Homeschooling through a Divorce
When your marriage ends, homeschooling probably isn’t the first thing on your mind — but navigating a divorce while homeschooling can bring up unexpected issues.
When your marriage ends, homeschooling probably isn’t the first thing on your mind — but navigating a divorce while homeschooling can bring up unexpected issues.
BY HEIDI KESSLER
DIVORCE ISN’T exactly uncommon these days — roughly half of all marriages end in divorce — but it still felt like a failure when my husband and I had to accept that our marriage was one of 50-percent that wouldn’t make it. There were obviously a lot of things to navigate in separating our lives from each other and figuring out the best way to parent our kids together even if we weren’t together, but homeschooling turned out to be a particularly tricky piece of the puzzle.
We’d been homeschooling for five years when our divorce was being finalized; Cady was in 6th grade, and Jon was a 4th grader. I’d gone to a homeschool conference with a curious friend when Cady was in 1st grade — I was supposed to just be there to keep her company, but I ended up totally inspired. I pulled Cady out of school a couple of weeks later, and we became a homeschool family. Soon, I had strong opinions about math curriculums, my educator’s discount at the bookstore, and a regular homeschool park day. I’d been planning to slowly switch back from part-time to full-time work when Jon started kindergarten the next year; instead, I cut my hours back even more.
My husband Dan was reluctantly on board with homeschooling. He worried a lot about the kids being “on grade level” and “learning how to cope in the real world,” but he saw their primary school education as mostly my business — if I wanted to homeschool them for their elementary years, he didn’t have a problem with that as long as I also signed them up for activities with other kids.
When we decided to get divorced, though, he made it clear that he didn’t want our kids to homeschool indefinitely. Some of his reasons seemed silly — he was worried about socialization, the way so many people who don’t actually homeschool are, and about the kids getting into college, which was still pretty far down the road. But some of his reasons were more valid: He wanted to be able to split time during the week, which was easier if the kids were enrolled in school, and financially, he didn’t want to pay for me to stay home so I could homeschool the kids. We had talked about 401(k) plans and summer vacations and even how we would change our wills, but neither of us thought about homeschooling until we were sitting down at the conference table with our lawyers. Every other part of our divorce had been fairly amicable, but we were deeply divided about homeschooling our kids. It became obvious that we weren’t going to agree.
I am lucky to have an ex-husband who cares passionately about being a good parent to our kids. I had to remind myself about this many times as we argued about whether I would get to continue homeschooling our kids. Apparently, Dan had never really been a fan of our homeschool life. He was worried that our kids weren’t learning the same things their public school peers were learning. He was worried that I wasn’t qualified to teach them what they needed to know. (That one hurt a little.) He was worried that if I was spending all day, every day with the kids, his relationship with them would suffer. (I put myself in his shoes for this one and could see his point.)
We hired a mediator to walk us through this decision. The mediator suggested that we give the kids a standardized test to see where they actually were academically. Neither of them had ever taken a standardized test before, so they were a little anxious about it, and the results didn’t seem to point in any clear direction. The kids were on level in some areas, a little ahead in others, a little behind in some. The kids liked homeschooling and said so, but when Dan talked about school clubs and sports, they were excited about those, too. Homeschooling felt like the clear Right Answer for me, but it was obviously not the clear right answer for our family. In the end we compromised. We agreed that we wouldn’t change anything about what we were doing academically until the end of the school year, so I’d keep homeschooling Cady and Jon — but the next year, Cady would go to our local middle school. Dan agreed to me homeschooling Jon until he finished fifth grade, and then he’d go to the local middle school, too. Jon would take a test every year to screen for major learning gaps, and if any appeared, we’d reevaluate our plan. Meanwhile, I would have a few years to figure out a plan for going back to work full-time. Dan was willing to keep paying the mortgage on our family home until Jon started middle school; after that, I’d need to go back to work to afford a place of my own.
I can’t lie: I was really disappointed. I’d imagined homeschooling all the way through high school. I loved it so much. But the kids were OK with the plan, and I had to remind myself that was the most important thing. Neither Dan nor I got exactly what we wanted, but we were able to work together to make a plan that we both felt OK about.
Divorce is hard. Our homeschool changed a lot because of it. But there are definitely a few things I wish I had known going into the process:
Get mental health support ASAP. Of course you want to make this transition as smooth as you can for your children, but don’t neglect yourself in the process. “Divorce can be an emotionally charged experience, even if you part on good terms, and parents need space to deal with the end of a relationship,” says counselor and mediator David Kuroda. If you ignore your own feelings, they’re likely to come out in ways that ultimately make a divorce harder for everyone. I couldn’t process everything with Dan, and I didn’t want to dump on the kids. My therapist was an essential outlet. I needed a place where I could be sad, irrational, and over the top, and therapy was that place for me.
Get on the same page. If one parent wants to homeschool but the other one has strong feelings about other education options, things can get complicated. “When we’re married, we work hard to minimize our differences — we’re more willing to negotiate and compromise on questions of family and child rearing,” says M. Gary Neuman, author of Helping Your Kids Cope with Divorce the Sandcastles Way. Ideally, kids will stick with the same academic routine they had pre-divorce, says Kuroda, so this isn’t a great time to make the transition back to school or to pull them out to start homeschooling. If homeschooling is a point of contention, it may help to bring in a mediator who can help you pin down objective metrics for your homeschool. I didn’t love the idea of annual testing, but it turned out to be a low-hassle way to get Dan’s support for homeschooling through elementary school. Ultimately, we both wanted our kids to have a good educational experience, so focusing on that helped us find a few compromises.
Keep kids out of the middle. This can be tough if you and your ex are disagreeing about details, but it’s important that your kids don’t feel like they have to choose sides. A parenting plan can really help with this, spelling out how your kids will spend time, what your financial obligations to each other are (including college), and establishing a new family routine. It can be especially hard on kids if one parent doesn’t follow through on planned time together or commitments, so make your own follow-through a priority and try to minimize the impact of let-downs if your partner is the one missing commitments. Dan and I disagreed about plenty of things, but when we talked to the kids, we made sure to present a united front. The last thing we wanted was for them to feel like they had to take sides. I wasn’t thrilled about making the kids take tests or sending them back to traditional middle school, but I made sure they knew it was our joint decision. Dan didn’t love the idea of homeschooling until middle school, but he never second-guessed it around the kids after we made the decision.
Take your time. Once you decide to get divorced, most people just want to get everything done as quickly as possible, but rushing the process means you’re more likely to make emotional decisions instead of logical ones, says Constance Ahrons, psychologist and author of the book We’re Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorce. Slow down, take a deep breath, and give yourself the space you need to educate yourself instead of rushing for the finish line. Once a divorce decision is finalized, it can be challenging (and sometimes expensive) to change it, so take the time to make a plan that you know you can live with. Dan and I took almost a year to work through all the details, but that plan has carried our kids into high school now, healthy and happy.
Heidi Kessler is a former homeschool mom. She lives in Florida with her kids and two cats.
How to Get Excited about Homeschooling Again
When your homeschool starts to feel like more work than fun, it’s time to make a change.
When your homeschool starts to feel like more work than fun, it’s time to make a change.
When your homeschool mojo goes missing, the day-to-day work of homeschooling becomes a slog. And this doesn’t just happen to folks who use workbooks — homeschool slump can strike any kind of homeschooler. Sometimes, all you need to get that mojo back is a break — hello, summer! — but if you’re lounging by the pool in late July still feeling blah about next year’s homeschool, these strategies might be just what you need to get excited about homeschooling again.
Do more of what you like and less of what you don’t.
What if you only did the parts of your job you actually liked? This is the questions Marla Koutoujian, a career coach in New York City, who helps professions who feel stuck in a career rut, asks all her new clients, and she says homeschool moms should ask themselves the same thing.
Koutoujian says homeschoolers and corporate bosses often run into the same problem: The better you get at your job, the less you get to do the parts that you actually like. For business folks, this can be a harder problem to navigate, but homeschoolers have the freedom to recreate their homeschool from the ground up every day. Start by thinking about the things you really like — go back in time, too, and think about the moments in your homeschool that brought you the most joy. Those are the things that should be at the top of your to-do list every single day and the things that you should give the most time and energy to because those are the things that give back to you.
This summer is the perfect time to do just that: Make your list, and figure out how to get more of what you love about homeschooling into every single day. Maybe this means you’ll sign up for more classes or that you’ll stop taking so many outside classes. Maybe it means you’ll toss the workbooks or that you’ll buy more workbooks, that you’ll get back to reading aloud every day or that you’ll play outside more. The key is to identify what brings you joy and to build your homeschool days around that joy list instead of a less-than-thrilling to-do list.
Find your social support network.
“I could not homeschool if I didn’t have people to talk to about homeschooling,” says Debra,* a homeschool mom in Ontario. Debra relies on weekly park days with friends and an active online discussion group to keep her homeschool motivation going strong.
A strong support network can be the difference between a ho-hum homeschool and one that’s bursting with energy. “I am much more excited about homeschooling when I hear about other people’s great homeschool ideas and successes,” Debra says. “And talking about challenges sometimes reminds me of solutions I’ve found and forgotten about.”
If you’re not lucky enough to have a strong local homeschool community, keep looking: Homeschool networks tend to be small, grassroots organization that aren’t always easy to find and tap into. The more homeschool events and activities you visit, the more likely you are to find a group that’s the right fit for your family. And if you can’t find a local group, look online: There are tons of homeschool forums and support groups that exist in the virtual world. If your homeschool friends are far-flung, you might also consider starting an online or email group, where you can share your homeschool stories. If you do, Debra recommends establishing the same three rules that she says work well for her group: Limit griping, focus on problems as something to be solved, and share personal experiences (“This worked for me”) rather than giving direct advice (“You should do this.”).
