You Need a Homeschool Routine — and It's Not Hard to Build One

“We loved the idea of living without a schedule, but we quickly discovered that we were miserable living without a routine.”

It’s part of the magic of homeschooling: Your schedule is totally your own. No early morning obstacle course to make it to the bus stop, no after-school homework sessions fueled by healthy snacks and cajoling, no trying to tuck everyone in bed in time for an optimal night’s sleep. You’re free to wake up at noon, do something different every day, and invent your schedule on the fly.

“We loved the idea of living without a schedule, but we quickly discovered that we were miserable living without a routine,” says Jordan Rankin, who started homeschooling her now-13-year-old twins when they were in fourth grade.

Rankin’s family started out strong, but within a few weeks, they were grumpy, tired, and disoriented. Not having a daily to-do list had felt liberating, but living without a routine proved disorienting. That’s no surprise, says Barbara H. Fiese, a psychologist at Syracuse University who studies family routines and rituals. According to Fiese, reliable routines can have a positive impact on the whole family: Kids with regular routines sleep better, get sick less often, do better in school, and generally exhibit better behavior than children who don’t have a daily routine. This repetition also builds stronger family ties and improves family communication.

A routine is not the same thing as a schedule. You can have a routine and still eschew daily deadlines. The key is to have a few moments that anchor your day — kids know to expect them, and they know what to expect when these moments roll around. However wild, spontaneous, and unplanned the rest of your day may be, routine anchors give days a sense of meaning and continuity. Routines can be as simple as family dinners around the table, morning readalouds on the couch, or walking the dog together before bedtime — they key is to pick moments that fall into a reliable rhythm for your day.

Start slow, and keep it going.

The biggest challenge people run into with starting a homeschool routine is trying to do too much. You’re most likely to succeed if you let your routine develop organically, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to add one piece at a time, giving your life plenty of time to adjust around that piece before trying to add something else. Say you love the idea of family dinner. Get your family dinner up and running, and keep it running for three or four weeks before adding another element to your routine, and the dinner routine is more likely to stick.

Think rhythm, not schedule.

A schedule implies that you’re on the clock, but a rhythm is all about patterns: After breakfast, we light a candle and read a book. After we water the garden, we clean up the front room. On Tuesdays, we go to the park. On Saturday nights, we make pizza. In December, we take the month off. Start by thinking about the year: What are the big annual events that shape your annual schedule? Then look at the month, the week, and finally the daily happenings of your household. A combination of all those elements yields a meaningful family routine.

Acknowledge your natural rhythm.

Rhythms work best when they’re naturally occurring — so if your kids rarely make it down to breakfast before 11 a.m., a wake-up-and-watch-the-sunrise routine might be doomed to fail. Why not watch the sunset together instead? It’s likely that your family has rhythms already — think back to the last few really good days you had together, and look at what the patterns of those days were like. You’ll probably find a clue to what makes a happy routine for your family.

Don’t be afraid to shake things up.

A routine gives your days anchors and expectations — but it also gives you something to break when you need a little dose of adventure. Occasionally shaking up your regular rhythms can be a lot of fun — just as knowing that you have them to go back to offers everyone a sense of security and connection.

—Sabrina Diaz

This was originally published in the summer 2019 issue of HSL.

---