The Elephant's Child

Ten Ways To Avoid Homeschooling Burnout.

I've been homeschooling for a decade now. I made some n00b mistakes as I was getting started, especially in light of what kind of kid I have. Thanks to some older, wiser friends who had raised kids similarly wired to mine, and their willingness to share how they'd managed to solider through, I avoided most of the homeschooler burnout that results in homeschooling mommies throwing up their hands in despair and enrolling their kids in the local public school even though they really don't want to.*  That being said, these ideas are mostly my own (5, 8 & 10 are the ones most influenced by my wiser friends), and my friends shouldn't be blamed if these ideas sound dumb to you. 

Did you read my footnote at the asterisk? Go read the footnote. Ok? Now you can continue. 

1. You must get time alone or time with your adult friends, whichever is most refreshing for you, time where you are not responsible for the children. Ask your husband for ideas, or suggest something to him. A late night at Starbucks once a week while he puts the kids to bed. A solo library trip for yourself. He takes the littles to McDonalds for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Something. Something regular that you can count on. Every week if possible, every month at least. It should be a routine, a ritual. Part of his vocation as husband is the protection and care of you, and that's not just physical protection, but emotional care and protection as well. Let him do his job. 

2. Date night with the husband. It's a cliche, but it makes a huge difference. Make the time. If it's too dorky for you to call it date night (I hate that term myself) call it something else or make it a less formal thing, but make it happen on a regular basis, daily, weekly, whatever. Make it regular, and not spur of the moment, a planned-ahead, scheduled time. You need to be able to look forward to it. You don't even need to leave the house or spend lots of money. (Although of course you can if you'd like!) You need time where you are your husband's wife and you are not Mommy. 

3. Push as much of the housework together into clumps as you can so that you have a day or two each week where you don't have major housework hanging over your head all day. Not always entirely possible, but try to work it so you at least have a lighter day here or there. I've ranted before about laundry, and yes, I have a small family, but I'm still 100% convinced that most people are doing way more laundry than they need to. Menu planning means stacking the grocery shopping all on one day is mostly possible; a time set aside each week for cleaning means the house never gets hoarder/revolting even if you don't have the time in that weekly cleaning to get the house spotless. (and who wants to live in a "spotless" house, anyway?)

4. School all year. Take breaks when you need them and do not sweat the schedule or curriculum plan. Twenty-five percent of the reason you are homeschooling is so that you are not beholden to a school district's school schedule, right? (If it's not, it should be.) For example, we take off most of December because my husband is super busy during Advent. Then we get lots of school done in July and August when it's too dang hot to play outside. If you don't want to or can't school all year, relax your schedule other ways. It's ok. When is the last time a child in public school actually got to the end of the history textbook on the last day of class? Yeah. Never. Work diligently, but when life gets lifey and you get a bit behind, let it go. 

5. Admit you screwed up your curriculum choice. Probably the number one issue I see with beginning homeschooling mommies is a curriculum choice or scheduling plan or overall methodology choice that is so. obviously. not. working. but an utter blindness on the part of the mother to admit this. She will blame everything else first: the concept of homeschooling itself, her own teaching abilities, her child's real or perceived faults, her child's real or perceived learning disabilities. Everything but the fact that maybe, just maybe, the books she's using aren't very engaging, are boring, or are completely wrong for her kid's learning style. (My child simply does not learn the way the Classical model says children love to learn, for example. It would have been a nightmare methodology for our family!) But sometimes moms will bang their own and their children's heads against stuff that everyone hates for years before letting go of something that just isn't working. 

6. Make little rewards for yourself for doing boring or unpleasant tasks. "If I finish Math with Mathwillkillme Child, I get to watch another episode of Stupid TV Show." I swear this trick is the only way on God's green earth that I manage to get my husband's shirts ironed or the litter box cleaned. Alternately, save pleasant things for during the task. Podcasts and my favorite radio talk show are sometimes the only way I can force myself to cook supper. 