Revamp your space.
Sitting in the same chair and staring at the same walls for years can gradually erode your enthusiasm for anything you do in that space, says interior designer Laila Carsters, who specializes in office design. Start in the room where you spend most of your hands-on homeschooling time — maybe it’s a school room, but it might be your kitchen, living room, or even your back porch. Refresh the walls with a new paint color, hang a few new or moved-from- other-rooms pictures, rearrange the furniture, switch the blinds for sheer curtains to let in more light, introduce a few plants — you don’t have to spend a lot of money or be professionally trained to give your work space a facelift, says Carsters. If even a small redo isn’t an option right now, relocate. If you usually homeschool in the school room, start doing your readalouds in the living room or in the backyard.
Homeschool Makeover: How Can I Make Our Homeschool Less School-y?
Jenn’s been struggling to find a balance between the structure and academics she needs and the fun, laidback vibe she wants her homeschool to have.
Jenn’s been struggling to find a balance between the structure and academics she needs and the fun, laidback vibe she wants her homeschool to have. We help her make some adjustments to make her homeschool more relaxed.
“I love the idea of unschooling, but I’m never going to be an unschooler,” says Jennifer Harris. Jenn homeschools her 9-year-old son Ian in a style that she calls Charlotte Mason-ish—“but lately, it’s feeling like all workbooks and dictation and sitting-at-the-desk time, which is too far in the other direction,” Jenn says.
We asked Jenn to track her time over a couple of weeks so that we could get a clearer idea of what a typical day in her homeschool looked like. Jenn was surprised to discover that she and Ian usually spent about two hours a day on school time—“it feels like so much more,” Jenn says. On most days, they’d start school after breakfast, then sit down together at the table to work. Sometimes Ian would read independently, sometimes Jenn would read aloud, but they’d stay at the table, working their way through one subject at a time, until it was time to start lunch. Jenn’s husband, Frank, comes home for lunch every day, so she and Ian hurry to get the table cleaned up and lunch prepared so that they can all enjoy the meal together.
“It’s gotten to the point where school feels like work to both of us,” says Jenn. “I care about staying on top of things academically, but I hate the way our learning process is starting to feel like a job. Is there a way to bring back fun without sacrificing academics?”
The PLAN
Since it was pretty clear that Jenn wasn’t overdoing it time-wise — two to three hours is a reasonable amount of hands-on school time for a third-grader — we decided to focus on the way she was using her time. By spending all their school time at the table and keeping an eye on the clock ticking toward a lunchtime deadline, Jenn and Ian weren’t able to relax into their routine. Here’s how we changed things up:
Moving classes to the afternoon. When I asked Jenn why they were doing all their school work before lunch, she paused and said, “You know what? I don’t even know.” It turns out that afternoons are quiet at the Harris house. Except for a regular Friday park day, Jenn and Ian are hanging out at home in the afternoons. We suggested moving their second hour of school time to the afternoon to make the morning more relaxed. Instead of jumping into their next lesson after handwriting, Ian starts his independent reading and Jenn gets household stuff out of the way until it’s time to prep lunch.
Starting the day with a meeting at the table. Jenn felt like table time was essential to starting their homeschool day. “I need the structure of sitting down in a consistent spot every day and saying okay, now we’re homeschooling,” Jenn says. We suggested that Jenn keep doing this — but instead of spending an entire morning at the table, she and Ian could get the same down-to-business boost from a morning meeting there right after breakfast. While they’re at the table, Ian does his daily copy work and handwriting practice.
Relocate for different subjects. The kitchen table is the best place for Ian to practice handwriting, but his other subjects might benefit from a change of scene. We suggested that Jenn and Ian switch locations each time they move to a new subject: math on the patio, history on the couch, spelling at the desk in Ian’s room, etc. This kind of musical chairs isn’t just a way to transition between subjects—researchers have discovered that students who work on material in different places retain it better than those who sit in the same spot to study every day.
Integrate more reading aloud. Ian’s a strong reader, and Jenn’s been encouraging him to do more independent reading, but since readalouds are one of the things Jenn and Ian like best about homeschooling, we suggested that they bring back the readaloud. (Kids benefit from being read to long after they’re able to finish chapter books on their own, and reading together means you get to learn together—which is one of the best ways to feel like your homeschool is a fun, relaxed place.) We suggested that Jenn and Ian go back to doing book-based subjects, including history and science, as readalouds and letting Ian keep his reading skills sharp with independent reading.
The results
“I didn’t realize such simple changes could make such a big difference, but they really have,” Jenn says when we follow up with her. She and Ian have been implementing their new routine over the past month, and Jenn says everything is working better than she had hoped.
“I think I bought into the idea that when we hit third grade, school should become more school-like,” Jenn says. “And the result was that Ian was learning about the same amount but we were having a lot less fun. I think I needed someone to say ‘Hey, you can teach your kid what he needs to know and still have fun doing it.’”
This column is excerpted from the summer 2016 issue of HSL. Do you need a homeschool makeover? Email us at hello@homeschoollifemag.com with a description of what’s tripping up your homeschool life, and we may feature your makeover in an upcoming issue.
Homeschool Transitions: Making the Shift to Middle School
If you’re homeschooling your middle schooler, you probably have a lot of questions. The good news: It’s going to be pretty exciting to navigate these big changes with your homeschooler.
Making the transition from elementary to middle school can feel intimidating, but try to see it as a dress rehearsal: Here’s where you lay the groundwork for high school and your child’s learning future, whether that includes heading off to college, mastering a trade, or starting her own business. These are the years when you’ll try lots of different materials, projects, and methods—go in knowing that some of them won’t work. You will fail sometimes, and it will be okay. If there is one overriding message for your middle school years — for you and for your tween — it’s that messing up is just part of the process.
By middle school, your child probably has mastered his educational basics. He can read. He can add and subtract, multiply and divide. He knows some history and some science. He can write a paragraph on a given subject. If you look at lists of what a 6th grader or a 7th grader needs to know, you won’t find a lot of traditional skills listed. Instead, you’ll find an emphasis on analysis: The middle school years are when knowledge takes on meaning — messy, open-to-interpretation meaning — and encouraging your child to question, analyze, and critique the world around him is one of the most supportive things you can do as a homeschooling parent. Here’s what to consider as your child moves into middle school:
Look for outside classes.
The tween years are an optimal time for kids to test-drive different kinds of teaching styles and evaluation methods. Different teachers with different expectations give your child the opportunity to discover her strengths and weaknesses in a safe space — and that self-knowledge will play an important role in her future learning.
Don’t drop physical education.
Even more than little kids, tweens need active time. Between ages 9 and 16, kids develop their lifelong attitudes toward exercise: Kids who get regular exercise now are more likely to exercise as adults. Regular exercise also gives kids a healthy way to cope with the emotional overload of adolescence and can develop the parts of the brain that help them learn — and remember what they’ve learned — more effectively.
Hand over the reins.
If you haven’t already started giving your homeschooler decision-making power about what and how he studies, now’s the time. If you’re committed to covering certain subjects every year, stick with your plan — but let your tween weigh in on how you cover those subjects, and give him space to decide what outside classes or other interests he pursues. While you’re at it, hand your tween her own calendar, and let her start to handle scheduling her activities and keeping up with homework and deadlines. Let her practice keeping (and keeping up with) notes and materials for her classes. Yes, your child may muck up an assignment or miss a meeting, but she’ll be learning how to organize and manage her time while the stakes are still low.
What should you study in middle school?
Be ready to nitpick everything because that’s where your tween’s academic inclinations will point him. Middle school is all about taking things apart and looking at them from different perspectives. Don’t be surprised if your child is quick to latch onto other perspectives, especially those of his friends.
Language arts
Steer your student toward the nonfiction section of the library. Biographies make a great starting point—the Childhood of Famous Americans series or the DK Biography series include a wide range of historical figures. Encourage tweens to look beyond the story in fiction, considering topics like character, setting, plot, and theme.
Middle school writers should start to practice the art of revision. A good writing book, like The Elements of Style or How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, can help this process, or consider a writing curriculum like Cover Story [Editor's Note: There are a few traces of religion in Cover Story, most notably in the section on conducting interviews, in which the example interview is one with a missionary in Sudan, and an occasional Bible verse as an example of sentence construction. Religious references aren't the only examples, and there's no proselytizing or anything like that, but you should be aware.] , which guides kids through several different types of non-fiction writing, or Moving Beyond the Page, which is a practical option for kids and parents who want step-by-step guidance.
Learning how to find, use, and correctly cite sources is important now, too. (The Purdue Online Writing Lab has a handy online guide to help cite sources—from personal interviews to webpages— correctly.) Research papers that combine original thinking and opinions with thoroughly researched information from a variety of sources are a key achievement of middle school language arts.
Math and science
Your tween will make the leap from memorizing facts to analyzing data during middle school. Expect him to get familiar with scientific notation, charts, and graphs, as well as tools like calculators, protractors, and compasses. In math, you’ll be moving beyond the basics into algebra and geometry, including solving lots of word problems, getting a grip on the concept of negative numbers, and figuring out fractions, decimals, and percentages. Often, this is when parents start to feel insecure about our ability to teach math—if you’d like a program that does the teaching for you, consider Teaching Textbooks, which delivers lessons via DVD, or an outside math class. (But keep in mind: a smart math curriculum can also give you back the math confidence your own middle and high school math classes may have taken away.)
