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CM on burn out?
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I was wondering if Charlotte Mason said anything about what we now call burn out. Weary. Overwhelmed. Just curious…
This school year has had a few education and attitude challenges that leave me completely exhausted. I know that I don’t get enough sleep or exercise. Improving those two things would help me, I know.
I can’t remembber which volume it’s in but I remember her saying that every mother should have a day either away from home or in bed with a good book and without the children now and then.
Can you schedule more breaks? We do a break week after every 6 weeks and it has made a huge difference!
“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play!” ― Charlotte Mason
I am pretty sure it is in Volume 1.
Are you doing the riches in your school? Nature study, poetry, music, art, etc? These are a huge thing that helps prevent attitudes and burn out here. Having the time built into the schedule to slow down and enjoy really helps us. You could do Nature Study, Poetry Tea Time, Fine Art Fridays, whatever that you need to do to create margin and fun times with school.
Schedule breaks and take them. Do the fun things. I find this helps in attitudes with school. It is not such a drudgery.
Sonya recently(?) shared a post that she scheduled her school to be 3 weeks of academic work and the 4th week was the creative art and project week.
Another thing – if you are not setting a timer (either a real one or one that you are keeping track of inside your head) for your school hours, start. Be careful to end school subjects by that time. Be sure to put away all the school papers. Tidy up the area. Make a distinction of the time you devote to school and the time you devote to your family as mom. This helps everyone have a “downtime” break.
Read a book for fun. Read a book about a subject that interests you. Feed your mind. I love to listen to audio books while I quilt. It gives my hands something to do. I love the ideas that I have to think about when I am doing routine things around the house. It makes my life more interesting.
I would encourage you to develop an interest that has absolutely nothing to do with school or curriculum or that you even have to share with anyone else in your house. Spend time weekly -if not daily- on this. It doesn’t have to be hours. 15-30 minutes add up quickly. Insist on giving yourself this time. It makes all the difference in the world.
I would suggest reading Karen Andreola’s blog for inspiration, momentswithmotherculture.blogspot.com.
Thank you for the wonderful suggestions. We do have scheduled breaks but I skipped the October one because we plan on staying an extra week at my dad’s next month. I guess I should have taken the break anyway.
Our days as dreadfully long for some reason too. I have 5 children of my own (4 school age) and 3 cousins (all school age) are here for part of the week. I group the children for Lit/Lang.Arts using some Brave Writer materials and Analytical Grammar/Jr. AG. We all have Spanish using Cherrydale Press and then the three oldest and I use Breaking the Spanish Barrier as well so it will count as high school credits. Both are very slow-going for us but we enjoy them. Three kids in the middle are using Apologia Land Animals and they love that. We have gotten to a few riches like poetry tea time and chalk pastel art, but those do not happen every week. I read aloud to the whole group while they eat lunch. Plus math, reading instruction for one younger, reading to the two youngest. I have so many plates spinning that I am just exhausted mentally and physically by late afternoon. And then suppertime!
I think I will definitely start setting timers! When working in groups some of th e children like to chat about very interesting things but it sure drags the lesson out too long.
Some of the children zip right through their individual assignments and just play or read until the time I sit down with them for group subjects. And some of them dawdle and daydream during both individual and group assignments. I plan to set a timer for each of those during independent work times. Do any of you have suggestions for helping a child to not drag the day out ridiculously long by not giving their full attention? These two are 11 and 14 yo boys. They enjoy most subjects but it is generally math that they take FOR EVER to complete. Or even start. *sigh*
For the most part we do enjoy our studies. I wonder if we are just trying to squeeze too much into th e days that the cousins are here.
You could talk to the two boys individually about math and ask specifics about why they don’t want to do it. Is it hard? Dull? Too easy? Maybe there are things you can tweak, or maybe you can sit next to them while they work.
At least they will feel like you care, even if you can’t change anything.
Maybe they need a special incentive to finish on time.
With the oldest boy I finally figured out that he did just want attention. Math wasn’t really the problem. Which is very good because now his math is beyond me! So his mom and I talked and we decided to do Literature, grammar, and foreign language as group subjects to fill that need. And it works! But only on the days that I work with their group first. If I work with the younger ones first, he spends way more time doing math than necessary. So… then I had him write on the whiteboard a “schedule” of his independent work on the days I work with the younger ones first. Like from 8 to 9 math, 9 to 10 history, etc. And we did group things after lunch. That worked great at first, but I guess I have forgotten to keep having him do that.
The children that I work with in the morningdefinately have the best of me and my brainpower 😉 so I try to rotate who that is throughout the week.
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