Getting in a Rear-end collision and how to reset homeschool after major interrup

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  • December 15, 2020 at 10:14 am
    Heidi
    Participant

    Maybe this has been asked somewhere in this lovely expansive forum, but here it goes.

    I am struggling to know what to do about staying on task after the routine I had going so well this semester was very much interrupted when a teenage driver rear-ended me in my stopped-at-a-red-light vehicle and sandwiched me and my 8 year old son in our vehicle in between herself and the elderly couple in the vehicle ahead of us. As you may imagine with our totaled car: double doctor visits, head/neck scans, insurance calls, shopping for a new-to-us vehicle and dealing with the headache of whiplash and an emotional eldest child after his first very traumatic car crash, I feel like I’m barely treading keeping up with school for my 3rd and 1st grader (oh and the prek-3 year old loves/misses his lessons too!). And yet I feel the weight of keeping up and not getting behind, especially as I contemplate the possibility of returning my kids back to public school in a couple years.

    So I suppose my direct question as a first year homeschool mom is, what have been successful approaches found to help with the upset of a homeschool routine? Is taking off time a good idea in a similar emergency type situation? Do I scale it down to half the work?

    *some disclaimers, I also have a nursing 1 year old in the mix, and we are a military family who’ve uprooted from family and solid community to a new place in the past few months, in the midst of a pandemic, with my hubby currently busy as 50% of the dental care on the small military installation we are at now; isolation is very present for me, to say the least, more than in past military moves*

    December 15, 2020 at 11:02 am
    alphabetika
    Participant

    So sorry for all you are going through; that is a lot to handle, especially right now when there seems to be an umbrella of stress and sadness over the world.

    If you would be open to a drastic scaling back of “formal schoolwork,” honestly that’s what I would suggest in this season. I say that as the mom of two adults (i.e. homeschool graduates) and a pre-teen, in a family that has gone through its share of shake-ups in the 20-plus years we’ve homeschooled. Young elementary students are capable of so much, but the fact that they’re young also makes it (in my experience) possible to educate, enrich, and enjoy simply with the use of lots of read-alouds, and free reading if your kids are able, outdoor time, listening to music, keeping up with math, doing projects of their choice. If you can go unstructured for a time as you heal physically and mentally, that’s the direction I would lean. Your children will not be worse for it, especially at these ages.

    If lack of structure would cause more stress for you, perhaps decide the bare minimum you want to accomplish, whatever would satisfy you to call a day a school day, and commit to doing that daily.

    Give yourself and your family lots of grace in this season. It took me too long to learn that, and God has given me a chance to re-learn it with our youngest as we go through COVID weirdness in the world. The majority of academics can be delayed./caught up. Gentleness, healing, and relationship are – in my mind and experience – valid pursuits, especially right now.

    I’m sure other moms here will have a variety of helpful suggestions, many of whom have been through much more than our family has. Wishing you the best!

    December 15, 2020 at 7:31 pm
    sarah2106
    Participant

    I agree with above. I would set academics aside so you can focus on what you need to get taken care of. I would pick a date in January for starting fresh and focus on getting back into the routine at that time, but not worry about it right now.

    Find some audio books you can enjoy as a family and take some time to heal and take care of things.

    Don’t worry about falling behind. Kids are so resilient and can often pick right back up. Don’t try to rush a head, just start where you left off and keep moving forward.

    Natural disasters and medical emergencies happen all the time. Weeks are missed, sometimes months, because of things out of our control from house fires to natural disasters to illness. Through those events kids are still learning, and often learning even more than we expect. Play some board games, read or listen to some books for fun… With the holidays here it is actually a great time to take a break from academics for a few weeks and prepare to start fresh in January

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