7. Possibly drink more adult beverages. Yes, I'm serious. (Obviously, if you're currently an alcoholic, don't do this.)

8. Relax the screen time rules. Video games aren't as bad for our kids as we've been led to believe, plus, kids need a sane mom more than they need strictly controlled and managed video game time. Kiddos playing something creative like Minecraft can be good for them, and it gives Mom some peace. A resource restricted is a resource desired more than it would be if it was free. Call it the DeBeers effect.  Make some basic ground rules ("Math & chores have to be finished first, and no fighting or I turn it off for the day") and let them figure it out. You might be surprised what your kids come up with as far as sharing the computer or Xbox, and how they work together to solve problems within the games they're playing.  

9. Eat more cheese, meat, eggs, and veggies and less bread, pasta, cookies, cake and other sweets. Protein + fat > carbs. Your hormonal system runs on fat. So does your brain. Don't starve them. Treating your stress with ample amounts of sweets sounds like a good idea, but feeling fat and gross doesn't really help your overall stress and happiness levels, does it? No. Find other ways to treat yourself, reward yourself, and relieve stress. If you absolutely must indulge, pick something high quality and quite expensive (think fine, dark chocolate here), and sit down and savor it. Stuffing it in your mouth on the way out to soccer practice doesn't count. 

10. Finally, talk to your kid. We say we want children to be lifelong learners, but we rarely give them a voice in their education. We pick the books. We pick the topics. We pick the method. We pick the order they study unrelated topics. We, we, we. Why are we surprised, then, when they go out into the world and don't continue learning and exploring? They've never learned that it's something they can do themselves; it's a task something other people give them to do. Find an overall framework, pick the books, but get your kids' input, too. Sure, you know best and you're the grownup, but your kids have desires, skills, and interests, all of which may be different than yours. Let them start to grow up by giving them gradually increasing responsibility for their own education. 

Related to choices, when your child balks at a school task, find out why. Ask what would make it easier for him to complete. The answer might surprise you. It might be as simple as changing writing tools. (My daughter could only do the writing needed for a Confirmation assignment with a fountain pen; a pencil was too light and she felt she had to press too hard, making her hand sore. I shudder to think the misery I'd've put her through if I'd pulled the standard, "Rules are rules and you're going to DO that sheet, right now! Because I said so!" thing. But I didn't. I asked.) It's not always because your child is just being a brat. (See #5 above.) Maybe she'd rather do math with Dad in a long session every Saturday morning instead of daily, with you. Maybe he's passionate about all things Irish and would rather study Gaelic than Spanish. Both are a foreign language, yes? But you won't know why your 13 year old son refuses to do Spanish unless you ask him and (I should add) he feels he can honestly tell you without you flipping your lid and going all parent-rage on him. 

There. Some of these are pretty common sense.  But some are downright rebellious, to judge by a lot of the homeschooling talk I see out there ("Not worry about not finishing?! Are you nuts?" "Stop restricting screen time? Do you want a school shooter on your hands?!") They are, however, all things that have made our homeschooling journey gradually more and more of a joy, even now that we are in the supposedly-dreaded Teen Years. 

If you're an experienced homeschooling mommy, what has helped you avoid throwing in the towel due to burnout or frustration?

 

*Clarification, because I know us homeschooling mommies can be with regards to guilt: I am not talking about enrolling a kid in school because you decide that's the best option for him, because she wants to go and you've decided it's ok, or really, any other educational option involving school. I'm speaking specifically about giving up on homeschooling because you think you can't do it, that you suck as a mother, and are a failure at homeschooling, and enrolling a kid elsewhere because of that.  That can be avoided. 

Reasons You Should Let Your Beginning Reader Read Comics.

(An old post that I think can stand a re-posting...)

1. They're not threatening to kids who think they "hate to read" because they're not "A Book."

2.  They seem slightly rebellious to kids (although they often feature storylines that are as old as dirt.)

3. They are not featured on Accelerated Reader Lists (Why this is a benefit is a topic for another post, I think.) 

3. They're fun. 

4. They often feature stunning artwork. Exposing kids to creative, innovative, and excellent art continues to be important long after most kids think they're too big for picture books. 