In science class, break out the microscope and telescope to explore the micro- and macrocosm. Explore technology and how things work. Pandia Press R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Level 2 may be the best traditional middle school science curriculum out there, or take a literature-based approach with The Story of Science series.
History and social studies
If you haven’t already made current events part of your routine, get plugged in now. CNN 10 (formerly CNN Student News) makes a good check-it-every-day resource for keeping up with world events, and you can find in-depth ideas for exploring current news topics via The New York Times Learning Network.
Your middle schooler is also ready to dig into meatier issues, including social justice, environmental ethics, historical conflicts, and more. Trying to see historical events from different perspectives is a mind-expanding experience.
Homeschooling Isn’t Just for the Kids
5 surprising ways to build a homeschool life that works for your whole family — including you. “If your homeschool isn’t giving you personal satisfaction most of the time, something needs to change.”
5 surprising ways to build a homeschool life that works for your whole family — including you.
“If your homeschool isn’t giving you personal satisfaction most of the time, something needs to change,” says life coach and homeschool consultant Gillian O’Keefe.
O’Keefe says it’s easy to fall into a rut of thinking “this is just the way things are,” but very few homeschoolers are in a position where they’re helpless to the daily grind. “Homeschooling isn’t a punch-the-clock job — it’s a job that you make up each and every day as you go. So if something’s not working for you about your homeschool, all you have to do is change what you’re doing. You just have to know where to start.”
We bet you’ll find the inspiration you need to look at your homeschool life in a new way in these stories from real homeschool moms who took big, bold measures to get past a homeschool hump, from quitting homeschooling to keeping homeschool going after their kids opted back into traditional school. Whether your homeschool could use a little injection of energy or a big makeover, use the big perspective shifts in these stories to inspire your happiest homeschool year yet.
“I took a sabbatical.”
I homeschooled my oldest straight through high school, but by the time he graduated, I was genuinely burned out — even though I had an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old still learning at home. I tried to get motivated about another year of homeschooling, but that whole summer, as my oldest was getting ready to go to college, I kept thinking, “I just want a break.” And not surprisingly, when the school year started back up, everything felt so ridiculously hard.
My husband works in academia, so I am familiar with the idea of a sabbatical — a planned break from your everyday responsibilities that gives professors a little space to do their own work. And I thought, “I need a sabbatical!” So I took one.
I didn’t move to Tibet. I was still at home, doing laundry and cooking dinner and even going over tricky math problems. But we switched all the boys’ school work to things they could do 90-percent independently. They took online classes and a couple of local classes, and I was just there for support, like a regular mom with kids in regular school. I took a landscape painting class and beginning French at community college, read a big stack of books, none of which talked about homeschooling, and genuinely enjoyed spending time with my family again. At first, I wasn’t sure if I would ever want to go back to homeschooling, but by the next spring, I was eyeing new curriculums with a twinkle in my eye. I didn’t hate homeschooling. I just needed a break. And, three years later, I’m still running on the energy that sabbatical gave me.
—Allison
“I started a homeschool group.”
I liked homeschooling from the very first day, but finding a homeschool group made me feel like Goldilocks: This one was too big, that one was too strict, the other one was too unreliable. I worried and worried about socialization and never having friends for way too long before I realized that I could start a group myself.
This was about 10 years ago, when my girls were 6 and 9 years old. I started by asking a couple of families I’d met through other groups if they would be interested in getting together for a regular park day. (I didn’t want to be a jerk, so I made sure to pick a day that didn’t conflict with another group’s regular park day. I was really nervous about making other groups mad, but it turned out that no one but me really cared.) The park days got pretty popular, and another mom suggested we buy group tickets for The Nutcracker. Soon, we were doing field trips regularly, and a couple of years later, we’d started a co-op.
Both of my kids are done homeschooling now— my oldest is in college and my youngest decided she wanted to go to a private high school with some of her friends — but that homeschool group is still going strong. For me, it became a really important homeschool lesson: You may not find what you’re looking for on the rack, so to speak. Sometimes, to get what you want, you have to make what you want.
—Carolyn
“I stopped teaching math.”
Almost from the first day we started homeschooling, my daughter Alana and I were fighting over math. Every single math lesson seemed to end with one of us in tears. I had nightmares about math. Alana would yell at me that she was stupid, that she hated math. Sometimes she would yell that she hated me. This was so, so, so not what I envisioned when we started homeschooling.
I was talking to my friend, who is a high school English teacher, about how hard math was for us, and she laughed and said, “That’s why I don’t teach math!” She was just kidding, but it made me think. I hated math. I’d never been good at it in school, and it brought up all kinds of stress and insecurity from me. It was so obvious I was passing that on to Alana. And there was no good reason for it. I didn’t have to teach her math.
And I stopped, that day. I bought Teaching Textbooks, which has DVDs with instructions, for that first year, and the next year and every year after that, I signed her up for homeschool math classes at a hybrid school. She’s a junior this year taking trigonometry. Next year, she’s going to take calculus. She genuinely likes math, and, as it turns out, she’s actually pretty good at it.
Outsourcing a subject so completely wasn’t how I envisioned our homeschool. But it was the best thing for both of us, and quitting math has opened up the space for us to have a happy homeschool and a happy relationship, two things I’m really proud of.
—Julia
“I got rid of our school room.”
When we first started homeschooling, I was very excited to turn our dining room into a school room. I bought a big map and a bunch of Ikea bookcases and thought it was the greatest thing ever. I was so proud of that room. It was like having it proved that we were “real homeschoolers.”
But the “school room,” as I liked to call it, soon became one big messy space. However much I cleaned it up, it always felt messy and cluttered. No one wanted to spend time there. The kids did their work at the kitchen table or on the living room floor or on the patio. The school room just sat there gathering dust.
Last Thanksgiving, a bunch of out-of-town relatives decided to visit us. In order to have enough chairs for everyone, we had to move our old dining room table out of the garage and back into the dining room, and I had to pack up all the books and manipulative and science equipment and move it to the garage. A couple of times, one of the kids would say, “Hey, where’s the microscope?” and go find it in its plastic bin. But most of the stuff, nobody missed. Nobody was looking for it. Nobody wanted it.
We started eating at the dining room table again. The kids do their work there sometimes. My partner and I have our morning coffee there. Having a school room is never what made us real homeschoolers. Now our whole house is the school room, the whole world is our school.
—Gwen
“I kept homeschooling after my kids quit.”
Homeschooling was one of my favorite things I ever did, so when both my kids decided they wanted to go to our public school when they started middle school, I was pretty disappointed. I liked seeing them happy, and there was no question that they were where they wanted to be. But I missed homeschooling.
I looked for a job, but my resume had a huge gap and I didn’t have particularly great experience in anything. I couldn’t even get an interview for a cashier job at a craft store. We’d gotten used to living on one income, the kids still needed a ride to soccer and karate, and I still did the shopping and cooking and housework-type stuff, but I was bored out of my mind.
Then one day, when I was sitting home watching the clock for school pick-up time, I thought, well, maybe I’ll try to do that geometry program we didn’t get to use. Learning new things with the kids was my favorite part of homeschooling, and it turned out I liked learning things on my own, too. I learned geometry and algebra, Revolutionary War history, all about the Stuart kings of England, The Great Gatsby, all kinds of things. I pretty much homeschooled myself, and I ended up going back to college at 47 to study environmental science.
—Christine
Homeschool Makeover: Is It Possible to Homeschool and Be a Working Mom?
Lauren’s excited to go back to work—but she’s not ready to give up homeschooling her two kids. We help her find a way to have it all.
Lauren’s excited to go back to work—but she’s not ready to give up homeschooling her two kids. We help her find a way to have it all.
The situation
“I’m going back to work part-time, and I’m struggling with how to make our new schedule work with our homeschool life. Help!”
“I feel so lucky that I got to be a stay-at-home, homeschool mom for so many years, but it’s just not feasible for us financially anymore,” says Lauren*. Lauren has been homeschooling her 10-year-old daughter Bree and her 12-year-old son Adam their whole lives, using what she calls a “project-based, Waldorf-type method.” After twelve years, Lauren is reentering the workforce as a part-time administrative assistant — she’ll be working from home, but she’ll have firm office hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. three days a week. “Even though I don’t do a lot of hands-on instruction, I am available all the time right now,” she says. “In a few weeks, that won’t be the case.”
As usual, we asked Lauren to track her homeschool time for a couple of weeks so that we could get a clear picture of how her family’s homeschool works before she started her new job. Lauren noted that she spends a couple of hours a day with Bree doing math and readalouds (Lauren uses the Build Your Library reading list as the spine for their homeschool, but they rarely do any of the recommended activities or projects) while Adam works on his Minecraft building project for a couple of hours. After lunch, they switch, and Lauren reads and does math with Adam while Bree tackles her own project time. (Lately, she’s been making a leaf identification guide for the leaves she’s collected on family nature walks.) Lauren is very hands-on with both kids — she frequently pauses reading time to answer questions about project work as they come up. Both kids use separate science curricula three times a week. (“I try to remember to prep for labs, but sometimes we end up just watching an experiment on YouTube,” Lauren says.) Adam and Bree have riding lessons on Saturdays and attend a weekly homeschool park day once a week.
“It doesn’t sound like we do that much, but with one thing and another, we really are going until dinnertime most days and sometimes beyond,” says Lauren. “I’m just not sure how to successfully condense what we do into two days a week.”
