when you feel like a failure, you can always get on the internet and find someone who is doing worse than you, so I am just here to make you feel better about yourself. I hope that made your day. :)
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