5. Young eyes sometimes get lost in a page of text. Comic books draw a circle around each group of words, training the eye to grab chunks of text at a time, which is, by the way, how mature readers read. 

6. They are an effective bridge between picture books and chapter books. 

7. They increase childrens' vocabulary. (No, really. Have you read any Calvin and Hobbes lately? Also not on Accelerated Reader lists, by the way.)

8. They help children develop comedic timing.  And yes, that is an important skill. No, it's not one valued in schools, but it's a critical skill for conversation, being personable and comfortable in a group, and useful for anyone who may need to present to a crowd of people at some point in their life. 

9. They're easy to transport, and they're relatively cheap. 

10. They're often serialized, providing book after book on a kid's favoriate characters, pulling a kid bit by bit into fluency by repetition and practice. 

11. They contain more puns than easy readers. Puns and wordplay, like comedic timing, are not things valued in a school environment but they add richness, variety and humor to both real life and the reading life. 

And finally, 

12. They train a child's eye visually.  Through comics, my kid has learned how to draw expressions on faces with a few short strokes, how to arrange a picture to show action happening off-frame, and has learned proportion and visually spacing. 

Things They Don't Tell You About Homeschooling.

The homeschool dream, when you first start homeschooling...

(From here... pop over and see the rest of her pictures.)

And what you find is your reality as the years go on....

 

Right For Your Kid and Right for You.

"...if John Holt were alive today, I think he would be saddened by the efforts of some people who try to turn his term ‘unschooling’ into some sort of a system, into a set of rules that must be followed. John trusted parents to learn from their experience with their children. He didn’t say, ‘If you’re going to call it unschooling, you’re going to have to do it my way.’ He wanted them to figure out what was right for them, for their whole family.” Source.

Probably the biggest piece of advice I (and other homeschooling moms who have been homeschooling more than 2 years or so) give out, over and over again, is that you need to do what works for you and for your kid, whatever that is, and entirely regardless of what labels or methodology that hot mess fits into or doesn't fit in to. 

That means making no apologies to your loosey-goosey homeschooling friends who "wing it" with the lesson plans when you, as a Mom, need a nifty little spreadsheet of what everyone's supposed to be working on so you don't go stark raving mad. 

It means not acting like you've commited some crime because you use a checklist when someone says that a checklist drives them nuts. 

That means making no apolgies for "unschooling" reading and literature and letting your kid read comics and tripe for now even if you're using a neato pre-packaged boxed curriculum for science and math and grammar and Latin, as long as it's working for you and your kid.  You are allowed to mix methodologies. 

That means no guilt if you're forcing your kid to read the booklist that came with that pre-boxed curriculum even when Betsy and Marge's kids are reading whatever they want, as long as it's working for you and your kid.  So stop acting like you "should be" doing more unschooly stuff, ok?

That means not taking it personally when someone is desperate for help, drowing in trouble with homeschooling her kids and she gets advice from others that is different from the way you do things. 

It means not getting angry when someone says your way of doing things won't work for them.  They are different than you. Their kid is not your kid. That it won't work for Brittney's family doesn't mean the method you've suggested is stupid

 It means stopping the obsession with labels already.  

 

You homeschool. 

That is enough. 

Gaps and Socialization

I love when my friend Jane writes about homeschooling.  She's good at explaining, plus she, unlike so many homeschool-advice-dispensers, understands that homeschooling is above all individual.  Kids are different, families are different, needs and circumstances are different. Homeschooling advice given without that understanding is dictatorial and guilt-inducing. 

Here she talks about the dreaded gaps in education that many who do not homeschool or who are very new to homeschooling often worry about.

Jane adresses socialization as well.  I find that homeschool-deniers will sometimes grudgingly admit that maaaaybe homeschooling's ok if the parents are vigilant about getting homeschooled kids involved in this, that, and the other thing, but most especially group activities, so that the children can be socialized.  