The Plan
It’s obvious that for Lauren’s new work schedule to work, Adam and Bree will have to fill in some gaps with independent work. Since readalouds are one of Lauren’s favorite things about homeschooling, we made keeping reading together time a priority, even though Adam and Bree read well enough independently to keep up with Build Your Library’s daily reading schedule on their own. Here’s how we suggested Lauren shake up their routine to suit her new schedule:
Think university model. Most college classes meet twice a week, giving students the rest of the week to tackle assignments and pursue other interests. Since Lauren has two open weekdays for homeschooling, we suggested that she condense as much hands-on instruction and learning as possible into those two days. These two days are the days to do science experiments, tackle new math concepts, etc.—anything that requires introducing new ideas or hands-on assistance from Lauren. On the days when Lauren’s working, Adam and Bree can solve practice problems, update their science notebooks with charts and definitions, and do other solo work.
Set up a Hey Mom station. Lauren’s new job requires her to be available during her scheduled shift, so Adam and Bree can only interrupt her during working hours if there’s an emergency. We suggested setting up a whiteboard in a convenient place where the kids can jot down questions that pop up during the day. That way, nothing important gets lost.
Reconfigure readalouds. The Build Your Library curriculum has more readalouds than the family can comfortably squeeze into two mornings a week, so we looked for other places in the family schedule where readalouds might fit in. We suggested moving the literature readings to bedtime on the days when Lauren’s working. Lauren can also add a couple of extra chapters to books on the two days when she’s actively homeschooling to help them stay on track with Build Your Library’s weekly schedule.
Bundle science classes. Bree and Adam are close enough in age to tackle the same science curriculum—and sticking with a single schedule of experiments and assignments is much easier to keep up with. Since Bree and Adam are covering the same material, they can also help each other answer tough questions or understand tricky concepts while Lauren is unavailable. (We talked about the possibility of bundling Build Your Library, too, but Lauren didn’t think it would work to jump Bree up two levels and Adam has already covered the grade in between them.)
Take advantage of “dead time.” The family is in the car for a little more than an hour every weekend taking Bree and Adam to and from their weekly riding lessons. Not all the books in their curriculum are available as audiobooks, but quite a few are—and Lauren can also record the poems Bree and Adam are working on memorizing so that they can practice as they drive.
The Results
Two months into her new job, Lauren says they’ve found a rhythm that works. “We’d always homeschooled a certain way and it had always been such a happy experience, so there was a part of me that kept trying to squeeze the way we’d always done things into our new schedule. It helped so much to have someone to help me see the big picture and to recognize that we could keep the spirit of our homeschool even if we changed some things.”
Lauren says the Hey Mom board has become an essential part of their homeschool and has really helped manage her own guilt about not being available. Condensing into two days has worked even better than she expected. “I’m so impressed by how Adam and Bree have taken the reins of their education,” she says. “They were definitely ready for this even if I wasn’t.”
This homeschool makeover was originally published in the fall 2016 issue of HSL. *Last names omitted for online publication.
Six Steps to Turn the Homeschool You Have into the Homeschool You Really Want
Reinventing your homeschool is just part of the process, but this six-step process will help your homeschool grow in the ways that work best for your family.
1. Understand What You Really Want
The first step to getting what you want is knowing what you really want. That sounds simple, but this is where people often get hung up on vague ideas or not-quite-thought-out scenarios.
How do you want your homeschool to feel? What do you want it to accomplish? Life coach Erin Michaelson recommends borrowing a trick from the home decorating world and creating an inspiration board for your homeschool. “Choose images and words that reflect the way you want your homeschool to feel,” says Michaelson. “Don’t overthink it — just grab the images that appeal to you and start pinning them on a wall or Pinterest board.”
Your dream board may look different from what you imagined — maybe you had visions of a nature-centered Waldorf environment, but all your pictures are of cozy book nooks. That’s okay, says Michaelson. “Often, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for until we start to pin it down. Sometimes, that disconnect can make us feel permanently dissatisfied because we haven’t taken the time to understand what we really want — we’re working toward the wrong things and trying to figure out why we’re so unhappy.” Really focus on what you want — not on what seems affordable, or reasonable, or doable in your current situation. This is your chance to dream big.
2. Know Where You Are
You need to know where you are before you can figure out how to go anywhere.
You probably spend a lot of time thinking about what you’d like your homeschool to be, but it’s equally important to understand where you are. Start another inspiration board to capture your current homeschool life: What is a typical day like? What do you do all day? How do you feel? How does your day look? Find words and pictures that reflect your homeschool as it actually is right now — and be honest. There will probably be good parts and parts that aren’t so photogenic — that’s okay. Go ahead and include what feels true, which may include messes and arguments, unfinished projects and kids playing video games all day. This is where you are, and it’s essential to have a clear picture of where exactly that is.
You probably have a clear idea of the things that aren’t going right, and that’s part of this project. But don’t neglect the things that are working for you, whether it’s little things like finally finding the perfect pencil sharpener or bigger-picture things like figuring out the right bedtime routine. Here are some things to consider:
Curriculum. Think both about the curriculum you are using and the subjects where you aren’t using curriculum. What’s working? What isn’t? What’s getting done, and what’s perpetually on your yeah-I-should-really-get-around-to-that list? What do your kids look forward to, and what do they dread?
Routine. What do your mornings look like? How do your afternoons feel? How do your days wind up? Pay attention to the parts of your routine that work really well and to the parts that aren’t really working. When do you feel the happiest? When is everyone the most productive? Definitely consider the parts of your day that fall under the traditional homeschool umbrella — the times when you are learning or working in focused ways — but give attention to the rest of your day, too, which is an important part of your family’s regular routine.
Yourself. This is one of those things that you might not usually give a lot of your energy to thinking about, but how you feel about yourself can play an important role in your homeschool. How do you feel during the day? What do you look like? What’s the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing on your mind before you go to sleep?
3. What’s Missing?
Here’s where things get fun: You’re going to plot a course to start transforming the homeschool you have right now into the homeschool you really want.
A lot of inspiration boards start and end with step one, but to really start to make your happiest homeschool come to life, keep going. Create a follow-up dream board for each of the important elements in your main inspiration board.
For example, if you collected lots of photos of happy families making art in a sunny room but art is always getting shoved off your to-do list, start a list called “Let’s Do Art.” Start adding images of what you imagine your ideal art homeschool would look like — cool pictures and projects, a big table, great art supplies, a gallery wall running up your staircase, etc. Do this for all the repeated images that you put together in step one: Maybe you’ll have a page for field trips or carschooling, a page for a super-organized homeschool room, or a page full of nature activities. You might have a page of a happy, well-adjusted student settling into college life or a page of mom outfits that don’t involve yoga pants — anything that you pinned to your dream board more than once should get fleshed out with more images and details. Don’t try to convince yourself that anything is unimportant or unnecessary — you may end up needing to set priorities down the road, but this is not that time. It’s okay if this process takes a while, too — there’s no need to rush.
“It’s tempting to jump right into thinking about what you need to do to get from Point A to Point B, but it’s important to really give yourself room to explore the Point B you want to reach,” says Michaelson. “Pretend that you have all the money/time/ space/whatever in the world: What does this particular thing you want look like?”
4. Let Go
Just as it makes sense to hone in on the specifics of what you really want, it’s important to spend some time considering the parts of your current life that you’d like to change.
Make a page for each thing that’s not working: A schedule that feels too hectic, arguing kids, a perpetual mess, that permanently frazzled feeling you have at the end of every week — whatever it is that’s making your homeschool feel stressful or boring or unhappy. Collect images and ideas for changing these difficult moments: You may want to search for ideas online or in magazines or ask friends for advice about strategies that have worked for them.
“A lot of times, we get so caught up in trying to figure out what’s causing a problem that we never actually address the problem,” says Joshua Holland, a career advisor who specializes in helping people align their career paths with their passions. “Sometimes, though, your time is better spent moving forward in a productive way.”
Instead of wondering why your kids grouch out over morning math or why you fall apart every night after park day, think about what you might be able to do differently to change that problem part of your day. Knowing what you want to avoid is just as important as knowing what you want to concentrate on.
5. Start Making Changes
Only now is it time to start actually making changes — and that’s because now you know what you really want and how to get it.
You can start with adding things you want or with trying to erase things that you aren’t happy with, but it’s usually more fun — and maybe more straightforward — to begin with adding something new. For example, if your wish-list includes more nature time, you might start by checking out a stack of nature guides from the library to familiarize yourself with local plants and wildlife or sign up for a naturalist-led hike at a nature center. Start spending more unstructured time in the backyard, or set up a bird feeder near the window. Add a daily nature sketch to your journal or challenge yourself to take a nature photo every day. Your goal here isn’t to jump in with a new curriculum or a structured plan of study; instead, you want to incorporate your new experience into your life. Once it feels like it fits naturally into your routine, you may want to look for a curriculum or classes, but for now, you just want to get comfortable.
“Give yourself space to figure out how this thing you want for your homeschool fits into your actual life without the pressure of spending lots of money or time on a curriculum,” says Michelson. In other words, don’t be tempted by quick-and-easy solutions: Some things you will try during this time will be revelatory — they may change your homeschool forever and for the better—but many will just be okay and some will be total failures. Commitment is the last thing you want right now — the thing you need is freedom to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Follow the same procedure to change the things that don’t work. Try earlier bedtimes or saving math until after lunch if you feel frazzled. Sort and toss artwork every week to minimize clutter, or set up a specific shelf for library books so they don’t get lost. Experiment with lots of small, different things to find the ones that work for you.
6. Move Forward
The process of creating your ideal homeschool is an ongoing one. Every year, the rhythms and needs of your homeschool will change, and you’ll begin this process all over again.
This is a continuous process, so keep updating your dream boards as your experiences dictate: Maybe free access to all the art materials got too messy, and art study works better one medium at a time.
