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Homeschooling tips for full-time working moms
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Hey ladies,
While I know the majority of you are fortunate enough to be able to stay home full-time, I personally work part-time. I know the challenges of schooling my boys afternoons and trying to get them to work independently on things they can so that I can get maximum value from our time.
I know some of you work part-time, and a few of you even work full-time. I am looking for encouragement to offer two friends in slightly different circumstances.
One friend has been homeschooling her boys from day one. They are now finishing grades 2 and K. She also has a toddler. They are new to our area since the fall, and her husband hasn’t been able to find employment yet. She is working weekends now, but has all but resigned herself to the fact that she may have to put her boys in school and find full-time work herself.
My second friend is a single mom who works shift work as a nurse. Her boys are best friends with my boys and they are in public school. She is very dissatisfied with the quality of the education they are being provided. She was telling me the other day how she wishes she were in a position to homeschool them but doesn’t think it is possible under her circumstances. The boys are finishing 6th and 4th grades.
I am not looking to tell either friend what they should or shouldn’t do, just offer some encouragement that other people have made it work. Neither of them would require child care. Mom one’s husband would be home with her boys, Mom two’s parents moved in with her about nine months ago.
Of course, I can always use some advice and encouragement, too. My boys are really not managing to move towards independence the way I would like. My oldest still has outbursts about hating school, which can be really disheartening.
Thanks, ladies!
My heart goes out to all of you. I used to work fullt-time/part-time as well. Even though it was tough at times, I was much happier with the situation, especially knowing where my boys were. They were young at the time and being home all day was no biggie, but as they got older I started to worry about them not being able to go anywhere during the days I worked (my daycare provider chose not to drive them around, what can you do??). Luckily, I was able to quit and am available for them All.Day.Long.
It can be done. I didn’t think it could be as I was very new to homeschooling, but, now with the experience of hsing under my belt, if I had to go back to work I would know it is possible. It just takes some extreme planning (I probably planned better then than I do now!) and people being on the same page, or there about.
This is a hard place to be, but with audio books, educational material online/tv, good books, outdoor time, sketch books, someone to narrate to, read poetry to, do math drills with, etc., it can be done. I know it’s hard, I’ve been there, so please don’t think I think that it’s easy-peasy, but I had to learn that homeschooling does not have, nor should it, replicate ps…I was trying to make it look like that in the early days and that just made it harder on my dc and daycare provider.
Best wishes to your friends. Please let them know that they are not alone.
I have a nurse friend who works full time. Dad is home on disability. She has had a variety of work schedules. Straight days, nights, and shift/on call duties at times. She is very organized be necessity. She plans out their work and Dad helps to a certain extent to keep the days rolling along.
Mom one could do this with Dad’s help. Mom two might enlist grandparent’s to help with accountability. My friend plans out the year’s curriculum choices, makes copies of any paperwork that she wants completed way ahead of schedule, and goes over completed work on the weekend. They take breaks from time to time which she utilizes to prepare for the next stretch.
If Dad 1 and grandparents 2 are willing to read aloud to these children, they could have a fairly CM style education. I’d suggest the moms utilize the Planning seminar in a fashion to anyone else that uses it. This could take a lot of long term stress off of them. Even if they only stay one or two weeks ahead of the kids in planning, it is possible to do. The CMO might also offer some added “accountability” in that the kids/Dad/grandparents would have a “check in” place to help them all stay on track.
This mom plans out meals and has all of that lined out. She also chores divided up in order to keep the house in order.
Hope the tips help. It’s definitely worth the effort! They pulled their children out of ps 5-7 years ago now. It has served them well. They have to readjust to new schedules when her work schedule changes, but they are some of the most dedicated home schoolers I know.
Becca<><
Becca<><
I work full-time on second shift and my DH works first shift and I home school four kids. My youngest will be in K this coming fall. I think the best advice I can give someone in this situation is the advice that was given to me by a chance meeting at Wal-Mart with a check-out lady who also home schooled her children. She said “just don’t try to do everything every year”. Actually I think I still am trying to do it all, but things get pushed aside and I have to let it go. BUT we cover what we skipped over the summer break. For instance, last year science was getting pushed aside alot so over the summer we did a unit study on the solar system and made our own model and dug really deep into it. Deeper than if we had covered it during the school year. We don’t normally do unit studies so we had a blast with this. This year I have been doing science more consistently buy now geography is being left out, so this summer . . . that’s what we will be working on. Also the “extra’s” like art, music, and poetry only happen about every other month if we are lucky. Not as much as I would like but it is still something and more than I remember learing about.
You have to be extremely organized and also learn to “let things go”. My kids do their own laundry and fold their own clothes and CRAM them into their dressers, but at least they are put away where I don’t have to see it so it gives me peace of mind. I struggle with the letting go of things but am getting better about it. Things always had to be just so. My kids have a morning routine where they get up, do their chores and get their own breakfast and start exercising all before I even get out of bed as I don’t get to bed until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning and need as much sleep as I can get. I teach my kids piano lessons but the weekends are so crammed with stuff that it usually is only every two weeks that they get a lesson, but for now this is how it has to be. (BTW my kids are 10,9,7, & 5).
Meal planning is a great help and if there is any family available for these families I hope they can help.
HTH
I was a single working Mom for 8 years with my older set of kiddos.
My best advice is to make sure you are getting the most benefit for each educational “activity” that you do with your kids. Copywork is a great example of this- you are working on so many different things at once! Spelling, penmanship, grammar, diligence, attention, etc. I found CM methods to be VERY good for these types of multi-area activities.
Books on tape! You can listen to read-alouds in the car with your kids, or while you are fixing dinner, or bath time, etc. Even if you only have 10 minutes at a time it is still 10 minutes you didn’t have to set aside from other things and over time it really adds up.
Remember that it is enough. You are enough mother for your kids. If you are consistently adding to their education, it will be enough. Over time your diligence will pay off.
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