I once faced a long and pointed conversation from  a kindergarten teacher on this same subject.  She admitted that a family she knew of was probably managing homeschooling well enough because the boys were in Scouts, a PE-program, sports, homeschool grou, homeschool co-op, they took field trips every week, and more.  She thought this meant the boys were socialized.  I thought it sounded like they were too busy.  (Some of you reading this are going to assume I mean that Scouts and other activities are bad.  I do not.  But the participation in such does not guarantee socialized children.) 

January is a hard, hard month for many homeschooling mommies.  Winter's got us down, we're halfway through the school year (if we follow the school's schedule of Sept-June, with summers off, which I don't, but that's another post).  Jane's posts come at just the right time. 

Why I Don't Like Homeschoolers: A Rant.

While my child does in fact, learn at home and will continue to do so, during the last few months I've been gradually coming to to the conclusion that maybe it's better for my sanity if I dissassociate myself with any groups or resources that wear the "homeschoolers" label. 

It's because I'm so tired of the "Guarding of the Territory" that goes on.

Even as recently as four years ago, when I first became involved with online homeschooling communities, there was a "live and let live" attitude: do what works for you. If you run into problems and ask for other options, I'll tell you what works for me in case it will give you some ideas. 

But there has been a change and I don't understand it.  

Now, when someone asks for help and options other than the person's current approach are offerred, the person feels attacked. Why?  

People cling to labels and assignations of methodology so much more tightly now than they did just a few years ago.  Why? 

There are now what I can only describe as factions instead of moms just doing what works for themselves and their families, factions that get tetchy and argue about what IS or ISN'T valid for their particular methodology.  Why does everything have to fit into one particular list of parameters? 

Mixing "methods" seems to be frowned upon more in recent years. Women seem to agonize over whether they are This Sort of Homeschooler or whether they are That Sort of Homeschooler.  I want to smack them.  Just teach your kid.  Be there for them, help them learn, and quit spilling pixels over what kind of homeschooler you are.  

I've heard someone say, "Oh, I could never be an unschooler, even though I love so much about the idea, because I don't think you can unschool math!" So don't unschool math then.  Big flipping whoopie.  But no: I've gotten heat for saying exactly that.  It's all or nothing with so many homeschoolers: you're either This Method or That Method and never the twain shall blend. Ever.

I don't understand why so many homeschooling mothers have so much emotionally invested in their particular brand of homeschooling.  I don't care how you homeschool your kid, not unless you come to me, pulling your hair out, ready to quit homeschooling because you're so burnt out and frustrated; then, and only then, will I advocate for my approach IF it seems to me that what you are struggling with is similar to what brought me to homeschool the way that I do. 

Otherwise, I don't give a flying rip. And the fact that so many homeschooling moms do makes my head hurt.

The mere existence of other approaches to homeschooling seems to threaten some homeschooling moms. I do not understand why and I wish it didn't matter. 

Want proof that I'm not making this up? Highlight the following: Watch the defensiveness break out in the comments of any post ever, anywhere, on any blog, that is saying what I am saying.

Mr. Dewey's Dirty Secret

I came across this yesterday.

"You can't make Socialists out of of individualists - children who know who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent."

-John Dewey (Yes, that Dewey. Now you know.)

Thanks, Mr. Father of Education! I prefer the following. (Emphasis mine.)

"Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other person's experiences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the very center of our being... He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we may make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value."

-John Holt

This kind of stuff always sends me running back to John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education.   A school is a factory for creating "productive members of society."  Why should I send my child there?  I want her to be human, not a producer for the collective. If she contributes to the common good, and I pray that she will, it will be out of her love for God and for her fellow man, not because she's been conditioned to do so by an artificial environment, and stripped of her ability to make a free choice. 

So how are our public schools doing on creating that harmony in the collective society, where everyone is interdependent? Pretty harmonious out there, isn't it, Mr. Dewey?