Pull those overstocked art cabinets off your inspiration board and replace them with station-style art storage. Maybe school outside is distracting, and it makes more sense for your family to do hands-on learning inside. Update your dream board with photos of attractive learning spaces. You may find that the more you focus on reading aloud, the better your homeschool works — add more pictures of books and reading to your dream board. Images and ideas will go up and come down — that’s totally normal. Your homeschool is a work in progress.
You can also update your real homeschool board as you find things that work for you: Add that great science curriculum or the writing program that really worked. Add the covers of books you’ve read together and loved or posters from movies that had an impact on your homeschool. Take photos of your own happy, smiling kids to paste on your board, or add tickets from movies, museums, and concerts. Let the board of your homeschool life gradually evolve to reflect your dream homeschool—the one you're actually living.
This was originally published in the summer 2017 issue of HSL.
Getting Ready to Homeschool High School
The secret to transitioning to homeschooling high school isn't so secret: Just keep doing what you've been doing, and trust that you've gotten to know your kid's academic abilities.
The secret to transitioning to high school isn't so secret: Just keep doing what you've been doing, and trust that you've gotten to know your kid's academic abilities.
Really, high school is the easy part. By now, you’ve found your homeschooling groove. You know your child’s interests and her strengths. You probably even have a pretty good idea of what she’d like her post-high school life to look like. All you have to do now is help her get there.
The key to homeschooling high school is to trust your teenager and to trust the homeschool rhythms that have worked for your family. “Someone says ‘high school,’ and you feel like, ‘oh, I have to get serious and start doing really serious things with my kid,’” says Lisa Millan, who has sent two homeschool grads off to college. “But shifting away from the homeschool patterns you’ve spent years finding is a big mistake.”
In fact, these are the years when all that work you’ve been doing will really start to pay off. By ninth grade, your child should be ready to take the reins of his education and tell you where he wants to go — whether that means college, preparing to launch a business, taking an apprenticeship, or becoming an artist. Keep these things in mind as you’re making your high school plans:
Invest in your child’s passion. By high school, your student knows what he likes — and those interests are where the bulk of your homeschool budget should go. If he’s Broadway-bound, spend on acting and voice lessons and find cheaper alternatives for math and language arts. If she’s planning to study astrophysics, invest in a high-quality telescope and community college astronomy classes. Take these passions into account when you’re blocking out schedules, too — your child’s interests should dictate how his time gets allocated.
Be a planner. Some of the things your high schooler will want to do — take the SAT, get a driver’s license, apply to an internship program — can feel like bureaucratic nightmares to freewheeling homeschoolers. Do yourself a favor and start prepping for these kinds of things well in advance of their deadlines. Often forms and requirements assume a very traditional school experience, and trying to figure out how to fit your homeschool experiences into these kinds of narrow boxes can be stressful and frustrating. It’s definitely not something you want to try to do with the pressure of a deadline breathing down your neck.
Don’t freak out over gaps. During your child’s high school experience, you’ll run into topics that your education hasn’t covered. Don’t let this convince you that your education has somehow short-changed your kids. All educations have gaps. If you feel that a missing component is genuinely worth covering, by all means, go ahead and cover it — but know that however much you manage to cover in your high school, there will be things your teen graduates from high school not knowing. There will be things your child will celebrate his 50th birthday not knowing, too — that’s how learning works. It’s more important to teach your high schooler how to learn something when he needs or wants to know it than it is to teach him every fact in the world.
Get organized. Your child’s post-high school plans may require you to have a transcript ready to go, and your life will be much simpler if you start high school with this in mind. Perhaps the easiest transcript-making method is to borrow an idea from traditional schools and keep a quarterly update of classes, grades (if relevant), and books. Have a safe place to store papers, projects, and other work in case your child needs samples or a portfolio down the road. Do this, and whether you’re making a transcript, a resume, or notes for your child’s biographer, you’ll be in good shape.
Course of Study
If elementary school is about absorbing information and middle school is about analyzing it, high school is a time for playing with information — thinking abstractly, expressing new ideas, and communicating effectively. As you’re planning what to cover, look to the most rigorous college on your child’s list, even if he’s not sure whether he wants to go to college or follow a different path. Laying out an academic plan that meets the admission guidelines of that institution will give your high schooler maximum post-graduation options (and a well-rounded high school education, too).
Language arts: Students should dig deeper into literature, tackling heavy-hitting classics as well as works from other cultures. The Norton Anthologies are great resources here, offering biographical information, historical context, and discussion starters for a wide range of literary works. Get a taste of American, British, and World literature. For kids who love literature, consider some of the free MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) available from websites like Coursera. These classes can be a great way to dig deeper into an author or period your student finds fascinating.
It’s writing, though, that really matters for high school language arts — and we’re not talking about the dreaded five-paragraph essay. What high schoolers need to master here is the ability to make and support an argument, to write persuasively and effectively, and to use vocabulary and literary techniques to enhance their work. A book like the Brief Bedford Reader can be a great resource for this, with a nice selection of essays and lots of practical guidance for better writing.
Math and science: Most colleges will look for at least three laboratory science classes on your high school transcript, but that’s a good thing — every teenager should get to sample a couple of proper lab classes. Skip the curriculum for these: It tends to be pricey, and a home set-up just isn’t the same. Instead, look for college or homeschool lab classes where your teen can get a real lab experience.
High school math usually includes algebra and geometry — mathy kids will want to add trigonometry and calculus to the list. Teaching Textbooks has a user-friendly, self-paced program if you want to do math at home, or consider making math one of your student’s outside classes during high school.
History and social studies: Most colleges will want to see U.S. and World History on your transcript, as well as government and geography. Ways of the World by Robert Strayer for world history is a smart, critical study of the events and people that shaped the past and a good choice if you want to use a fairly traditional curriculum, or you might like The American Pageant for U.S. History, which does much the same thing. If you're willing to venture beyond tradition (and not counting on AP credits for college), consider alternatives like Stanford's Reading Like a Historian curriculum (I love this one!) or the Big History Project, which starts at the Big Bang. Also consider free online lectures from schools like Stanford or MIT, which can add nuance and interest to sometimes dry historical facts.
Other stuff: If you haven’t started a foreign language yet, high school is a good time to start. (Most colleges will want to see at least two years of foreign language on your transcript.) Latin — with a beginner-friendly curriculum like Ecce Romani — is a good choice for classicists or people who don’t want to fuss with accents; if you want to learn to speak a modern foreign language like Japanese or Spanish, Rosetta Stone’s homeschool programs are a solid if not particularly inspired choice.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.) This was originally published in the summer 2015 issue of HSL.
How to Learn at Home Without Losing Your Mind: Tips for COVID Homeschoolers
If you’re homeschooling to get through the world health crisis, you totally count as a homeschooler — but what you need may not be traditional homeschool recommendations.
If you’re homeschooling to get through the world health crisis, you totally count as a homeschooler — but what you need may not be traditional homeschool recommendations.
If you are starting a new year at home — for a few weeks or indefinitely — as part of the COVID-19 self-quarantine, you may feel a little at a loss. An important thing to remember is that this is probably not a permanent state of affairs — fingers crossed, we’ll get through the quarantine period and back to our normal lives in the not-too-distant future. If this is your situation, a lot of new homeschooler advice — about deschooling and figuring out your student’s learning style — may not be relevant. You’re a temporary homeschooler, and you just need a little help getting through the next few weeks or months. Here’s my best advice:
1. Get everybody up and dressed on weekday mornings, even if you don’t have anywhere to be. You have worked hard to establish a routine that makes sense for your family, and you don’t want to just drop it. (If you don’t love your routine and want to figure out one that works better for you, this is obviously a great time do that.)
2. Go ahead and set electronics limits. If you knew you wanted to homeschool long-term, not limiting electronics can be a handy way to help kids learn to balance their own electronics use — but this is a long-term strategy. In your short-term situation, it’s fine to say “no electronics until 4 p.m.”
3. Pay attention to major output requirements. Online lessons can be hard to adjust to, and your child — and your child’s teachers! — may be new to them. The most important thing is to make sure students know what output they are responsible for producing and when it’s due. Make a calendar of due dates for each subject, and post it in a prominent place.
4. Set up a learning space. It doesn’t have to be a whole room or anything, but a comfy chair, clear work surface, the aforementioned calendar, and other school materials can make a corner feel like a learning place. For students who are used to going to school, sitting down at a specific place to work and getting up from it when work is over feels familiar and comfortable.
5. If you have a learning plan from your school, stick with it. It’s tempting with all the free resources right now to download everything, but too much stuff is as bad as not enough. If you must, choose one extra thing to study, but resist the urge to overload your student. Adjusting to a new rhythm, dealing with the disruption of their regular life, and worrying about the situation is already a lot of new stuff to deal with.
6. Make sure you know what counts as credit as your school. If you know you want to go back to traditional school when you can, talk to a human being at your child’s specific school to find out what homeschool credits they’ll accept. For elementary and middle school students, this won’t matter as much — though you should check anyway to be sure! — but public high schools may not accept homeschool credits, even accredited ones, or count them toward the credits required for graduation. If this is the case, you may be better served working with your school’s distance-learning option, even if it’s not perfect, and providing lots of hands-on support.
7. If you don’t have a learning plan from your school, I recommend the unit study: Pick a subject that interests your child, and take a deep dive into it. (I know this is harder with so many libraries closed, too, but you can still order books from Amazon, check out from your library’s digital collection, and find lots of info and project ideas online.) This may not seem like a lot, but if you are starting together from scratch, unit studies are a great place to start.
8. Include lots of downtime. It’s tempting to schedule every minute, but remember: Kids at school spend plenty of time lining up, changing classes, getting settled, and packing up. You don’t have to do any of those things at home — so a homeschool day can be considerably shorter than a regular school day. Don’t let this make you feel like you’re not doing enough!
9. Be gentle with yourself and your child. This is all new for you. It may take you time to figure out how to do it well. That’s okay. (I feel like it took me a couple of years to get a handle on how our homeschool life worked best, so if you can’t do it in a couple of weeks, that definitely doesn’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing! It just means you’re still figuring it out.)
10. It is fine to set up designated snack times and stick to them. One thing homeschoolers discover pretty fast is that kids can eat all day long. Establishing snack and meal times can minimize this somewhat, especially if grocery shopping is more complicated right now.
11. Make time to get out and exercise. It can seem weird to schedule this, but making it part of your routine can improve your whole day.
12. Keep bedtime (fairly) consistent. Again, if you’re planning to go back to school, you’ll be glad you stayed in the bedtime habit.
13. Make time for yourself. Whether it’s 30 minutes of quiet time after lunch or an 8 p.m. everybody-in-your-own-room time, you need time when you can decompress and relax, too. (Don’t spend all the time reading virus updates, though, OK?)
14. Try not be offended by long-time homeschoolers who may seem to minimize what you’re doing. Homeschoolers get a lot of flack from people who worry about whether our kids are socialized and what we’re teaching, and we can get a little sensitive and defensive because of this. Don’t take it personally! If your goal isn’t long-term homeschooling, long-time homeschoolers may not be the best people to ask for advice simply because homeschooling and traditional school are really different. What works for homeschoolers may not work for you right now. (Homeschoolers often go through the reverse of this situation when we start homeschooling, trying to copy what schools do and realizing that just doesn’t work at all.) But do keep in mind that, similarly, your understanding of homeschooling is a very specific kind of understanding, and don’t use it to marginalize or criticize what homeschoolers do either. Let’s honor each other’s situations and choices.
Shift Happens: Making the Most of Big Changes in Your Homeschool Life
Navigating big changes in your homeschool life can seem like a scary prospect, but you’ve got all the tools you need to make your next big transition feel as exciting as it is stressful. Here’s what you need to know.
Navigating big changes in your homeschool life can seem like a scary prospect, but you’ve got all the tools you need to make your next big transition feel as exciting as it is stressful. Here’s what you need to know.
Like it or not, change is an inevitable part of life — and for most of us, it’s not always a welcome part. For every change that feels like a great new adventure, there’s a change that feels like an earthquake ripping through your peaceful everyday existence. Change is scary, but it’s also rich in possibility. “Making a big change can increase your sense of life's possibilities, and as you rise to new challenges, this can also increase your resilience,” says Rick Hanson, Ph.D., a psychologist and the author of Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness. Every life transition — from your decision to homeschool to figuring out what to do when your homeschool days end — is an opportunity to open up new possibilities.
“Living through a big change teaches you about your own capabilities,” Rachna D. Jain, Psy.D., says. “You may learn that you're a lot stronger, smarter and more motivated than you thought.” That might not make facing a major transition less scary, but it does mean that if you tackle it the right way, change can end up feeling like the best thing that could have happened. In fact, says Jain, people who embrace a big change are happier five years down the road than people who stick to the status quo. The key is knowing how to navigate change.
"People think of change as something dangerous," says Auriela McCarthy, author of The Power of the Possible. "But it helps to remember all the ways your life has been altered in the past and realize that not only did you not keel over and die, things often turned out for the better." These major life transitions can shake up your homeschool life, but with the right tools and strategies, you can make these changes for the better, too.
“It’s tempting to fill up every moment with readalouds and park days, field trips and nature walks, but leave lots of room in your schedule to find your homeschool’s natural rhythm.”
SURVIVING THE FIRST WEEK OF HOMESCHOOLING
You’ve made the big decision, filled out all the paperwork, and now you’re officially a homeschool family. So — gulp! — what do you do now? Like any first day on the job, you’re equal parts excited and overwhelmed, ready to find your new routine and worried that you might not be up to the task ahead of you.
WHY IT’S SCARY: Taking responsibility for your child’s education is a big deal, and how ever much you’ve researched and prepared, you’re diving into the unknown when you start homeschooling. “The unknown freaks people out,” says Deborah Brown-Volkman, author of How to Feel Great at Work Every Day, Coach Yourself to a New Career. “You worry: Can I do this job? Will I be successful? Will this hurt my relationship with my child?”
HOW TO COPE
Build a support system. Do you have a mentor, group, or other resource you can count on to help guide you through these first few months? Even just having someone to say “I hear you” or “That sounds totally normal” can make the transition to homeschooling feel less stressful.
Think priorities, not plans. Like any new project, homeschooling comes with a steep learning curve. Your perfectly curated curriculum and meticulous schedules may not, after all, be the right fit for your homeschool, so don’t spend too much time or money on either for the first few months. Instead, turn your attention to the big picture goals for your homeschool, and let these goals guide your early decision making. For instance, if your goal is getting your child excited about learning, a traditional curriculum might not be the best place to start.
Be flexible. The less money you spend in these early days, the easier it will be to make big shifts — and you’re probably going to make significant changes as you settle into a routine and familiarize yourself with how your student learns best.
Leave lots of gaps. It’s tempting to fill up every moment with readalouds and park days, field trips and nature walks, but leave lots of room in your schedule to find your homeschool’s natural rhythm. These gaps also give kids time to explore their own interests, develop hobbies, and — yes! — be bored.
Know what a positive result looks like for you. Set a short-term outcome goal that you can keep your eye on — it might be something specific, like working toward passing an end-of-term exam, or something more qualitative, like creating a happy home learning environment. Having a goal will help you track your progress, which can boost your confidence as you begin homeschooling.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: Copenhagen’s Happiness Research Institute found that a sense of purpose in your work is the number-one indicator for job satisfaction — and what’s more purpose-inspiring than your child’s education? Making the switch to homeschooling may be a big change, but it’s a change that may ultimately increase your overall life satisfaction.
“Try a little of everything in small portions. It’s the life equivalent of ‘Don’t fill up on bread.’”
MAKING A MOVE
Moving across town or across the country is a big adventure, but it can be a stressful one, too. If you’re homeschooling, the transition can be trickier since you don’t have the Insta-Community school offers as safety net — you’re on your own, and that can feel really intimidating.
WHY IT’S SCARY: "We don't realize just how much of our identity is tied up in where we live," says Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., and author of Making the Big Move. You’re not just adjusting to a new house and finding a new favorite park, you’ve got to rebuild your entire community, from your doctor’s office to your supermarket. And for homeschoolers, who have usually worked pretty hard to develop a community, the prospect of starting over from scratch can be especially intimidating. “It took us three years to build our homeschool community, and as soon as we felt settled, my husband’s job transferred him across the country,” says Jenna*, who homeschools her 2e son Jonas in Wisconsin. “We had worked so hard, and it isn’t an exaggeration to say that the prospect of moving felt like our world was falling apart.”
HOW TO COPE
Give everyone a period of adjustment. Giving everyone a little prep time can make a big move seem less scary. Once she adjusted to the idea of a move, Jenna hopped on Facebook, reaching out to everyone she knew to find a homeschool community in her new town. To her surprise, “people were incredibly kind and generous about sharing resources,” she says. She and Jonas also researched comic book stores and robotics teams (two things Jonas was especially upset to leave), and found that their new community had great options for both of these things. By the time they took their official house-hunting trip, the Holcombs were able to drop in on a potential robotics class, visit a co-op with a cool science program, and join a homeschool park day. “It started to feel exciting — not just scary,” Jenna says.
Stick to familiar routines. One of the most effective ways to make a new place feel like home is to bring the rhythms that feel like home with you. “Keeping up rituals like family meals or game night can build a sense of consistency that's reassuring,” says Katie Novick, a therapist in Brookline, Massachusetts. Sure, you may not be able to replicate your exact schedule, but keeping your morning routine the same and sticking to your Saturday family pizza-and-a-movie night can make a big difference in helping you feel grounded in a new place.
Don’t make big commitments fast. It’s tempting to plunge right into joining a new homeschool group and signing up for All The Classes to get into the swing of a new place, but you’ll be happier in the long run if you leave plenty of space for your new life to develop around you. “Try a little of everything in small portions,” recommends Novick. “It’s the life equivalent of ‘Don’t fill up on bread.’”
Keep an open mind — and keep trying. On the other hand, building a community takes work and time, so you’re going to have to put yourself out there and try things, knowing that some of them won’t be a good fit. This can be hard when you’re still recovering from the chaos of a move, so take breaks when you need to — but don’t stop. People who made forging new relationships and networks a priority were happier two years into their move than people who took a wait-and-see approach, found researchers in a small Danish study.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: Change leads to more change, says B.J. Fogg, Ph.D., a behavior scientist and founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. "When you make a big adjustment, you also tend to switch up your environment, your schedule, and your social circle. That then ensures that you keep evolving and advancing.”
“Of course you want to make this transition as smooth as you can for your children, but don’t neglect yourself in the process. ”
GETTING THROUGH A DIVORCE
Even the best, most mature break-ups are hard to get through, and when you’re navigating the end of a marriage that includes other people — your kids — it can be especially hard. And if you’re homeschooling, navigating a new financial and family situation can be even more challenging. “Roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, and divorce doesn’t hurt children — it’s the way parents get divorced and the amount of conflict between them that hurts children,” says counselor and mediator David Kuroda.
WHY IT’S SCARY: Divorce means big changes — divesting all the parts of your shared life and building a new, independent life on your own. This often means big financial shifts, often including moving house and new budgets, and it always means big emotional shifts. Even though divorce is common enough in the 21st century, many people still feel that it means they’ve failed in some important project when their marriage doesn’t work.
HOW TO COPE
Get the help you need. Of course you want to make this transition as smooth as you can for your children, but don’t neglect yourself in the process. “Divorce can be an emotionally charged experience, even if you part on good terms, and parents need space to deal with the end of a relationship,” says Kuroda. If you ignore your own feelings, they’re likely to come out in ways that ultimately make a divorce harder for everyone.
Get on the same page. If one parent wants to homeschool but the other one has strong feelings about other education options, things can get complicated. “When we're married, we work hard to minimize our differences — we're more willing to negotiate and compromise on questions of family and child rearing,” says M. Gary Neuman, author of Helping Your Kids Cope with Divorce the Sandcastles Way. Ideally, kids will stick with the same academic routine they had pre-divorce, says Kuroda, so this isn’t a great time to make the transition back to school or to pull them out to start homeschooling. If homeschooling is a point of contention, it may help to bring in a mediator who can help you pin down objective metrics for your homeschool. Heidi Kessler’s partner insisted on annual testing to make sure their children didn’t slip off the grid, and while she initially resisted, the testing turned out to be a low-hassle way to keep her partner’s support. “We could have fought it out, but nobody would have won in that situation,” Heidi says. “In the end, we both wanted our kids to have a good educational experience, and we were able to find a way that made us both feel okay.”
Keep kids out of the middle. This can be tough if you and your ex are disagreeing about details, but it’s important that your kids don’t feel like they have to choose sides. A parenting plan can really help with this, spelling out how your kids will spend time, what your financial obligations to each other are (including college), and establishing a new family routine. It can be especially hard on kids if one parent doesn’t follow through on planned time together or commitments, so make your own follow-through a priority and try to minimize the impact of let-downs if your partner is the one missing commitments.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: Eighty percent of kids said that their parents’ divorce had been a good thing and that their own lives improved post-divorce in a 2004 study of adult children of divorced parents led by Constance Ahrons, psychologist and author of the book We’re Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorce.
“You do not have to have a long-range plan right now. What you need is a way to get through today.”
COPING WITH A HEALTH CRISIS
When Laura’s* husband was diagnosed with cancer just two weeks after her daughter was hospitalized for depression, she thought she would collapse. Laura was homeschooling three children, including her daughter, and her husband was the primary breadwinner. Suddenly, Laura found her time consumed by caretaking.
WHY IT’S SCARY: Coping with a health crisis can be incredibly hard. “We all live in some degree of terror of bad things happening to us," says Barbara M. Sourkes, associate professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “Families say over and over, ‘It’s such a lonely time and I don’t have the energy to educate my friends and family, yet they don’t have a clue.’ ”
HOW TO COPE
Give yourself time to grieve. “We can't move on until we honor what's gone,” says Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. and author of Saying Yes to Change. “You can't jump past the fact that you've lost your sense of invincibility.” If you try to bottle up all your feelings, they’ll be waiting for you down the road — when they may be much harder to deal with.
Be specific about what will help. People often want to help families going through a health crisis, but they don’t know what they can do — so tell them, recommends Sandy Clancy, PhD, co-chair of the Family Advisory Council. Make a list of specific things that would be helpful — dropping a child off at soccer practice or co-op, dinner after Wednesday chemo, someone to watch the kids so you can nap on Saturday afternoon — and hand it off to a few friends who can spread the word. “This feels weird and presumptuous, but people who care about you are glad to find a way to help.”
Take short-term fixes. You do not have to have a long-range plan right now, says Clancy. What you need is a way to get through today. This might mean putting homeschooling on hold — that might mean relaxing your homeschool, outsourcing more learning, taking a long break, or even sending your kids back to school. “If you go in knowing you’re looking at a short-term fix, you tend to be much more open to possibilities,” Clancy says.
Seek family services. Most hospitals can hook you with support groups, whether you’re dealing with a mental health crisis in your teen or a health diagnosis of your own, and these can be great resources to help you navigate this kind of crisis. “My friends cared, they wanted to understand, but they couldn’t really know what I was going through,” says Laura. “In the support group, every single person was going through the exact same thing.”
Give yourself grace. This should probably be a universal mantra for homeschool parents, but it’s especially important when you’re dealing with a heath crisis, says Clancy. You’re going to forget things, sometimes even important things, and you’re not going to do everything perfectly. Let yourself appreciate that you’re doing your best.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: “Going through tough times together can bring your family closer together,” says Clancy.
“Homeschooling is a one-of-a-kind experience, and it deserves a joyful send-off.”
GOING BACK TO SCHOOL
Marnie* thought that after six years of homeschooling her son Joey she was ready for anything, but she was shocked when the summer before 9th grade, Joey started talking about going back to public school. His neighborhood friends were all going, and he loved the idea of being part of the high school’s big, active theater group. “When we pulled him out of school in elementary, I guess I thought we’d homeschool until he went to college,” says Marnie. “But it turns out that’s not what Joey wanted.”
WHY IT’S SCARY: We’ve all heard the stories about homework overload and mean kids — not to mention active shooter drills — at school, and it’s hard to voluntarily pull our kids from the relative security of homeschool to face those challenges. It can also feel like a judgment on our homeschooling success: Have I prepared my student to survive in a “real” school? Does he want to go back to school because I’ve been a crummy homeschool parent?
HOW TO COPE
Do your research. Public schools are all over the place with how willing they are to accept homeschool work for credits, and it can vary not just by district but by individual school. Your best bet is to meet with the school’s guidance counselor to find out what — if any — credits they will transfer and how they’ll place your student in classes. “My daughter wanted to go back to high school to play soccer her senior year, but the school wouldn’t accept any of her homeschool credits — even though we’d taken many of those credits at an accredited hybrid school,” says Miriam*. “She would have had to start over with 9th grade, which made going back a non-starter.”
Practice school skills. Homeschoolers are often well equipped for the academics of traditional school, but they may need to practice school specific skills, like taking notes, opening lockers, taking timed tests, maintaining learning stamina for several hours at a time, or changing classes.
Plan some great memories. Homeschooling is a one-of-a-kind experience, and it deserves a joyful send-off. “Joey and I made a list of all the things we wouldn’t be able to do when he was back in school — afternoon movie marathons, spontaneous camping trips to the mountains, Tuesday mornings at the science museum — and we filled up our summer calendar with all those things,” says Marnie. “I thought it would be sad, but it was actually a really joyful summer of remembering all the good times we’d had homeschooling.”
Set up a support system. The first weeks of the school routine can be a challenge, and kids may need a lot of structure to support them. Set up a designated homework zone, create a morning and evening routine to facilitate early wake-ups, and make sure your weekends have plenty of downtown. “It was a huge transition, and there were some definite bumps in the beginning, but he absolutely made the right decision,” says Marnie.
“You can be proud of your child’s accomplishments, excited for her new adventure, and still mourn the loss of your homeschool days.”
REGROUPING AFTER GRADUATION
Homeschooling can be an all-consuming experience, and achieving its ultimate end — launching your child on her post-high school adventure — puts you right out of a job. “I’d been devoting all my energy and free time to homeschooling for eight years, and suddenly it was just done,” says Tamara*, whose daughter graduated from high school two years ago. “I was surprised by how lost I felt.”
WHY IT’S SCARY: The relationship you had with your child and your role as her parent are never going to be the same — everything is different now, says Natalie Caine, the founder of Empty Nest Support Services. If parenting has been a huge part of your life, this can be a tough transition.
HOW TO COPE
Accept your feelings. It’s OK to be sad! You can be proud of your child’s accomplishments, excited for her new adventure, and still mourn the loss of your homeschool days. Equally, it’s OK if you’re delighted with the prospect of your newfound free time — celebrating space for yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t love your child or you didn’t love homeschooling. And it’s OK to feel both ways, depending on the moment.
Follow your teen’s communication lead. Some kids thrive on daily texts and phone calls; others want a little more space to navigate their new terrain. “I was so used to being part of my daughter’s everyday life — I wasn’t ready for her to go two or three days without calling, but that was what she needed to adjust to campus life,” says Tamara. “It took some emotional recalibration, but we’re as close as ever even though we may not talk every single day.”
Make plans together … Especially if your child is moving out into a dorm or place of their own, put family time on your calendar — a family fall break road trip or Thanksgiving getaway will give all you something to look forward to.
And separately. With a big chunk of time opening up, a long-term goal will give you something to focus on and work toward, says Jeffrey Arnett, a developmental psychologist and the author of the book Getting to 30. This helps reorient your internal to-do list so that it’s focused on something for you, whether that’s running a marathon, taking college classes, or volunteering with a political campaign.
ON THE PLUS SIDE: A 2013 study at Clark University found that while 84 percent of parents missed their flown-the-nest kids, 90 percent of them were happy with the children’s growing independence and 60 percent were happy to find more time for their own lives one year later.
*last names removed for online publication
This was originally published in the summer 2019 issue of HSL.
How to Make Your Homeschool More Academically Rigorous
A more rigorous homeschool involves pushing further and deeper across the curriculum.
A more rigorous homeschool involves pushing further and deeper across the curriculum.
Jane Cleghan, who sent two homeschooled kids to the Ivy League, says that academic homeschool means pushing further and deeper across the curriculum.
Keep asking questions. Never stop with the first answer. “Ask What might that mean? and Why would that matter?, and keep asking,” Cleghan says. “If you stop with ‘the answer,’ you miss the opportunities for deeper understanding and cross-curricular connections.”
Emphasize your weaknesses as well as your strengths. A lot of homeschoolers tend to concentrate their academic efforts on the subjects and projects that come naturally — but it’s just as important to focus effort and attention on the areas where you don’t have natural abilities.
Look for output opportunities. An academic homeschool should give your students the chance to show their work. This doesn’t mean standardized tests — though those may fit into your post-homeschool plans — but papers, projects, presentations, and other products give your student an opportunity to research, analyze, and express information in a variety of ways.
Learn from other people. Cleghan says you can have a great academic homeschool with no outside instructors, but her students often benefited most from getting to know other teachers and other teach- ing styles—even if they didn’t particularly love the teachers or their styles. “Being able to learn in any environment you might find yourself in is essential for higher-level academics,” she explains.
Tired of Being Tired? It Could Be Homeschool Burnout
Burnout doesn’t mean homeschooling isn’t working or that you’re a bad homeschool parent — but it does mean something needs to change.
Burnout doesn’t mean homeschooling isn’t working or that you’re a bad homeschool parent — but it does mean something needs to change.
One morning in mid-April, Lindsey* lay in bed, staring at her ceiling.
Her to-do list for the day was full: finish up a geography unit with her 9-year-old, work through a math quiz with her 11-year-old, and make sure her 14-year-old got to her theater troupe practice on time. And that was on top of the usual run of feeding people, cleaning the house, and managing all the rest of her homeschool life. She should get up. But she just lay there, staring at the lines on the ceiling.
“You think of high-powered career people getting burned out, not homeschool moms,” Lindsey says. “I knew something was wrong with me, but I never thought I was burned out.”
Burnout is a real mental health phenomenon, and it’s different from the “I’m-gonna-need-a-bigger-cup-of-coffee” exhaustion that can strike on a busy homeschool week.
“Burnout happens when you’ve been experiencing chronic stress for so long that your body and emotional system have begun to shut down, and you’re operating in survival mode. You numb out because you can’t think,” says Sara Denning, Ph.D, New York City-based psychologist.
If that sounds a lot like depression, it’s because it is — when researchers from the University of Franche-Comté looked at 5,000 teachers who described themselves as “burned out,” 90 percent of those teachers also met the diagnostic criteria for depression, including sleep changes, fatigue, and an inability to find enjoyment in previously enjoyed activities.
While stress makes you feel super-emotional — think mood swings and eating your feelings — true burnout makes you feel — well, nothing. In fact, it can be hard to distinguish between depression and burnout because there’s so much overlap in the symptoms, so if you’re not sure what’s going on with your slump, David Hellerstein, M.D., professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, recommends taking a week’s vacation from homeschooling. At the end of the week, are you excited and ready to dive back in? You’re probably dealing with an overcrowded schedule, but you’re not really burned out. On the other hand, if you’re back to feeling burned out a couple of hours or days after easing back into your regular routine, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with genuine burnout.
Another clue: Burnout usually affects a specific part of your life — I can hear you laughing, since homeschooling pretty much consumes your entire life, but if you find yourself getting excited about your book club night or a weekend getaway, you might be dealing with homeschool burnout.
It’s not hard to understand how a homeschool parent could succumb to burnout. Homeschooling isn’t a full-time job — it’s an all-the-time, every-single-day job. You have all the duties and responsibilities of a teacher — often, of several teachers — plus all the duties of a parent, including housework, food prep, and everything else that your daily life requires. It’s a rewarding gig, but it’s not always an easy one.
“People tend to think of burnout as something that happens when you don’t like your job, but it can also happen when you like your job so much that you give it more time and energy than you have to give,” explains Hellerstein. “Burnout isn’t necessarily a sign that you need to get out — it’s often a sign that you’ve been putting yourself last for too long.”
Sound familiar? If you’re feeling burned out, it doesn’t mean that it’s time to quit homeschooling — though a break is never a bad idea, says Denning. But burnout doesn’t go away on its own. In fact, the longer you try to ignore it, the worse it gets. These strategies can help.
Stop putting yourself last.
Seriously. Today. Not next week, not when you finish up this year’s violin lessons, not as soon as co-op ends for the summer. Right now. When Lindsey finally sat down with her doctor, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had real time to herself. “I love doing things for my kids,” she says. “I was never resentful or upset — but it was slowly wearing me out.” Lindsey’s doctor prescribed a minimum of one night a week off, and now Lindsey’s partner takes over kid duty on Wednesday nights. At first, Lindsey says, she didn’t even know what to do with time to herself, and some nights, she ended up just driving around for a couple of hours. Now, she looks forward to having a quiet dinner and reading time at a local cafe or meeting a friend to watch a movie.
Do more of what you love.
Everybody enjoys some parts of homeschooling more than others, so if you’ve gotten into a groove where there’s nothing you genuinely enjoy on most days’ agenda, you’re at high risk for burnout, says Hellerstein. Adjust your schedule so that you have something to look forward to every day — and put it at the top of the to-do list so that it’s one of the first things you do and not something that you find yourself putting off until the next day.
Don’t participate in a grouse group.
Under ordinary circumstances, having a group of a moms to vent with at park days can be part of a healthy homeschool life, but not when you’re dealing with burnout. Negativity can be contagious, and burned-out people are especially susceptible. If you can, steer the conversation to more positive topics; if you can’t, bring a book and relocate your chair for a few weeks while you recover.
Keep a journal.
Writing down your feelings can be one of the most effective ways to deal with them, says Denning. Be specific: Write down exactly what’s wearing on you, whether it’s your son grumbling about math or your all the driving you’re doing on Mondays, and note proactive things you can do to improve the situation (like taking a month-long break from math or skipping a particular park day). The more nebulous your stresses are, the more they impact you—writing them down makes them feel solvable.
*last names omitted for online publication
“We just started homeschooling, and I think it might be a mistake.”
A reader was thrilled to start homeschooling but finds the adjustment period harder than she expected.
We started homeschooling three weeks ago, and it is terrible. I have two children — an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old — and they don’t want to do anything, even fun stuff like field trips or listening to an audiobook or going outside to play. They argue all the time. I’m not trying to make them have a normal school day right now. We’re just taking it slow. But I’m miserable, and I can’t help thinking that maybe this was the wrong decision.
We don’t always talk about it, but the first months of homeschooling can be really hard. Not for everyone — some families jump right in and never look back, so it might not occur to them that other homeschoolers can have a real period of adjustment. But just like having a baby or getting married, homeschooling is a major life change that can be as challenging as it is exciting. I guess that’s my long-winded way of saying that what you are going through right now is totally normal, and it doesn’t mean homeschooling is not a good fit for your family.
I think you’re smart to start with a relaxed schedule, but it sounds like you’re ready to start building a routine. This doesn’t mean you need to be sitting down at 9 a.m. every single morning to do math, just that it’s time to start figuring out how you want to structure your everyday routine. You might have a late-riser who doesn’t want to get up until just before noon, or your dog might wake everyone up at 7 a.m. on the dot for his morning walk. You might like to have an assembly-style lunch in the backyard or all cook together in the kitchen. You might like spending most of the day together, or you might find that you need healthy doses of alone time. Every family’s day will come together in a different way, and now that you have a few weeks of homeschool life under your belt, you probably have an idea about how some of those things work best for your family.
Start by adding one regular thing to your day. Our books editor Suzanne starts every day with a readaloud — she doesn’t even get out of bed; everyone just snuggles up with her in their pajamas, and they all read a few chapters together. My son and I eat toast while we take the dog on his morning constitutional and note the day’s weather in our nature journals. You might watch a documentary, or make breakfast together, or play a game, or, sure, do some math, if you want to. Pick one thing, and spend a week or two making that one thing part of your daily routine.
Once you’ve got that down, add something else, and let it become part of your routine. After a week or so, add something else — and keep going until your days feel like they’ve found a happy rhythm. The key is to stick with one thing at a time so that you really have a chance to get comfortable with each new addition.
That makes it sound easy, and it isn’t necessarily that. If your kids are feeling battered from their school experience, they really might not want to do anything. If you’ve asked and nudged and encouraged, and they’re still checked out, it’s totally fine to set a time limit on doing nothing and for you to make the executive decision to add something you’ve chosen. Just be matter-of-fact about it. Say. “We’re going to start The Mysterious Benedict Society as a morning readaloud,” and do it. Don’t offer an option. Let them know that at a set time — in two weeks, say, or when you’ve finished the book — you can discuss whether to continue, but you’re going to try this for the next how-ever-long-amount-of-time. Everyone’s welcome to weigh in with opinions, but no complaining about the activity is allowed while the activity you have planned is actually going on.
The important thing is to remind yourself that you don’t have to get it at all figured out right away in order to have a happy homeschool life. It’s tempting to want everything to magically click together into one of those blog-worthy homeschool lives you probably spent months reading about before making your decision, but real life homeschooling doesn’t always work that way.
For most of us, it takes some trial and error, some hits and misses, and just plain time to get a happy rhythm going. (And once you do, you’ll probably get to enjoy it for about three weeks before something changes, and you have to start figuring out things all over again.) Homeschooling is always a work in progress, even when it’s going perfectly smoothly, so recognizing that fact right now, during these first few weeks, puts you ahead of the game. The pressure to make things work isn’t all on your shoulders. Your kids will start to come around, too, as they relax into your new routine, and in a few months, your days will probably feel very different. Be patient — you’re probably doing fine.
When your marriage ends, homeschooling probably isn’t the first thing on your mind — but navigating a divorce while homeschooling can bring up unexpected issues.